LinuxMCE Forums

General => Users => Topic started by: corwin on April 03, 2007, 03:42:05 pm

Title: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: corwin on April 03, 2007, 03:42:05 pm
Hi,

I seem to have the same problem that several prople already reported, where going into TV on an MD the mythtv main menu shows up for a few seconds, and then the screen goes black (or grey - see below).

I've tried all UI options, with these results:

- UI2 / blending: Screen goes grey
- UI2 / no blending: Screen goes black
- UI1 - The "it will take 10 minutes to update your TV schedule" message comes up, then the screen goes black. Come back 10 minutes later and see - surprise - black screen.

Did anyone find any solutions or explanations for this?

TIA, Itai
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: Hugolp on April 03, 2007, 04:43:47 pm
What computer are you using? Video card? Be specific.

Hugo
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: neomut on April 03, 2007, 05:14:20 pm
I have this issue as well.

i have noticed that soon as I click the TV button from the LMCE main menu, that about 10 seconds later regaurdless of what I have done, the screen goes black and I have a movable mouse cursor and that is it. If I am quick enough I can see a bit of live TV before the screen goes blank. (So the TV streaming works). (If I hit 'f7' during the blank screen I canusually get back to the LMCE main desktop) 


Specs:
CPU AMD AM2 4600+
Nvidia 7600GT (Giga)
1gb ram
MB: GA-M55S-S3 (giga)
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: jester on April 03, 2007, 08:22:55 pm
Same thing here, when i chose 'watch tv' from myth's menu screen goes black and i only have my mouse pointer.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: cckrobinson on April 04, 2007, 12:01:33 am
Add me to the list as well.  I get the grey screen.  I'm tracking my issue in this thread:

http://forum.linuxmce.com/index.php?topic=1369.0
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: corwin on April 04, 2007, 01:41:51 am
What computer are you using? Video card? Be specific.

Hugo

Core:
AMD Athlon XP 1800+
ASUS A7V400-MX
1gb ram

MD:
EPIA M10000
Nvidia FX5200/128mb
512mb ram

Anyway... from all the "me too" posts I think it's pretty clear this isn't a hardware issue...
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: corwin on April 04, 2007, 10:54:07 am
FYI, I just connected to the LinuxMCE backend with a MythTV frontend on my Mac, and it worked fine, including watching live TV... so that at least eliminates the backend as a potential cause.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: gekko on April 04, 2007, 06:41:25 pm
Just wanted to add myself to the list of people having this problem.  Everything else is working just fine, I can play back video, etc., but when I launch live TV I just get a black screen.  My mouse pointer is the only visible thing.

Here are my computer specs:

- opteron 165
- ATI 9800 pro (output only, using UI1)
- hauppauge pvr-150 tuner (x2)

I thought it might have something to do with the TV / resolution I was outputting to, so I plugged into my LCD computer monitor and increased the resolution.  However, I had exactly the same problem.

If anyone has a solution I look forward to hearing it.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: Audun on April 04, 2007, 11:50:53 pm
I have the same issue.

Specs:
Asus M2NPV-VM, nForce430+GeForce 6150
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0GHz Socket AM2
Corsair Value S. PC5300 DDR2 1024MB 128Meg x 64, CL5, 667MHz, 240-pin
Samsung SpinPoint P120S 250GB SATA2
Hauppauge! WinTV-PVR-150MCE, PCI,
Microsoft Media Center remote
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: corwin on April 05, 2007, 02:07:10 pm
Another fact...

I booted my M10000 into MiniMyth (an optimized MythTV frontend) and connected it to the LinuxMCE backend - and it's working and watching TV with no problems. So the problem is somewhere in the MD... FWIW.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: cckrobinson on April 06, 2007, 05:01:22 am
I'm able to watch live TV briefly (until the screen turns grey).  I mentioned this issue over at the Pluto Home forum and got the following response:

Quote:
"we encounter mythtv connecting errors sometimes in Pluto too, this is an old story that we didn't fix yet.
the only way to work around the issue is to reboot the whole system.
the issue, as far as I can understand (i'm not a programmer) i that a recording starts at some point and this is disabling the access to backend.
we currently don't have a dedicated mythtv guy to fix these issues, so i can't promise that this will be fixed soon.

we had fixed issues in the past with users help (programmers or not). so if you have succeed fixing the issue, just point it to us and we will submit it to distro."

This or a similar issue is apparently being magnified in LMCE.

Abit UL8 mainboard
Athlon 64 3500+
nVidia 6600GT
Hauppage PVR-150 NTSC card
Avermedia A180 ATSC card
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: sharlee_angelo on April 06, 2007, 12:42:03 pm
a good start for solving this problem will be to watch the logs of myth tv or dcerouter. watch the logs when the problem occurs and maybe we will find a solution.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: cckrobinson on April 06, 2007, 03:28:49 pm
a good start for solving this problem will be to watch the logs of myth tv or dcerouter. watch the logs when the problem occurs and maybe we will find a solution.

This is from the DCERouter log.

/01/07 22:17:09.977 Parameter 159(PK_Screen): 128 <0xa7389ba0>
08 04/01/07 22:17:09.979 Parameter 5(Value To Assign): MythTV Player(LinuxMCE LiveTV) <0xaab90ba0>
08 04/01/07 22:17:09.979 Parameter 9(Text): <0xaab90ba0>
08 04/01/07 22:17:09.979 Parameter 29(PK_MediaType): 1 <0xaab90ba0>
08 04/01/07 22:17:09.979 Parameter 41(StreamID): 2 <0xaab90ba0>
08 04/01/07 22:17:09.979 Parameter 48(Value): 0 <0xaab90ba0>
08 04/01/07 22:17:09.979 Parameter 50(Name): mythfrontend.Mythfrontend <0xaab90ba0>
08 04/01/07 22:17:09.979 Parameter 103(List PK Device): 24,24,15,,1,1,0 <0xaab90ba0>
08 04/01/07 22:17:09.979 Parameter 120(Retransmit): 0 <0xaab90ba0>
08 04/01/07 22:17:10.005 Received Message from 19 (OnScreen Orbiter / Family Room) to 28 (Photo Screen Saver / Family Room), type 1 id 193 Command:Off, parameters: <0x79b2eba0>
08 04/01/07 22:17:10.005 Parameter 97(PK_Pipe): 0 <0x79b2eba0>
05 04/01/07 22:17:11.186 Socket::ReceiveData 0x85ec888 failed, bytes left 0 start: 1060000 1: 0 1b: 0 2: 0 2b: 0 m_Socket: 140 Incoming_Conn Socket 140 127.0.0.1EVENT 24 T=35 Event #24 <0x7b331ba0>
05 04/01/07 22:17:11.207 Socket::ReceiveString2 ReceiveData failed m_Socket: -1 Incoming_Conn Socket 140 127.0.0.1EVENT 24 T=35 Event #24 <0x7b331ba0>
05 04/01/07 22:17:11.207 TCPIP: Closing connection to 24 (Router Dev #0) 0x85ec888 m_Socket: -1 <0x7b331ba0>
05 04/01/07 22:17:11.207 Router::RemoveAndDeleteSocket 0x85ec888 24 <0x7b331ba0>
05 04/01/07 22:17:11.186 Socket::ReceiveData 0x85fddc8 failed, bytes left 0 start: 1060000 1: 0 1b: 0 2: 0 2b: 0 m_Socket: 141 Incoming_Conn Socket 141 127.0.0.1EVENT 24 T=35 Event #24 <0x7bb32ba0>
05 04/01/07 22:17:11.209 Socket::ReceiveString2 ReceiveData failed m_Socket: -1 Incoming_Conn Socket 141 127.0.0.1EVENT 24 T=35 Event #24 <0x7bb32ba0>
05 04/01/07 22:17:11.209 TCPIP: Closing connection to 24 (Router Dev #0) 0x85fddc8 m_Socket: -1 <0x7bb32ba0>
05 04/01/07 22:17:11.209 Router::RemoveAndDeleteSocket 0x85fddc8 24 <0x7bb32ba0>
05 04/01/07 22:17:25.384 Router::RemoveAndDeleteSocket 0x8619208 24 <0x7b331ba0>
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: verhohner on April 07, 2007, 09:52:35 pm
Is there a solution for this problem yet? I have the same problem with UI2. The screen turns grey after 5 secs...
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: madboo on April 07, 2007, 11:01:15 pm
Same issue here, an I have myth running fine on a different drive on this box.

One thing I noticed is in Spawn_mythfrontend_xxxxx.log

<snip>
mythtv: could not connect to socket
mythtv: No such file or directory
lirc_init failed for mythtv, see preceding messages
</snip>
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: madboo on April 08, 2007, 03:26:34 am
I haven't noticed a difference when I changed it, but I noticed myth is configured to use alpha blending which my video card does not support...  Anyone have any luck changing this setting?
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: efiniti on April 08, 2007, 05:54:40 am
I'm having the same issue.  Grey screen with UI2 + AB and it goes back to the main screen with UI1. 

I've been messing around with the mythtv frontend settings, but I keep getting the message saying that MythTV cannot connect to the main backend.  What should the ip address be for the mythtv-setup page?  Is it the dhcp server that LinuxMCE makes when installing?  Is there a way to find out exactly what that is?  I installed the media director on the same core.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: madboo on April 08, 2007, 06:12:14 pm
Not being sarcastic, have you tried 127.0.0.1?

Run a netstat -an and see where myth is listening, it appears to be defaulting to 0.0.0.0 which would indicate all interfaces are listening.  I have eth0 and eth0:0 and a remote mythfrontend (mac) works on both interfaces.  Albeit I can't watch tv on the remote interface either...

Also I attempted to have myth record a program last night and it failed, I'm not quite sure whats going on here.  Has anyone run mythfrontend on the LMCE box without LMCE running e.g: kill LMCE, startx, run myhtfrontend?
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: madboo on April 08, 2007, 09:41:16 pm
So in looking at the mythtv plugin device template, it is not listed as an audio visual device.

I listed it as an av device and there was no change other than myth staying on screen a little longer...
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: corwin on April 09, 2007, 04:04:57 am
New (useless) info:

1) Starting mythfrontend from the command line (whether OrbiterGL is running or not), it works fine.

2) When starting mythfrontend from the orbiter, the logs show nothing useful. the mythfrontend simply quits, no error messages show up anywhere.

This is getting painful... starting to feel like the good old Pluto days.

mythfrontend is started by /usr/pluto/bin/MythTV_Player. Is anyone familiar with this code able to say anything about what might be going wrong there?
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: madboo on April 09, 2007, 06:27:11 am
I think not useless!  So we are narrowing the problem down to certainly not mythfrontend.  I notice in the process listing there is something called 'SCREEN' before each device running.  I am thinking that mythfrontend kicks off and whatever is supposed to keep it running in focus (though I'm hesitant to use focus) loses it and it may be trying to go back to pluto.  Part of the issue may be that myth likes to take control from window manager and there is a struggle between pluto and myth over the xserver.

Does anyone have myth working correctly???
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: corwin on April 09, 2007, 07:46:52 am
I think not useless!  So we are narrowing the problem down to certainly not mythfrontend.  I notice in the process listing there is something called 'SCREEN' before each device running.  I am thinking that mythfrontend kicks off and whatever is supposed to keep it running in focus (though I'm hesitant to use focus) loses it and it may be trying to go back to pluto.  Part of the issue may be that myth likes to take control from window manager and there is a struggle between pluto and myth over the xserver.

A few thoughts on this:

1) It's not a focus issue, because you can see the mythfrontend process starting up, and then disappearing at the same time the display goes grey.

2) LMCE runs mythfrontend with the '-w' switch (run in window), and in this mode myth doesn't do anything unusual with the window manager.

Also, I don't think it's an issue of LMCE ending the mythfrontend process, because then the orbiter would return to the screensaver and the default control layout. The fact that we get a grey screen, and that when you return to the orbiter you see the myth controls menu, means that the orbiter doesn't even know that myth died...

BTW, after myth dies and you're in the grey screen, just hit F7 to get back to the orbiter. Then select "quit" from the menu to end the myth control process and return to normal.

Quote
Does anyone have myth working correctly???

How I'd love for that to be answered...
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: 1audio on April 09, 2007, 03:49:19 pm
I have Myth running at a 50% confidence. I'm using the SiliconDust tuner which runs stand alone so its more isolated from the rest of the system. I still find live TV chancy at best. I usually watch recorded programs which work OK. When Live TV crashes 50% of the time a router reload will recover it. Otherwise a reboot is necessary. I have found that a router reload is necessary after a reboot to get Myth started. Sometimes I need to go through the Myth backend to wake it up. I wish I knew what was really working in this ritual but I know little about Myth.

You should be able to access Mythweb in the core from a browser in another computer on the network- 192.168.80.1/mythweb  . The backend status will give some idea if the backend is running. You can schedule recordings from Mythweb as well.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: madboo on April 09, 2007, 04:04:50 pm
1audio, what video card are you using?
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: 1audio on April 09, 2007, 04:22:58 pm
Onboard nVidia 6150 in Asus M2NPV-VM motherboard. I have used an nVidia 7300? but it didn't offer any advantages. The MD has 512 MB of ram w/ video set to 256MB.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: madboo on April 09, 2007, 11:00:57 pm
I am using a PNY Verto GeForce FX5500 Graphics Adapter AGP - 128 MB.

I will try to pick up a new video card and see if that changes anything.

Are you using alpha blending in the UI?  I think a 6xxx nvidia is required for the OpenGL extensions, I wonder if that has anything to do with it...

Did you install the nvidia drivers specifically or did you have a vanilla install?
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: 1audio on April 10, 2007, 04:58:21 am
Its a completely dumb install. I didn't go out of my way to set up anything with Myth. I discovered playing with Pluto that I stood a greater chance of balling things up when I did. I did go throug the back end and front end setup and confirm all of the settings.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: webpaul1 on April 10, 2007, 08:13:59 am
This is really bizarre.  It happens a lot to me too, but I can't figure out why.  I don't know enough about myth.  What happens is that the MythTV_Player, which is the LMCE program inherited from Pluto, is really just a wrapper that sends commands to the myth frontend in a socket.  mythfrontend is just spawned like normal.  This is not a modified version of myth in any way.  If you tail DCERouter.log, you'll see the command Spawn Application is sent to App Server, which is the device that does the spawning.  And, as someone pointed out, whenever app server spawns an application, that apps output is logged to Spawn_[pid]_[name].log.  So, you should see the logged output for myth frontend.

Here are the things I've been looking into:  apt-get install wmctrl   and then use wmctrl (window manager control) to confirm that mythfrontend's window is active.  As far as I can tell, it is, and the gray/black screen is actually the myth front end.  One could also kill Orbiter (killall OrbiterGL or killall Orbiter) to see if someone Orbiter was hiding mythfrontend; note: when you kill Orbiter, it will automatically restart in about 10 seconds.

When the spawned mythfrontend process exits, App Server sends a commands back saying the spawned app terminated, and that's what causes lmce to know that tv is over.  I'm going to be working at this more intensely as I'm trying to get lmce 1.1 out for feisty, and it fixes a ton of issues and has a new installation method.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: madboo on April 10, 2007, 08:46:43 am
Let me know if there is anything I can do to assist!
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: efiniti on April 10, 2007, 09:38:14 am
Please give us updates or let us know if you need logs or anything!  Oh and btw, you rock.  ;)
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: corwin on April 12, 2007, 10:24:36 am
This is really funny... and when I say funny, I mean it's very sad.

Code: [Select]
moon32# mv /usr/bin/mythfrontend /usr/bin/mythfrontend.real
moon32# cat > /usr/bin/mythfrontend
#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/mythfrontend.real $@
moon32# chmod +x /usr/bin/mythfrontend

Now... select TV from an orbiter, then repeatedly run "ps wax | grep myth". You'll see mythfrontend and mythfrontend.real. On the X display, Myth will start up. After a few seconds the mythfrontend process will disappear, but mythfrontend.real will still be there and you'll be able to watch TV (real slowly and with no sound on my MD, but what does that matter?).

BTW, this trick is great for parties. *Really* boring parties.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: madboo on April 13, 2007, 06:05:27 am
Right on!!!!!!

That is weird....  I could not exit from it though... back to a blank screen...

:-/
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: corwin on April 13, 2007, 07:51:58 am
That is weird....  I could not exit from it though... back to a blank screen...

That just shows that the orbiter thinks myth is still running... which, I think, also indicates that MythTV_Plugin didn't kill the myth process on purpose.

Anyway, exiting is easy... either open a web orbiter and hit power-off on the TV remote screen, or press F7 on the MD and select Quit from the leftmost menu.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: efiniti on April 15, 2007, 06:42:18 am
i don't have a file called mythtvfrontend in /usr/bin.  i do have a file called mythtv though.  i guess that's what it is for me?
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: k84 on April 15, 2007, 05:55:27 pm
i don't have a file called mythtvfrontend in /usr/bin.  i do have a file called mythtv though.  i guess that's what it is for me?

hi it is called mythfrontend, not mythtvfrontend.

media@dcerouter:~$ which mythfrontend
/usr/bin/mythfrontend
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: NeonDemon on April 15, 2007, 08:59:44 pm
Tossing my hat in the ring
Same issue, Trying a reload with minimal specs. the video card i was using dident work so im using onboard. this the hauppage 550 card has anything to do with this?
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: madboo on April 15, 2007, 11:54:02 pm
Does it work with the onboard video card?  I am thinking this is an issue with pluto and how it loads mythfrontend...  the corwin workaround is working fine for me, but I'm elbow deep in the pluto code trying to find the issue anyway, it would be nice to not have to load  a different orbiter to exit mythfrontend...
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: efiniti on April 16, 2007, 03:09:51 am
i don't have a file called mythtvfrontend in /usr/bin.  i do have a file called mythtv though.  i guess that's what it is for me?

hi it is called mythfrontend, not mythtvfrontend.

media@dcerouter:~$ which mythfrontend
/usr/bin/mythfrontend


oops, yeah thnx.  unfortunately i don't think its working though.

edit:  ok apparently just a regen of the orbiter did it.  now it seems like mythtv is staying there.  cool, thanks corwin!
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: corwin on April 16, 2007, 10:01:45 am
...  the corwin workaround is working fine for me ...

"...and some have greatness thrust upon them..."

I never thought of this as a workaround... it was just a way to demonstrate that the problem is with LMCE killing the myth process right after starting it, rather than mythfrontend dying of its own accord. But hey, if it actually enables people to use myth, well, there are worse things to be famous for ;-).
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: NeonDemon on April 16, 2007, 05:05:25 pm
May not be very usefull. but I got a new TVout card and everything works great now.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: SkySpeedr on April 18, 2007, 08:34:42 pm
I'm having the same gray screen problem.  I just reinstalled everything after messing up my Media Director and not getting any support from fellow forum members on how to get it added back.  Anyway, before I messed up my Media Director I could get Mythtv running by starting mythfrontend from a terminal window but now I've reinstalled everything I can't even do that.  Now it complains about not finding the backend.  I'm new to all this so I'm not sure how to get the backend running, but it seems that on the first install LinuxMCE was at least starting the backend but the frontend was failing on startup. 

I spent a lot of money on getting great hardware for this project and was full of anticipation of great TV/DVR functionality, but I've been working on it for 3 weeks now and I'm beginning to think that MythTV is just that...a myth! 

 
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: tkmedia on April 18, 2007, 11:55:37 pm
If you want just the pure mythtv experience I have had great luck with knoppmyth.  It doesn't have any of the automation features but does a good job at Just Tv.




Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: mikeofaustin on April 19, 2007, 09:36:51 am
OMG!!!  There was a link on this page (on this thread) posted by someone, that was a workaround for this famous bug... Now the link is gone?!?!?!?   

   What, why, where, who, when?

(I need that link)

Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: cckrobinson on April 19, 2007, 03:47:58 pm

Code: [Select]
moon32# mv /usr/bin/mythfrontend /usr/bin/mythfrontend.real
moon32# cat > /usr/bin/mythfrontend
#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/mythfrontend.real $@
moon32# chmod +x /usr/bin/mythfrontend

Here's the work around that you are looking for.
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: SkySpeedr on April 20, 2007, 04:14:16 am
Thanks tkmedia!  I successfully installed Knoppmyth (after some drive reasignments) and it's working!  Now all I need to do is figure out how to set the screen resolution so that it displays full screen on my HDTV set, and also uses sda1 instead of hda1 (where Knoppmyth is installed) for storing video.  sda1 is a 300Gb SATA but hda1 is only a 40Gb IDE so I don't have much space for recording yet but at least it is working!!!

Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: avajon on April 23, 2007, 05:48:06 pm
hi,

i just wanted to know if someone has mythtv running in lmce? Or is this "bug" not fixed yet?

regards
avajon
Title: Re: Any solutions for disappearing mythtv frontend?
Post by: madboo on April 23, 2007, 06:47:38 pm
Using the workaround it works, although to be honest I forgot why I wanted to use linuxmce, none of the alleged out of the box features from the video worked out of the box.  I had an easier time modifying Knoppmyth to interact with my X10 system and remote than I did with linuxmce.  If myth worked well under MCE I would switch but I think I will wait for 1.1 before trying again...