[mythtv-users] canceled recording (Recorder Failed) mystery

[David Gesswein]

> Using my Harmony 880 however was unsuccessful nearly every time. I would
> see a blank screen for several seconds then it would bounce back to the main
> menu with "Irrecoverable error." 
>
What does the mythbackend log say went wrong at the time this failed? If
it is an error from the directv script like the retry message we need to 
try changing both the myth external channel change command to verbose and 
then try the same from the command line to try to figure out why they act 
different.

> Again, it wouldn't let me watch livetv. It came up with the
> message on the screen "Could not connect to
> the master backend server -- is it running? 
>
You may have more than one problem. Does the backend log have channel
change errors at this time or is it a different error? Does the front end 
messages say anything useful? I wouldn't expect the connection problem to be
related to the directv script.

The exact error messages are important for trying to track down the problem

> I noticed though, when changing with the keyboard, before it changed to the
> right channel, the channel I was originally on (NBC), would
> quickly flash on the screen. Even if I was on that channel several channel
> changes previous. So for example, I started on channel 5, NBC. I changed
> to 206 successfuly. I changed to 550, and
> before changing to that channel, it would flash channel 5 on the screen. 
>
I have seen this on my system also. I see it as a static picture of the
wrong channel before the correct video starts displaying. It isn't coming 
from my box. I assume myth is reusing old data but I have not looked into
it since it doesn't seem to cause problems.