[mythtv] Backend process dies at 4GB file limit?

[Buzz]

Wouldn't it be reasonable if it barfed the recording partially/entirely
WITHOUT crashing mythbackend, rather than crashing entirely as it does now. 

Isn't that theoretically easier to fix? 


Pseudo-code that could be plugged in somewhere:

------------------------------
//  4GB = 4294967296Bytes = 1024x1024x1024x4 . Abort 4kB short of that for
the buffers to flush?: 4294963200 = 4GB-4kB
If ( [filesystem type] == 'fat32' && [recording size] > 4294963200 ) { 
	['abort' recording nicely here];
}
------------------------------


Buzz. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-dev-bounces at mythtv.org 
> [mailto:mythtv-dev-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Joe Votour
> Sent: Thursday, 19 January 2006 1:42 PM
> To: Development of mythtv
> Subject: Re: [mythtv] Backend process dies at 4GB file limit?
> 
> 
> 
> --- Buzz <buzz at oska.com> wrote:
> 
> > Are you interested in this scenario:
> > 
> > Backend saves files to FAT32 partition.
> > Backend tries to exceed 4GB (or there abouts) while unattended.
> > Backend dies with error "File size limit exceeded"
> > emitted by OS.
> > 
> > 
> > Backend's last message prior to dying was:
> > "TFW: safe_swite() funky usleep"
> > (message comes from ThreadedFileWriter.cpp )
> > 
> > 
> > Buzz.
> > 
> > P.S. Before you tell me "FAT32 is a bad, naughty, unsupported 
> > filesystem"..
> > tell me another filesystem that works under both MS Windows 
> and linux, 
> > reliably, and I'll happily change (I'm waiting in anticipation of 
> > native
> > ext2/3 windows drivers or NTFS write support in the kernel - it's a 
> > long
> > wait)
> > 
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Unfortunately, there's nothing that the backend can really do 
> in the current implementation.  The 4GB limitation is in the 
> FAT32 filesystem itself (according to Microsoft's documentation).
> 
> About all the backend could do is try to split the file up, 
> but that adds a lot of overhead and bookkeeping.  However, 
> seeing as there are many Linux native filesystems that 
> support files larger than 4GB, I doubt that the developers 
> would be interested in trying to fix this.
> 
> I won't tell you that FAT32 is unsupported (because that's 
> not true), but it is bad and naughty.  :) There are a few 
> ext2 drivers available for Windows, some free, some commercial.
> 
> -- Joe
> 
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