[mythtv-users] Dealing with frequent crashes

[Nick Morrott]

On 10/05/07, David <david.fockens at gmail.com> wrote:
> MythTV has been crashing on me pretty frequently. How do I diagnose
> the cause of the crash? The computer will completely freeze up. None
> of the usual steps (ctrl + alt + backspace or ctrl + alt + f1) work.
> I have to actually pull the power on the computer, which is probably
> not such a great idea.

Does it happen randomly in MythTV, or always when you are doing the
same thing - e.g. video playback or recording?

Some opening suggestions:

i) Make sure your CPU and other internal hardware is being cooled
adequately. The CPU will protect itself if it gets too hot by turning
simply off. You could run the system with the case open whilst
diagnosing.

ii) Could your power supply be faulty, or be underpowered for your
machine? Swap it out with another if possible.

iii) Hard crashes are normally due to hardware - I would remove all
PCI cards not immediately required for MythTV and test stability by
adding cards back in one at a time, if your system regains stability.

iv) Check your syslog and mythbackend log in case relevant entries
have been logged before the system has crashed.

Nick
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