SOLVED - Switch to UI2 medium -- now the menus are really slow to respond

[freymann]

On our living-room machine, which connects to a big ole 32" CRT TV via SVideo, I originally was using the UI2 with alpha blending. The wife complained it was too hard to read the text in the guide or view the data grid, so yesterday I connected up my VGA LCD screen and set out to run the A/V Wizard and change to the UI2 Medium setting.

After trying to reach behind to connect to the monitor, I noticed the machine had locked up [first and only lockup in over a month]. When I rebooted the MD, I had no video at all to the VGA or SVideo, but I could hear the machine booting (the two sound effects were audible). Hmmm.

So I powered off again, yanked the side panel off to check for heat. No more than usual. I was using a nVidia 7200 PCIe video card with no fan, just heatsink, and the only other card in the box is the pvr-150, as far apart from the video as I can do.

So I leave the side panel off, power up again, and now I have video to the VGA and the text part appears on the SVideo, but as soon as it switches to 'windows' I get bloches of colors on the TV. So I'm thinking perhaps the video card took a power surge (the basement UPS was flickering on and off many times throughout the day. Today I'm getting a UPS for the living-room).

I had purchased a nVidia 7300GT PCIe video card with fan to test the old core as a MD, so I grabbed that video card and installed that into the living-room MD. When it booted up I held down the shift key to get the A/V Wizard to load up, selected SVideo and Medium UI, and this produced the same results as before. Nothing but large squares of colors on the TV.

Powered off again, went to a web browser, and in the Web Admin, I had it rebuild the Disk Image.

When that was finished, powered back up the living-room MD, walked through the A/V Wizard, selected SVideo and Medium UI again, and this time everything went according to plan.

My problem is now the LMCE Menu is super slow! If I'm watching TV inside MythTV and try to bring up the LMCE Guide, it takes about 10-15 seconds for it to come up on the left, and takes at least that much longer for the right panel to fill up. Trying to get the guide to flip up or down works, but much slower than before. When you press the right mouse button to close the guide, I'm left with a big black area where the guide was, and eventually it disappears, but in the meantime you can't see what's on the TV of course.

I thought the Medium UI would work better than the full blending setting.

At this rate, I think I'll just put back in the 7200 fanless video card and see what happens.... unless somebody here in the forums has run into this and knows a tip or two they can share with me?

I have found anytime I fiddle with the video settings, there's a 90% chance I'm going to get an error message about OpenGL and the Orbiter. It's not as simple as just trying the various video modes, at least for me.

This is on the AMD64 7.10RC2 version on the Core and MD. Full specs in my signature.

Thanks in advance for any tips or suggestions.

[Zaerc]

Check your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and make sure the driver is set to nvidia, and not the nv or vesa.

[freymann]

Check your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and make sure the driver is set to nvidia, and not the nv or vesa.

Yes, it's set to nvidia...

There's a bunch of other stuff in there too...

Code: [Select]

Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "Unknown Vendor Name"
BoardName "Unknown Board Name"
Option "LinearAlloc" "16384"
#BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
# Option "NoDDC" "true"
Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "true"
Option "renderAccel" "true"
Option "NoDDCValue"
Option "UseEDID" "false"
Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "true"
Option "NoLogo" "true"
Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
Option "ModeValidation" "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, AllowInterlacedModes, AllowNon60HzDFPMod
es"
Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
Option "UseEvents" "true"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV"
Option "TVOutFormat" "SVideo"
EndSection


[Zaerc]

Ok, the driver looks fine indeed.  Not sure what else it could be, but...

...
After trying to reach behind to connect to the monitor, I noticed the machine had locked up [first and only lockup in over a month]. When I rebooted the MD, I had no video at all to the VGA or SVideo, but I could hear the machine booting (the two sound effects were audible). Hmmm.
...

This reminds me of somebody who blew up his video card when connecting it to his TV, likely due to an earth loop frying it.  He had to replace the card, but you already tried that, so that can't be it.

...
I had purchased a nVidia 7300GT PCIe video card with fan to test the old core as a MD, so I grabbed that video card and installed that into the living-room MD. When it booted up I held down the shift key to get the A/V Wizard to load up, selected SVideo and Medium UI, and this produced the same results as before. Nothing but large squares of colors on the TV.
...

This reminds me of a machine with a broken PSU, everything worked fine for a while but suddenly the picture would get corrupted with specks.  Replacing the vga card didn't help, but after repacing the PSU it was running fine again.

...
Powered off again, went to a web browser, and in the Web Admin, I had it rebuild the Disk Image.
...

That would have been my suggestion as well, maybe even delete and recreate it.

...
When that was finished, powered back up the living-room MD, walked through the A/V Wizard, selected SVideo and Medium UI again, and this time everything went according to plan.

My problem is now the LMCE Menu is super slow! If I'm watching TV inside MythTV and try to bring up the LMCE Guide, it takes about 10-15 seconds for it to come up on the left, and takes at least that much longer for the right panel to fill up. Trying to get the guide to flip up or down works, but much slower than before. When you press the right mouse button to close the guide, I'm left with a big black area where the guide was, and eventually it disappears, but in the meantime you can't see what's on the TV of course.

I have seen that happen too, but you already checked the driver, so it must be a different issue.

...
I have found anytime I fiddle with the video settings, there's a 90% chance I'm going to get an error message about OpenGL and the Orbiter. It's not as simple as just trying the various video modes, at least for me.
...

That doesn't sound right, maybe there is another problem with the video driver.  The only suggestion I have left is to delete the MD and recreate it completely. 

[freymann]

This reminds me of somebody who blew up his video card when connecting it to his TV, likely due to an earth loop frying it.  He had to replace the card, but you already tried that, so that can't be it.

That's what I was thinking. Since I was reaching behind the computer blindly, I can understand how that could happen. When I got the same results with the other video card, it's making me think the original may be OK.

This reminds me of a machine with a broken PSU, everything worked fine for a while but suddenly the picture would get corrupted with specks.  Replacing the vga card didn't help, but after repacing the PSU it was running fine again.

Gee, I actually have two spares in the closet. If all else fails perhaps I can give that a whirl.

I have seen that happen too, but you already checked the driver, so it must be a different issue.

Today, after powering down everything to moving UPS's around, upon reboot, the MD in question is better but still slow in MythTV. Playing avi videos doesn't seem too bad, I can handle that. Bringing up the guide or adjusting volume under MythTV is still fairly painful.

On the good side, after the rebuild and after letting it 'settle' it started to download all the missing files to run the USB-UIRT and CM11A and a host of other messages on the orbiter screen (even after all the downloads in the CLI).

That doesn't sound right, maybe there is another problem with the video driver.  The only suggestion I have left is to delete the MD and recreate it completely. 

Awh, when you 'rebuild' does it still leave files behind?

So I can go to /usr/pluto/diskless/ (on the core, after powering off the MD) and do a "sudo rm -r 32" and then use the web interface to rebuild the image?

This box has worked 100% even a few months ago, so it's gotta some little round peg in a square hole somewhere....

Perhaps tomorrow I'll do the rm -r and rebuild.

[Zaerc]

I don't know if a rebuild would leave files behind, but for all I know some other setting in the database could be wrong, recreating would make sure it is fresh.

Some other things you could look at are the logs to see if something is failing or acting up, or see if there are any processes that are eating up all the cpu time with "top".

[freymann]

Some other things you could look at are the logs to see if something is failing or acting up, or see if there are any processes that are eating up all the cpu time with "top".

 I've had the MD on watching MythTV for about the last 2 hours and have been checking on it.

 Server load isn't high:

19:15:18 up  5:05,  1 user,  load average: 0.57, 0.63, 0.68

 (this is while MythTV is running)

and this is a typical top output:

Code: [Select]

Tasks: 179 total,   1 running, 178 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 10.0%us,  2.2%sy,  0.0%ni, 85.9%id,  0.0%wa,  0.5%hi,  1.5%si,  0.0%st
Mem:   1028348k total,   883844k used,   144504k free,      128k buffers
Swap:  3028212k total,   161932k used,  2866280k free,   524564k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                                                               
31144 root      15   0  511m  88m  41m S   17  8.9  16:07.33 mythfrontend.re                                                       
10244 root      14  -1  110m  35m  14m S    4  3.6   4:37.57 Xorg                                                                   
 6785 mythtv    15   0  502m  14m 6248 S    2  1.4   2:17.66 mythbackend                                                           
 4183 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S    1  0.0   0:51.54 cifsd                                                                 
11151 root      15   0  390m  37m 9548 S    0  3.7   0:55.65 OrbiterGL                                                             
11769 root      19   0  9368 1236  876 S    0  0.1   0:11.19 Restart_MythBac                                                       
20810 sambahel  15   0 19084 1384  968 R    0  0.1   0:00.17 top                                                                   
    1 root      15   0  5124  576  496 S    0  0.1   0:01.81 init                                                                   
    2 root      11  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kthreadd                                                               
    3 root      RT  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.05 migration/0                                                           
    4 root      34  19     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0                                                           
    5 root      RT  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 watchdog/0                                                             
    6 root      RT  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.31 migration/1                                                           
    7 root      34  19     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/1                                                           
    8 root      RT  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 watchdog/1                                                             
    9 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 events/0                                                               
   10 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.23 events/1     

I see Restart_Mythbac popping in there now and then... is that normal?

Is there a way to fetch the temperature of the cpu from the command line?

I'll have a peek through the logs tonight too.

[freymann]

Here's a grep for WW in the Xorg.0.log file:

Code: [Select]

(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in "/usr/share/fonts/X11".
(WW) The directory "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/" does not exist.
(WW) The directory "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/" does not exist.
(WW) The directory "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/" does not exist.
(WW) The directory "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/" does not exist.
(WW) The directory "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/" does not exist.
(WW) The directory "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/" does not exist.
(WW) FontPath is completely invalid.  Using compiled-in default.
(WW) Warning, couldn't open module type1
(WW) NVIDIA(0): 32-bit ARGB GLX visuals require the Composite extension.
(WW) NVIDIA(0): Disabling 32-bit ARGB GLX visuals.
(WW) NVIDIA(0): Option "LinearAlloc" is not used
(WW) NVIDIA(0): Option "NoDDCValue" is not used
(WW) *** WARNING the legacy keyboard driver "keyboard" is deprecated
(WW) *** Using the new "kbd" driver for "Keyboard0".

 Are all the missing fonts normal?
 What about the missing module type1?
 And the 32-ARGB GLX visuals require the Composite extension line?

 I checked in the mythbackend.log. Everything is looking normal there. I see when I'm changing channels, no errors. It's expiring older shows or short shows on a few minutes before the news for example...

 syslog looks fine, and dmesg output.

 That's all for the time being.

[totallymaxed]

Awh, when you 'rebuild' does it still leave files behind?

So I can go to /usr/pluto/diskless/ (on the core, after powering off the MD) and do a "sudo rm -r 32" and then use the web interface to rebuild the image?

This box has worked 100% even a few months ago, so it's gotta some little round peg in a square hole somewhere....

Perhaps tomorrow I'll do the rm -r and rebuild.

Hmmm... We have found that 'rebuilding' does not always fix problems with an MD... and sometimes its more effective to delete the MD and let the PnP system re- detect the MD again. On 'Paper' 'rebuilding' the image of the MD should call the same scripts that adding an MD does... so I am not sure why this would be the case.

Use Web Admin - Wizards -> Devices -> Media Directors

Use the green 'Delete' button on the righthand side of the Web page next to the MD you have been having the problems with.

All the best

Andrew

[Zaerc]

Here's a grep for WW in the Xorg.0.log file:

Code: [Select]

...
(WW) NVIDIA(0): 32-bit ARGB GLX visuals require the Composite extension.
...

 Are all the missing fonts normal?
 What about the missing module type1?
 And the 32-ARGB GLX visuals require the Composite extension line?
...

That might be a problem, I don't see that in my log unlike the other (font-related) warnings that are not really relevant.

[freymann]

Here's a grep for WW in the Xorg.0.log file:

Code: [Select]

...
(WW) NVIDIA(0): 32-bit ARGB GLX visuals require the Composite extension.
...

 Are all the missing fonts normal?
 What about the missing module type1?
 And the 32-ARGB GLX visuals require the Composite extension line?
...

That might be a problem, I don't see that in my log unlike the other (font-related) warnings that are not really relevant.

 Any ideas how you get the "Composite extension"?

 Everything seems to be fine when watching AVI DivX movies. Menu response times are normal. It's under MythTV that it slower than usual now.

 I haven't done anything but reboot the computer yesterday when I installed the older UPS. I'll have to check MythTV again later this morning to confirm.

[freymann]

Today I thought I would spend some time on the upstairs MD to see if I can't get back the speed back on the pop up's like I had with UI2 High.

First, I yanked out the 7300 video and put back in the 7200 video card to see what would happen. On reboot, at the point where the graphical UI should come up, I got a couple small lines up on the SVideo out so I figured the card was indeed whacked. The text print when it first booted was fine on the TV.

Second, put the 7300 back in, reboot. Get the same small couple lines up top! Ok, I'm not in a panic today. So I look on the web admin page and I notice the resolution is whacked and changed it back to 640x480 and then go up and reboot the MD.

Third, now I'm getting the error message about OpenGL but I remember to check the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to ensure the video driver is nvidia. Awh ha. It's set to nv so I edit it back to nvidia, go upstairs and reboot the MD again.

This time? Complete success! (but I set it back to UI2 High!)

Now to test how things work when MythTV is running:

The LMCE TV Guide pops up quick and flips around and loads up the data like it was before.

The LMCE menus pop up like the used to!

Beauties.

I did add a squirrel fan immediately below the video card. The 7300 has a fan on it and it will actually blow the heat off the video card directly into the squirrel fan which will then blow it out the back. The fan is one of these models:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/New-PCI-Slot-Exhaust-Cooling-Fan-Easy-Overclock-CPU_W0QQitemZ150271077365QQihZ005QQcategoryZ3673QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I also used my IR heat thermometer yesterday and paniced when I noticed it up over 100 degrees! Since the CPU sits in the left cabinet of the tv stand with the door closed (preventing air from coming in the front of the box) I quickly opened the door and checked again about ten minutes later. Back to normal, which seems to be around 84 degrees.

This produces an interesting observation for LMCE...

When I run my MD at UI2 High it works fine.
Then, make no other changes except run the A/V Wizard and select UI2 Medium, and now the pop up menus appear so slowly, and respond so slowly, I hated it!

Shouldn't the effect be the other way around? Something to keep in mind. I'm glad the MD is back to the way it was. I changed it so the wife could read the writing better but she's going to have to learn to like it the way it is.