[mythtv-users] one recording keeps failing

[Vincent McIntyre]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 11:50:40PM +1000, blind Pete wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Aug 2014 23:08:00 +1000
> Vincent McIntyre <vincent.mcintyre at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Greetings mythizens,
> > 
> > I have a strange issue that I wanted to report in case it is a bug.
> > The system is mythbuntu 12.04 LTS with 0.27-fixes, all up to date.
> > There is one tuner card with two tuners. myth is configured with
> > one additional virtual tuner per physical tuner, so 'Tuner Status'
> > lists four tuners.
> 
> Our setups are similar.  I think that we are even having trouble with
> the same program.  
> 
> 1)  Each physical tuner can handle five virtual tuners, so you should
> be able to capture everything on the ABC and SBS including NITV.  
> 
> 2)  What if /The Seven Thirty Report/ had its name "7.30" interpreted
> as a decimal number instead of a string?  
> 
> 3)  I bet that your four current virtual tuners are ordered oddly.
> (Read that as wrongly.)  That seems to be catching lots of people.  
> 
> Can you fire up mysql with "mysql -u mythtv -p mythconverg",
> <password>, and "select cardinputid, cardid, schedorder, livetvorder
> from cardinput;"?  Get out of it with "quit".  The password is probably
> in ~/.mythtv/* .  
> 

Here is what I have. I just added the adapters in with mythtv-setup
and let it default to 2 virtual tuners (ie I did not try to influence
the order at all).

mysql> select cardinputid, cardid, schedorder, livetvorder
    -> from cardinput;
+-------------+--------+------------+-------------+
| cardinputid | cardid | schedorder | livetvorder |
+-------------+--------+------------+-------------+
|           1 |      1 |          1 |           1 |
|           2 |      2 |          1 |           1 |
|           3 |      3 |          3 |           3 |
|           4 |      4 |          3 |           3 |
+-------------+--------+------------+-------------+


> Then again, I could be completely wrong.  
> 

For my system I am starting to suspect the hardware,
but there are other things at play.
 * The network changed their callsign from 'ABC1' to 'ABC'
   (on both subchannels of the multiplex, sigh)
   So I deleted the recording rule and recreated it,
   with the 'this channel' and 'this time' scheduling filters ticked.
   That did not seem to make a difference.

 * I told it to 'prefer tuner 3' in the 'ABC News' recording rule.
   This has worked for me.

 * Some other recordings trying to use tuner 1 have been failing too.

I do think there is some kind of mythtv bug or misfeature lurking here.
When the recording starts, it shows up in the 'watch recordings'
view rendered in green (currently recording). But there is no file
open in any of the recordings directories - the system is waiting for
the tuner to settle.
I think this is wrong - there should be an indication that there is
no data hitting disk - but perhaps there is a good reason for it.

I am starting to look around for a new dual-tuner card but motherboard
constraints mean it has to be PCI (no time to rebuild entirely right now).
I have one PCI-e card (dvico fusionhdtv) which I am going to try
with a PCI-PCIe bridge but that card is oldish as well.


Kind regards
Vince