[mythtv-users] Help debugging XvMC freezes

Misty P mistyp at thekorn.net
Tue Apr 22 22:03:49 UTC 2008


I have a fully working mythtv frontend/backend combination running on an 
nvidia 7300LE.  Running myth version 16838 .  Viewing content using xv, it's 
solid as a ROCK!  No, *really*, so far (2 months in) it's never failed.

Since I had a decent GPU, I decided to try playing with XvMC.  I installed 
envy, had it upgrade my nvidia drivers, and all was well.  I added another 
playback config with XvMC, and it worked!  The OSD was in black and white, 
but that was an acceptable trade off to me.


EXCEPT that now the front end will randomly freeze while playing back 
content.  It doesn't matter if I'm watching Live TV or something recorded. 
I'll be watching something, and the screen will just freeze on that frame. 
Sometimes I'll be watching for twenty minutes, sometimes it'll be for two. 
There's no rhyme or reason as to when the freezes happen.

Once frozen, the front end is *completely* dead.  If I SSH into the machine, 
I can kill the front end and restart it OK.  If I then go and view the same 
recording at the same point, it will NOT crash again.  (i.e. this isn't a 
"bad content" issue.)

What's throwing me is that there is absolutely NOTHING interesting in the 
log files.  Just the standard "switching from none to live TV" and "using 
XvMC" type messages that you normally see.  No warnings, no errors, nothing 
"interesting".  I've also checked the nvidia core temperature via nvclock, 
and when the frontend freezes the GPU is sitting around 55C.  (It's *always* 
at that temperature, whether using xv or XvMC.)  So I don't think it's a GPU 
overheating issue, either.



Where/how do I begin debugging this?

(Note that if I switch the playback profile back to the xv profile, the 
system goes back to being stable as a rock.  So I have a work around, but 
I'd like to use XvMC if I can get it working reliably.)


Thanks in advance!




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