[mythtv-users] Confusion about mythfilldatabase running automatically

[Jonathan Rogers]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

James Le Cuirot wrote:
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Mythfilldatabase
> 
> This wiki page says that mythfilldatabase is "normally" run
> automatically by mythbackend every 24 hours. However, the configuration
> page for running it automatically is located in mythfrontend rather than
> mythtv-setup. So which is it? Possibly both? My box isn't dedicated to
> MythTV so I don't run mythfrontend all the time.

Yeah, I've been a bit confused about that myself. I've mostly had
mythfilldatabase run as a cron job. The Ubuntu mythtv-backend package
provides this out of the box. I assume that's what the Wiki is referring
to, but I think it's incorrect in stating that mythbackend runs it every
24 hours.

I recently disabled that cron job and enabled daily mythfilldatabase in
the mythfrontend settings area, since it should balance the load on the
servers better by using the recommended times. It seems to work fine,
but I'm not entirely sure whether mythfrontend or mythbackend is
spawning mythfilldatabase. I assume it's mythbackend, but my machine
runs both all the time. It's probably a bad idea to enable it in
mythfrontend settings without disabling any cron jobs there might be,
since that would just waste network and server resources.

I've long been uncertain why some settings are accessed in mythtv-setup
and some in mythfrontend. The ones in mythtv-setup seem to only apply to
mythbackend, but quite a few in mythfrontend also apply to mythbackend,
especially the ones related to recording schedules. While the UI isn't
bad once things are set up, initial set up and some periodic maintenance
could be made a lot easier to understand.

Jonathan Rogers
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFHAWOaMs6f82yVS5wRAkLMAKDNBvTBl+TuYr7yJ7gQ4xYThk3RLgCgjS+I
rJZtL5RqyTiM7iSrHvT17y0=
=s1SR
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----