[mythtv-users] Backend connections fail - stumped

Craig Huff huffcslists at gmail.com
Wed Nov 15 00:15:17 UTC 2023


On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 10:16 PM jam <jam at tigger.ws> wrote:

>
>
> > On 14 Nov 2023, at 11:44 am, Stephen Worthington <
> stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 13 Nov 2023 16:01:17 -0600, you wrote:
> >
> >> My long running backend daemon has recently stopped accepting
> connections
> >> on port 6543.  Even simply invoking "mythbackend --printsched" gets the
> >> cold shoulder.  I've tried invoking the daemon with "-v all" and
> >> "--loglevel debug", but either I'm looking in the wrong log(s) or
> nothing
> >> is logged during these connection attempts.
> >>
> >> In short, the backend logs don't show anything at all when mythbackend,
> >> mythwelcome, and/or mythfrontend try to connect and the connecting
> >> applications' logs simply report that the connection, both by lan IP
> >> (192.168.x.x:6543) and local IP (127.0.0.1:6543) fail with messages
> like:
> >>
> >> 2023-11-13 14:21:17.436230 I  MythCoreContext: Connecting to backend
> >> server: 192.168.x.x:6543 (try 1 of 5)
> >> 2023-11-13 14:21:17.436780 E  MythSocket(abde80:-1): Failed to connect
> to (
> >> 127.0.0.1:6543) Connection refused
> >> 2023-11-13 14:22:17.523316 I  MythCoreContext: Connecting to backend
> >> server: 192.168.x.x:6543 (try 2 of 5)
> >> 2023-11-13 14:22:17.523815 E  MythSocket(abde80:-1): Failed to connect
> to (
> >> 127.0.0.1:6543) Connection refused
> >
> >> I would greatly appreciate any help in figuring this out.
> >
> > I presume that this is a frontend trying to connect to a separate
> > backend box.
> >
> > The localhost connection attempt will always fail because there is no
> > mythbackend running on the frontend box.
> >
> > The mythbackend log not showing any connection attempts suggests that
> > the traffic from the frontend box is not getting to mythbackend at
> > all.  The frontend logs saying "Connection refused" suggests that port
> > 6543 on the backend box is closed, but that the backend box is sending
> > a NAK packet when it receives a SYN packet to start a TCP connection
> > on that port - it is saying that the port is closed, rather than just
> > ignoring the SYN packet.
> >
> > Does the backend box have a screen?  Does mythfrontend work there?  Is
> > port 6543 open on the backend box's IP address?  Try running this on
> > the backend box:
> >
> > sudo netstat -anp | grep 6543
> >
> > Do you see a LISTEN line with 0.0.0.0, ::, or the specific IP address
> > of the box?  If not, then you need to fix the mythbackend settings so
> > that it is listening for external connections.
> >
> > From the frontend box, try manually connecting to the backend:
> >
> > telnet <backend IP> 6543
> >
> > This is the sort of thing you should see if it does connect:
> >
> > root at crw-pvr:~# telnet mypvr.4.jsw.gen.nz 6543
> > Trying 10.0.2.4...
> > Connected to mypvr.4.jsw.gen.nz.
> > Escape character is '^]'.
> > ^]
> > telnet> quit
> > Connection closed.
> >
> > If it does not connect, but there is a LISTEN port open in the netstat
> > output, then there is likely a firewall on the backend machine (or
> > possibly the frontend machine) that is stopping the traffic, or there
> > is a routing problem in your network.  Are you able to ping the
> > backend box from the frontend box?
>
> Steven gives you nice step-1’s
> How about step-0
> On backend machine is backend running ?
>
> $ ps -ef |grep myth
>
> How do you start the backend? eg for systemd
>
> $ systemctl status mythbackend
>
> What is the last thing logged? in normal backend logs.
>
> James
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Thank you for your responses.  It seems there's always something
important/useful that I fail to mention.  This is the combined
frontend/backend server with mythbackend and mysql services and the
frontend I use for administering the recording scheduling.  I have several
other computers that I use as frontend-only systems, however they're
off-line for various reasons -- even if the current problem hadn't cropped
up.

I have stopped/started/restarted the mythtv-backend service multiple times,
as well as rebooted the system with impunity, since it's not working as far
as I can tell.  I tried stopping the backend, then starting it and promptly
started a mythwelcome instance to see what kind of messages I could find in
/var/log/mythtv/mythwelcome.log, mythbackend.log, and mythfrontend.log by
having multiple xterms open with "tail -f mythxxx" running for each log,
but nothing enlightening came of that, hence the shout out for help.

I tried the netstat command as advised by Stephen, and got no response at
all.  It just came immediately back to the command prompt.  Since the
system had been working for a long time (years), and I haven't done
anything on the system in quite some time besides review upcoming shows and
delete some old recordings, I have no idea why the backend isn't listening
on the port or what to do to fix it.  I would appreciate any guidance on
what to do next.  I don't recall any config file that affected the
mythbackend settings, but it's been a long time since I set it up.  On the
off-chance that would involve /root/.mythtv/config.xml, here are the
contents (which are the same for the ~mythtv home-path and the general user
home-path):

<Configuration>
  <Database>
    <PingHost>1</PingHost>
    <Host>192.168.1.149</Host>
    <UserName>mythtv</UserName>
    <Password>********</Password>
    <DatabaseName>mythconverg</DatabaseName>
    <Port>3306</Port>
  </Database>
  <WakeOnLAN>
    <Enabled>0</Enabled>
    <SQLReconnectWaitTime>0</SQLReconnectWaitTime>
    <SQLConnectRetry>5</SQLConnectRetry>
    <Command>echo 'WOLsqlServerCommand not set'</Command>
  </WakeOnLAN>
  <UPnP>
    <UDN>
      <MediaRenderer>f9e82f4e-fb8c-433e-8bc7-258c8d74c95c</MediaRenderer>
    </UDN>
  </UPnP>
  <LocalHostName>penguin</LocalHostName>
</Configuration>

Thanks again for any help you can provide.

--
Craig.
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