[mythtv-users] Wife Acceptance Factor question: dealing with crashes

[Berry, David]

I've setup up some Cron scripts on the frontend that monitors the status
of the backend.  I'm running the backend from a script, before it
starts, it creates a 'flag' file on the NFS share.  If the backend
crashes, the next command in the script is to delete the 'flag' file.

The frontend checks for the existence of the 'flag' file.  If it can't
find it, then it assumes the backend has crashed, waits for a minute,
and reboots itself.

The backend also has a 'watcher' process, that continually watches the
backend service, (http://cr.yp.to/daemontools.html ). If the backend
crashes, then the watcher restarts the script file that controls the
flag creation and backend startup.

This used to happen at least once a week until I upgraded to 0.16 -
since then, it's been rock solid.  The backend would crash from bad DVB
data - but no more !

The WAF is now at a level where the system is used in preference to the
old VHS. 

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Terry Mark
Sent: Thursday, 21 October 2004 6:08 AM
To: mythtv-users at mythtv.org
Subject: [mythtv-users] Wife Acceptance Factor question: dealing with
crashes

I setup a Myth box using Jarod's guide under FC2.  There are still
some rough edges (I have to run alsactl myself on login, the mythtv
user doesn't log in automatically, etc), but there's enough working
that I was willing to put in front of my wife.

She loves it.  However, Myth seems to crash a lot.  Mostly it's the
frontend, usually in response to some apparently random button press
on the remote, but occassionally the backend crashes.  Since I'm using
the same motherboard Jarod specs in his guide (Chaintech 7NIF2 using
the onboard video; also a pair of  PVR250s), and nothing else is
running on these machines,  I'm assuming that I'm not the only one
living with these problems.

I can ssh into the machine myself and kill/restart the frontend, and I
can restart the backend myself.  But my wife can't, nor could my
parents or grandparents or my kids.  This is seriously affecting the
WAF, since I'm trying to convince her that I need to buy and build a
few frontends...

So, what do people do in these situations ? And, should I worry about
the crashes, or are these par for the course ?