[mythtv-users] Ubuntu 18.04.1 & MythTV v29.1 recording failures

[Mike Bibbings]

On 25/09/18 17:19, Andy Smith wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It was all going so well ....  Recently migrated to new hardware and
> OS (from Fedora) using a new Hauppauge WinTV-QuadHD quad DVB-T2 tuner
> card. It has been working fine although MythBackend reports many
> failures in mythbackend.log:
>
> Sep 25 09:28:30 mustard mythbackend: mythbackend[1255]: E
> TVRecEventtv_rec.cpp:3743 (TuningFrequency) TVRec[1]: Failed to set
> channel to . Reverting to kState_None
>
> These come initially with every recording that is started and I have
> learned to ignore them until last night, 2 recordings failed
> completely and apart from the fact that the log was filling with such
> messages once per minute, it needed a reboot before anything could be
> watched / recorded.  There was nothing particular in the backend log
> that stood out to me that I wouldnt expect :-
>
> Sep 24 20:59:04 mustard mythbackend: mythbackend[1107]: E TVRecEvent
> tv_rec.cpp:3962 (TuningSignalCheck) TVRec[2]: TuningSignalCheck: Hit
> pre-fail timeout
> Sep 24 20:59:05 mustard mythbackend: mythbackend[1107]: E
> TVRecEventtv_rec.cpp:3962 (TuningSignalCheck) TVRec[1]:
> TuningSignalCheck: Hit
> pre-fail timeout
> Sep 24 20:59:06 mustard mythbackend: mythbackend[1107]: W
> TVRecEventtv_rec.cpp:3993 (TuningSignalCheck) TVRec[2]:
> TuningSignalCheck:
> taking more than 6000 ms to get a lock. marking this recording as 'Failing'.
> Sep 24 20:59:06 mustard mythbackend: mythbackend[1107]: W
> TVRecEventtv_rec.cpp:3995 (TuningSignalCheck) TVRec[2]: See 'Tuning
> timeout' in
> mythtv-setup for this input
>
> and likewise, nothing appeared in syslog or kern.log so I am a bit
> stumped.  Has anyone seen this before with this card or has anyone got
> any suggestions how to debug this?  Thanks.
>
> $ mythbackend --version
> Please attach all output as a file in bug reports.
> MythTV Version : v29.1-38-gb9c5f8b
> MythTV Branch : fixes/29
> Network Protocol : 91
> Library API : 29.20180316-1
> QT Version : 5.9.5
> Options compiled in:
>   linux profile use_hidesyms using_alsa using_oss using_pulse
> using_pulseoutput using_backend using_bindings_perl
> using_bindings_python using_bindings_php using_crystalhd using_dvb
> using_firewire using_frontend using_hdhomerun using_vbox using_ceton
> using_hdpvr using_ivtv using_joystick_menu using_libcec
> using_libcrypto using_libdns_sd using_libfftw3 using_libxml2
> using_lirc using_mheg using_opengl using_opengl_video
> using_opengl_themepainter using_qtwebkit using_qtscript using_qtdbus
> using_taglib using_v4l2 using_x11 using_xrandr using_xv
> using_profiletype using_systemd_notify using_systemd_journal
> using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_bindings_php
> using_freetype2 using_mythtranscode using_opengl using_vaapi
> using_vdpau using_ffmpeg_threads using_mheg using_libass using_libxml2
> using_libmp3lame
>
> arecord -l
> **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
> card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC887-VD Analog [ALC887-VD Analog]
>    Subdevices: 0/1
>    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 2: ALC887-VD Alt Analog [ALC887-VD
> Alt Analog]
>    Subdevices: 1/1
>    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 2: CX23885 [Conexant CX23885], device 0: CX23885 Digital [CX23885 Digital]
>    Subdevices: 0/1
>    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 3: CX23885_1 [Conexant CX23885], device 0: CX23885 Digital
> [CX23885 Digital]
>    Subdevices: 0/1
>    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
>
> $ nvidia-smi
> Tue Sep 25 16:21:54 2018
> +------------------------------------------------------+
> | NVIDIA-SMI 340.106    Driver Version: 340.106        |
> |-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
> | GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
> | Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
> |===============================+======================+======================|
> |   0  GeForce 210         Off  | 0000:01:00.0     N/A |                  N/A |
> | N/A   31C   P12    N/A /  N/A |     49MiB /   511MiB |     N/A      Default |
> +-------------------------------+----------------------+--
> _______________________________________________
Assuming you are the standard Ubuntu 18.04 LTS kernel, I suspect if you 
have a look at dmesg output you will find errors relating to cx23885 driver.

The solution is to use the hauppauge kernel which includes an updated 
media stack (V4L), which contains a lot of patches for the Hauppauge 
range of cards.
These patches (mostly) have been upstreamed, but Ubuntu do not backport 
to older kernels.

See https://github.com/b-rad-NDi/Ubuntu-media-tree-kernel-builder

Basically :
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:b-rad/kernel+mediatree+hauppauge
sudo apt-get install linux-image-mediatree linux-headers-mediatree 
linux-firmware-hauppauge
sudo reboot


Note linux-firmware-hauppauge is only required for DVB-T/T2 users

Mike