[mythtv-users] HDHR recording truncated, maximum buffer size exceeded

Joey Morris rjmorris at nc.rr.com
Mon Dec 31 20:11:47 UTC 2012


I'm running 0.25.3. Twice in the past two weeks I've gotten a
truncated recording from my HDHR3. Unfortunately, I didn't check the
logs the first time, but last night I did, and the backend log
includes an error message saying the maximum buffer size was exceeded.
I've pasted that message along with a few that came right before:

Dec 30 21:04:02 conquistador mythbackend[9516]: N Expire autoexpire.cpp:640 (SendDeleteMessages) Expiring 15958 MB for 1501 at 2012-12-30T17:08:00 => "NFL Football":"Green Bay Packers at Minnesota Vikings"
Dec 30 21:04:36 conquistador mythbackend[9516]: W TFWWrite ThreadedFileWriter.cpp:499 (DiskLoop) TFW(/media/storage1/recordings/1171_20121230202000.mpg:72): write(57904) cnt 997 total 57545296 -- took a long time, 31048 ms
Dec 30 21:05:11 conquistador mythbackend[9516]: W TFWWrite ThreadedFileWriter.cpp:499 (DiskLoop) TFW(/media/storage1/recordings/1171_20121230202000.mpg:72): write(57716) cnt 2094 total 120834556 -- took a long time, 33638 ms
Dec 30 21:05:20 conquistador mythbackend[9516]: E HDHRStreamHandler ThreadedFileWriter.cpp:216 (Write) TFW(/media/storage1/recordings/1171_20121230202000.mpg:72): Maximum buffer size exceeded.#012#011#011#011file will be truncated, no further writing will be done.#012#011#011#011This generally indicates your disk performance #012#011#011#011is insufficient to deal with the number of on-going #012#011#011#011recordings, or you have a disk failure.
Dec 30 21:05:35 conquistador mythbackend[9516]: W TFWWrite ThreadedFileWriter.cpp:499 (DiskLoop) TFW(/media/storage1/recordings/1171_20121230202000.mpg:72): write(57528) cnt 2326 total 134208688 -- took a long time, 22774 ms

At the time of the error, Myth was writing that single recording to
disk, it was commflagging that recording, and it was possibly deleting
another recording. I say "possibly" deleting, because I don't know
whether that note means the deletion started immediately, and if so,
how long it took to complete. It had just finished (at 21:01)
recording another show, and it appears to have recorded that one
successfully.

A few other details:

- I'm recording to a locally attached hard drive.
- The drive is dedicated to MythTV recordings. (The OS and database
  are on a separate drive.)
- The drive is formatted as ext3.
- I didn't see anything in the system logs, dmesg, or smart results that
  would indicate a drive problem.

This behavior is similar to what is described in these two earlier
threads, although I didn't see anyone else reporting a file deletion
prior to the error:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/522449
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/524829

The last post of that second thread mentions a patch that may help the
problem: http://code.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/11061. I think my next
step will be to try the patch, but I wonder if it would simply be
masking bigger problems in the system, like a failing drive.

Do you think this is indicative of a failing hard drive, or do you
think the patch really is the appropriate solution? Would I be less
likely to experience this problem if I changed the drive to ext4?

Thanks for any comments.


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