[mythtv-users] myth_archive_job.pl fails as user job but works when run as mythtv user on CLI

[Stephen Worthington]

On Wed, 1 Nov 2023 16:43:59 -0400, you wrote:

>Running 33.1 fixes
>
>I'm running out of space until I get a new drive for the mythbox, so
>mounted a windows share and set up a user job using the script at:
>
>https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Myth_archive_job.pl
>
>I had used this in the past on another system and it worked. All it does is
>move the recording file if there's enough space. I chose a recording and
>selected the user job. It failed.
>
>The backend log:
>Nov  1 14:40:46 bhmf mythbackend: mythbackend[210595]: E UserJob_920
>jobqueue.cpp:2468 (DoUserJobThread) JobQueue: User Job '/usr/bin/
>myth_archive_job.pl -d /media/disk2/mythtv -f 15709_20231031235900.ts"'
>failed.
>
>When I ran /usr/bin/myth_archive_job.pl -d /media/disk2/mythtv -f
>15709_20231031235900.ts from the command line as the mythtv user it worked.
>
>Any idea why it would fail as a user job? How can I get some more info on
>why it failed?
>
>Thanks.

User jobs get run by mythbackend, and so are run using the same user
as mythbackend.  Jobs run from the command line are run as the user
used to log on that command line.  So they are likely different users
with different ownership and permissions on directories.  So what are
the ownership and permissions on your archive directories?  Are they
in the mythtv group?

There is actually no need to run a script like Myth_archive_job.pl to
move recording files - you can use any normal tool like mv from the
command line or a GUI tool.  As long as you do it when MythTV is not
in use (not recording or playing a recording and not within 1 minute
of a recording start time), it is safe to move recording files.  You
should have your archive directories in a storage group so that MythTV
can still find the recordings in them - I just created a storage group
called "Archives" and put mine in that.  Then as long as you do not
have any recording rules that specifically say to record to any of the
"Archives" directories, mythbackend will not record there but will
find the files for playback and deletion.

I have written myself a Python program (mythsqu) that has an option to
fill up my "Archives" partitions from my recording partitions.  It
moves the recordings oldest first, and monitors MythTV's state so it
will pause whenever MythTV is busy.  Then when that has run (or when I
have added a new or larger recording drive), I also run my
balance_storage.sh script that moves recordings between my recording
drives until they have roughly equal free space.  This is very useful
when I replace an old 4 Tbyte drive with a new 20 Tbyte one, so that
the free space is spread around and mythbackend will record evenly
across my seven recording drives.  The balance_storage.sh script is
older and only monitors MythTV's status for upcoming recordings - as
soon as one is within 5 minutes it stops, so you need to run it again
later when MythTV is idle again.

http://www.jsw.gen.nz/mythtv/mythsgu
http://www.jsw.gen.nz/mythtv/balance_storage.sh

I would suggest that the simplest thing for you to do would be to wait
for MythTV to be idle, then use a GUI file management program that can
sort by timestamp to select the oldest files in each of your recording
directories and move them to the Windows drive.  Then run
balance_storage.sh.  When you get your new drive, you can just add it
to your normal "Default" storage group and move all the files from the
Windows drive over to it, then run balance_storage.sh again.