[mythtv] frontend connection error

[Greg.Froese at Federated.CA]

setup:
myth machine: RH8.0 IP 192.168.1.103  (everything works fine locally)
frontend machine: RH8.0 IP 192.168.1.200

I'm trying to connect a frontend from a separate machine to the backend on 
my main myth machine.

I can successfully login to mysql on the myth machine remotely from the 
frontend machine using: 
mysql -h 192.168.1.103 -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg

however, when I try to run mythfrontend (I changed the ip in main() of 
mythfrontend to 192.168.1.103), i get the following error:
connecting to backend server: 192.168.1.103:6543
couldn't open db
Mutex destroy failure: Device or resource busy

for what it's worth, mythbackend does see the connection attempt and shows 
it in the console.

any ideas here?