[mythtv-users] Encoder "stuck" playing LiveTV when it isn't

[Taco Mel]

Watching Live TV, the TV show ends and the front end
hangs.  I have seen but not yet implemented the
"patch" against this that was recently posted to this
list.  Sometimes the front end drops back to the main
menu after about 30 seconds, and sometimes it does
not.  When it doesn't, the "reset" button is pressed. 
This can be either the reset button on the computer
itself, or more recently, a button on the remote that
I set up that uses irexec to "pkill mythfrontend".

The problem is that the back end still indicates that
the tuner is watching Live TV (and consequently this
tuner is unavailable for recording or watching).  The
name of the show and end time updates in the mythweb
status.  For example, the tuner currently "is watching
Live TV: 'Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide' on
NIK. This recording will end at 1:30 PM."  At 1:30 PM
it will update to the next show name and end time.  If
I browse recorded programs and set the filter so that
Live TV shows up, indeed these shows are being
recorded and are watchable.  (Judging from the channel
I would guess that the front end crash occurred this
morning between 8:00-10:00 AM because those are the
only shows on Nickelodeon that my kid watches. 
Fortunately I am not home at this time.)

The only way I have found to "free" the tuner is to
recycle the back end (stop and start mythbackend
process).  Other things I have tried include
attempting to modify/delete/cancel the recording
through mythweb, and tuning the front end to the
channel in question as Live TV and then cleanly
exiting.

Questions:

1. Is there a "keepalive" between the front end and
back end when watching Live TV so that the back end
knows the front end really isn't watching live TV
anymore?  I have not seen such a setting but if it
exists I obviously need to enable or configure it. 
(If there isn't, maybe there should be.)

2. Is there a way in this situation to "free" up the
tuner without killing the mythbackend process?  (Tuner
is PVR-500 on analog cable.)

3. I know that hard resetting a computer itself is not
good in general, although this is a diskless machine
so that helps a little bit.  But, is wiring a remote
button to "pkill mythfrontend" a very bad idea for
some reason?

My setup is a split frontend/backend running Myth 0.21
on FC6, from Axel's July 2007 subversion build.

Any advice is appreciated.  Even if the patch works
there is still a chance this situation could occur,
should the front end crash, or be crashed...



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