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On 9/6/06, Toby Mills <toby@np.co.nz> wrote:
> Has anyone had any luck tracing the cause of the recent DVB issues that were
> widely reported.

Not me, other than establishing it's a memory leak.

> I'm running a skystar technisat with knoppmyth R5C7 with IVTV upgraded to
> 4.4.

I'm running Gentoo (mythtv-0.19_p9163-r1).

> Nothing odd coming up in any system or myth logs.

Are you seeing the kernel OOM system killing mythbackend in the kernel logs?

> My conclusion based on the fact that many people are having the same problem
> running various different versions of myth is that either something has
> changed in the DVB signal or there are too many errors or problems with the
> signal and either the card or mythbackend isn't coping with it.

I've seen similar reports on the main mythtv lists so I don't think
this is a TVNZ only issue.

I'm going to try switching to the Sky transmission today to see if
that makes any difference. Has anyone else tried this yet?

Cheers,
Steve

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Toby Mills wrote:
> Has anyone had any luck tracing the cause of the recent DVB issues that
> were
> widely reported.
>
> Is anyone running a DVB card and has not experienced crashes over the last
> week, if so could you perhaps post your setups and versions so we can
> perhaps find some commonality.
>
> I'm running a skystar technisat with knoppmyth R5C7 with IVTV upgraded to
> 4.4.
> Mythbackend consumes 100% system resources within about 30 minutes of
> opening the DVB card.
> Tonnes of free disk space and repaired and checked MYSQL tables.
> Nothing odd coming up in any system or myth logs.
>
> My conclusion based on the fact that many people are having the same
> problem
> running various different versions of myth is that either something has
> changed in the DVB signal or there are too many errors or problems with
> the
> signal and either the card or mythbackend isn't coping with it.

Must specific to DVB-S rather than DVB. No issues here with DVB-T based
devices with a similar R5B7 plus patches system.

Steve

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>Has anyone had any luck tracing the cause of the recent DVB issues that were
>widely reported.
>
>Is anyone running a DVB card and has not experienced crashes over the last
>week, if so could you perhaps post your setups and versions so we can
>perhaps find some commonality.
>
>I'm running a skystar technisat with knoppmyth R5C7 with IVTV upgraded to
>4.4.
>Mythbackend consumes 100% system resources within about 30 minutes of
>opening the DVB card.
>Tonnes of free disk space and repaired and checked MYSQL tables.
>Nothing odd coming up in any system or myth logs.
>
>My conclusion based on the fact that many people are having the same problem
>running various different versions of myth is that either something has
>changed in the DVB signal or there are too many errors or problems with the
>signal and either the card or mythbackend isn't coping with it.
>
>Regards
>Toby Mills
>www.np.co.nz
>

No luck tracing, but my machine hasn't actually crashed. I've just
noticed tremendously slow downs, towards the end of recording, and
this was verified watching top at the time.
Machine running FC5 x86_64 (kernel 2.6.17-1.2174), ivtv 0.7, 2GB RAM,
2GB SWAP, combined backend/frontend but only acting as a backend at
the time.

I don't know all the intricacies of top and what all the data means but:


3.5hr program on Sunday night
at start of recording Free Mem was around 1.6G and Free swap was 2G,
by the end of the recording Free Mem and Free Swap were both less
than 16M. Right at the end of the recording, before commflagging
started, the wa% was sitting around 80-95%. mythbackend CPU was
around 4% for the whole of the recording. Normally it's less than 1%
when using the PVR150.

2 x 1hr programs back to back on Monday night. At the end of the
first program Free Mem was less than 16M and Free SWAP was around
700M, about 3 minutes after the recording finished I got about 600M
of swap back. By the end of the second recording Free SWAP was back
down to 16M. A couple of minutes later it gave some back (900M or so)


So for some reason mythbackend just keeps grabbing memory and not
giving it all back. I'm guessing I haven't crashed yet, since I have
a bit more headroom.

One thing I have noticed in my backend log is towards the end of the
recording I have lots of messages like
[mpeg2video @ 0x31fac5c150]invalid mb type in I Frame at 1 31
[mpeg2video @ 0x31fac5c150]ac-tex damaged at 0 32
[mpeg2video @ 0x31fac5c150]ac-tex damaged at 0 33
[mpeg2video @ 0x31fac5c150]ac-tex damaged at 0 34

which from looking in the gossamer archives seems to suggest either
weak signal strength or PCI timing issues/conflicts between hard
drive controller and DVB card PCI bridge chip. The messages I saw
regarding the signal strength all said that their TV/STB had no
problem, just their DVB card/myth box. Which is similar to my
experience. So I think it's got to be the signal. Maybe it'll all
come right when the switch to Optus D1 happens (anyone have a
guesstimate?)

In the mean time I've switched the priority of my DVB card to be
lower than my PVR150

- Wade

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On 9/6/06, Steve Hodge <stevehodge@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm going to try switching to the Sky transmission today to see if
> that makes any difference. Has anyone else tried this yet?

Switch to Sky's broadcast (on 12671) didn't work.

Steve

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>No luck tracing, but my machine hasn't actually crashed. I've just
>noticed tremendously slow downs, towards the end of recording, and
>this was verified watching top at the time.
>Machine running FC5 x86_64 (kernel 2.6.17-1.2174), ivtv 0.7, 2GB RAM,
>2GB SWAP

Ok, yes you do have a bit more headroom than me, I've only got 512Mb in my
backend which is cutting it fine a bit, still its been ok for 6 months so
this is definitely something that has happened in the last week.
My mythbackend rarely crashes, the box just slows down to a crawl and pages
furiously, it often takes 3 or 4 minutes to ssh in and shut her down and
because it usually happens while the wife is standing over my shoulder
tapping her foot I haven't really had a chance to snoop around while its
doing it to diagnose any further.
I'll order some more RAM for a start which I've been meaning to do for ages
and hopefully that may reduce the swapping somewhat and give it a bit more
breathing space. I might also cron a daily reboot.

Cheers
Toby


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Toby Mills wrote:
>>No luck tracing, but my machine hasn't actually crashed. I've just
>>noticed tremendously slow downs, towards the end of recording, and
>>this was verified watching top at the time.
>>Machine running FC5 x86_64 (kernel 2.6.17-1.2174), ivtv 0.7, 2GB RAM,
>>2GB SWAP
>
> Ok, yes you do have a bit more headroom than me, I've only got 512Mb in my
> backend which is cutting it fine a bit, still its been ok for 6 months so
> this is definitely something that has happened in the last week.
> My mythbackend rarely crashes, the box just slows down to a crawl and
> pages
> furiously, it often takes 3 or 4 minutes to ssh in and shut her down and
> because it usually happens while the wife is standing over my shoulder
> tapping her foot I haven't really had a chance to snoop around while its
> doing it to diagnose any further.
> I'll order some more RAM for a start which I've been meaning to do for
> ages
> and hopefully that may reduce the swapping somewhat and give it a bit more
> breathing space. I might also cron a daily reboot.

Hmm Which DVB driver are you all using? Had a look at the dvb mailing list
and mercurial recently for changes?

Steve

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>
>
>Hmm Which DVB driver are you all using? Had a look at the dvb mailing list
>and mercurial recently for changes?
>
>Steve
>

I'm using whatever is part of FC5 (2.6.17-1.2174) via atrpms. I
haven't explicitly installed anything to get the card going.

Hints on how to identify the driver?

- Wade

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Wade Maxfield wrote:
>>
>>
>>Hmm Which DVB driver are you all using? Had a look at the dvb mailing
>> list
>>and mercurial recently for changes?
>>
>>Steve
>>
>
> I'm using whatever is part of FC5 (2.6.17-1.2174) via atrpms. I
> haven't explicitly installed anything to get the card going.
>
> Hints on how to identify the driver?

dmesg | grep -i dvb

and

lsmod | grep dvb

Should hopefully give you some idea of the driver which will you can then
check the version of using

modinfo "module_name"

eg

modinfo dvb-ttpci

Hope this helps

Steve

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>Hmm Which DVB driver are you all using? Had a look at the dvb mailing list
and mercurial recently for changes?
I installed 1.1.1 from source about 2 months ago, I unfortunately can't
install mercurial on my box due to dependancy issues which I don't have the
guts to try and iron out on a 'live' box. (it would require removing several
packages that myth depends on).
Does anyone have a tarball of the latest v4l-dvb source or know where it can
be downloaded from?
The tarballs on the linuxtv.org site appear to be out of sync with CVS.

Toby



-----Original Message-----
From: mythtvnz-admin@lists.linuxnut.co.nz
[mailto:mythtvnz-admin@lists.linuxnut.co.nz] On Behalf Of Steven Ellis
Sent: Wednesday, 6 September 2006 3:48 p.m.
To: mythtvnz@lists.linuxnut.co.nz
Subject: RE: [mythtvnz] Mythbackend crashes


Toby Mills wrote:
>>No luck tracing, but my machine hasn't actually crashed. I've just
>>noticed tremendously slow downs, towards the end of recording, and
>>this was verified watching top at the time. Machine running FC5 x86_64
>>(kernel 2.6.17-1.2174), ivtv 0.7, 2GB RAM, 2GB SWAP
>
> Ok, yes you do have a bit more headroom than me, I've only got 512Mb
> in my backend which is cutting it fine a bit, still its been ok for 6
> months so this is definitely something that has happened in the last
> week. My mythbackend rarely crashes, the box just slows down to a
> crawl and pages furiously, it often takes 3 or 4 minutes to ssh in and
> shut her down and because it usually happens while the wife is
> standing over my shoulder tapping her foot I haven't really had a
> chance to snoop around while its doing it to diagnose any further.
> I'll order some more RAM for a start which I've been meaning to do for
> ages
> and hopefully that may reduce the swapping somewhat and give it a bit more
> breathing space. I might also cron a daily reboot.



Steve

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>Wade Maxfield wrote:
>>>
> >
>> Hints on how to identify the driver?
>
>dmesg | grep -i dvb
>
>and
>
>lsmod | grep dvb
>
>Should hopefully give you some idea of the driver which will you can then
>check the version of using
>
>modinfo "module_name"
>
>eg
>
>modinfo dvb-ttpci
>
>Hope this helps
>
>Steve
>

Thanks Steve,

Excuse the verbose output, but this is what I get:

# dmesg | grep -i dvb
DVB: registering new adapter (FlexCop Digital TV device).
DVB: registering frontend 0 (ST STV0299 DVB-S)...
b2c2-flexcop: initialization of 'Sky2PC/SkyStar 2 DVB-S' at the 'PCI'
bus controlled by a 'FlexCopIIb' complete

# /sbin/lsmod | grep dvb
dvb_core 130800 2 b2c2_flexcop,stv0299
dvb_pll 47429 2 b2c2_flexcop,nxt200x

# /sbin/modinfo dvb_core
filename:
/lib/modules/2.6.17-1.2174_FC5/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-core/dvb-core.ko
description: DVB Core Driver
author: Marcus Metzler, Ralph Metzler, Holger Waechtler
license: GPL
vermagic: 2.6.17-1.2174_FC5 SMP mod_unload gcc-4.1
depends:
srcversion: 218720858132E49B71143E0
parm: dvb_net_debug:enable debug messages (int)
parm: dvb_powerdown_on_sleep:0: do not power down, 1: turn
LNB volatage off on sleep (default) (int)
parm: dvb_override_tune_delay:0: normal (default), >0 =>
delay in milliseconds to wait for lock after a tune attempt (int)
parm: dvb_force_auto_inversion:0: normal (default), 1:
INVERSION_AUTO forced always (int)
parm: dvb_shutdown_timeout:wait <shutdown_timeout> seconds
after close() before suspending hardware (int)
parm: frontend_debug:Turn on/off frontend core debugging
(default:off). (int)
parm: cam_debug:enable verbose debug messages (int)
parm: debug:Turn on/off debugging (default:off). (int)
parm: dvbdev_debug:Turn on/off device debugging (default:off). (int)

# /sbin/modinfo dvb_pll
filename:
/lib/modules/2.6.17-1.2174_FC5/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/frontends/dvb-pll.ko
description: dvb pll library
author: Gerd Knorr
license: GPL
vermagic: 2.6.17-1.2174_FC5 SMP mod_unload gcc-4.1
depends:
srcversion: 2C190ED28073D37F8CD6656
parm: debug:enable verbose debug messages (int)

I can see a srcversion but no nice pretty version number. 8)

- Wade

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Wade Maxfield wrote:
>>Wade Maxfield wrote:
>>>>
>> >
>>> Hints on how to identify the driver?
>>
>>dmesg | grep -i dvb
>>
>>and
>>
>>lsmod | grep dvb
>>
>>Should hopefully give you some idea of the driver which will you can then
>>check the version of using
>>
>>modinfo "module_name"
>>
>>eg
>>
>>modinfo dvb-ttpci
>>
>>Hope this helps
>>
>>Steve
>>
>
> Thanks Steve,
>
> Excuse the verbose output, but this is what I get:
>
> # dmesg | grep -i dvb
> DVB: registering new adapter (FlexCop Digital TV device).
> DVB: registering frontend 0 (ST STV0299 DVB-S)...
> b2c2-flexcop: initialization of 'Sky2PC/SkyStar 2 DVB-S' at the 'PCI'
> bus controlled by a 'FlexCopIIb' complete
>
> # /sbin/lsmod | grep dvb
> dvb_core 130800 2 b2c2_flexcop,stv0299
> dvb_pll 47429 2 b2c2_flexcop,nxt200x
>
> # /sbin/modinfo dvb_core
> filename:
> /lib/modules/2.6.17-1.2174_FC5/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-core/dvb-core.ko
> description: DVB Core Driver
> author: Marcus Metzler, Ralph Metzler, Holger Waechtler
> license: GPL
> vermagic: 2.6.17-1.2174_FC5 SMP mod_unload gcc-4.1
> depends:
> srcversion: 218720858132E49B71143E0
> parm: dvb_net_debug:enable debug messages (int)
> parm: dvb_powerdown_on_sleep:0: do not power down, 1: turn
> LNB volatage off on sleep (default) (int)
> parm: dvb_override_tune_delay:0: normal (default), >0 =>
> delay in milliseconds to wait for lock after a tune attempt (int)
> parm: dvb_force_auto_inversion:0: normal (default), 1:
> INVERSION_AUTO forced always (int)
> parm: dvb_shutdown_timeout:wait <shutdown_timeout> seconds
> after close() before suspending hardware (int)
> parm: frontend_debug:Turn on/off frontend core debugging
> (default:off). (int)
> parm: cam_debug:enable verbose debug messages (int)
> parm: debug:Turn on/off debugging (default:off). (int)
> parm: dvbdev_debug:Turn on/off device debugging (default:off).
> (int)
>
> # /sbin/modinfo dvb_pll
> filename:
> /lib/modules/2.6.17-1.2174_FC5/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/frontends/dvb-pll.ko
> description: dvb pll library
> author: Gerd Knorr
> license: GPL
> vermagic: 2.6.17-1.2174_FC5 SMP mod_unload gcc-4.1
> depends:
> srcversion: 2C190ED28073D37F8CD6656
> parm: debug:enable verbose debug messages (int)
>
> I can see a srcversion but no nice pretty version number. 8)
>
The two that are most interesting i've included output from one of my
boxes below

root@mythtv:~# modinfo b2c2_flexcop
filename:
/lib/modules/2.6.15-chw-2/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/b2c2/b2c2-flexcop.ko
author: Patrick Boettcher <patrick.boettcher@desy.de
description: B2C2 FlexcopII/II(b)/III digital TV receiver chip
license: GPL
vermagic: 2.6.15-chw-2 SMP preempt 586 gcc-3.3
depends:
dvb-pll,dvb-core,mt312,stv0299,lgdt330x,mt352,i2c-core,stv0297,nxt2002,bcm3510,firmware_class
parm: debug:set debug level
(1=info,2=tuner,4=i2c,8=ts,16=sram,32=reg (|-able)). (debugging is not
enabled) (int)
root@mythtv:~# modinfo stv0299
filename:
/lib/modules/2.6.15-chw-2/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/frontends/stv0299.ko
description: ST STV0299 DVB Demodulator driver
author: Ralph Metzler, Holger Waechtler, Peter Schildmann, Felix
Domke, Andreas Oberritter, Andrew de Quincey, Kenneth Aafl
license: GPL
vermagic: 2.6.15-chw-2 SMP preempt 586 gcc-3.3
depends: dvb-core,i2c-core
parm: debug:Turn on/off frontend debugging (default:off). (int)
parm: debug_legacy_dish_switch:Enable timing analysis for Dish
Network legacy switches (int)

Steve

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>The two that are most interesting i've included output from one of my
>boxes below
>
>root@mythtv:~# modinfo b2c2_flexcop
>filename:
>/lib/modules/2.6.15-chw-2/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/b2c2/b2c2-flexcop.ko
>author: Patrick Boettcher <patrick.boettcher@desy.de
>description: B2C2 FlexcopII/II(b)/III digital TV receiver chip
>license: GPL
>vermagic: 2.6.15-chw-2 SMP preempt 586 gcc-3.3
>depends:
>dvb-pll,dvb-core,mt312,stv0299,lgdt330x,mt352,i2c-core,stv0297,nxt2002,bcm3510,firmware_class
>parm: debug:set debug level
>(1=info,2=tuner,4=i2c,8=ts,16=sram,32=reg (|-able)). (debugging is not
>enabled) (int)
>root@mythtv:~# modinfo stv0299
>filename:
>/lib/modules/2.6.15-chw-2/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/frontends/stv0299.ko
>description: ST STV0299 DVB Demodulator driver
>author: Ralph Metzler, Holger Waechtler, Peter Schildmann, Felix
>Domke, Andreas Oberritter, Andrew de Quincey, Kenneth Aafl
>license: GPL
>vermagic: 2.6.15-chw-2 SMP preempt 586 gcc-3.3
>depends: dvb-core,i2c-core
>parm: debug:Turn on/off frontend debugging (default:off). (int)
>parm: debug_legacy_dish_switch:Enable timing analysis for Dish
>Network legacy switches (int)
>
>Steve
>

Ok. This is my version of those 2 in case this helps someone build a
bigger picture of what's going on.

# /sbin/modinfo b2c2_flexcop
filename:
/lib/modules/2.6.17-1.2174_FC5/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/b2c2/b2c2-flexcop.ko
author: Patrick Boettcher <patrick.boettcher@desy.de
description: B2C2 FlexcopII/II(b)/III digital TV receiver chip
license: GPL
vermagic: 2.6.17-1.2174_FC5 SMP mod_unload gcc-4.1
depends:
dvb-pll,dvb-core,stv0299,lgdt330x,mt352,i2c-core,nxt200x,stv0297,bcm3510,mt312
srcversion: F66A42ACF05FE3CD84BA2F7
parm: debug:set debug level
(1=info,2=tuner,4=i2c,8=ts,16=sram,32=reg (|-able)). (debugging is
not enabled) (int)

# /sbin/modinfo stv0299
filename:
/lib/modules/2.6.17-1.2174_FC5/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/frontends/stv0299.ko
description: ST STV0299 DVB Demodulator driver
author: Ralph Metzler, Holger Waechtler, Peter Schildmann,
Felix Domke, Andreas Oberritter, Andrew de Quincey, Kenneth Aafl?y
license: GPL
vermagic: 2.6.17-1.2174_FC5 SMP mod_unload gcc-4.1
depends: dvb-core,i2c-core
srcversion: 68721FB3A62E4F0D413B04C
parm: debug:Turn on/off frontend debugging (default:off). (int)
parm: debug_legacy_dish_switch:Enable timing analysis for
Dish Network legacy switches (int)

- Wade

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>Is anyone running a DVB card and has not experienced crashes over the last

>week, if so could you perhaps post your setups and versions so we can

>perhaps find some commonality.



Knoppmyth R5B7 with an updated mythtv 0.19-fixes, Technisat Skystar 2.6D,
and yes I suddenly started getting the crashes, usually (but not always)
within 30-40mins of starting a DVB-S recording. Sometimes (OK at least once)
it recorded a whole 2hr movie without a problem.



My experience exactly the same as described. Memory use on mythbackend would
grow to about 82% (ie full) and then (after lots of paging and disk
thrashing during which box was still recording but basically unresponsive to
ssh/web) would get killed. Lots of messages about memory and stuff in the
logs. I've only got 384M/980M swap which WAS fine up until now.



>My conclusion based on the fact that many people are having the same
problem

>running various different versions of myth is that either something has

>changed in the DVB signal or there are too many errors or problems with the


>signal and either the card or mythbackend isn't coping with it.



Yep I definately think its something changed in the signal. I was using
TV1&2 only on the Sky 12671 mplex. I tried rescanning and using Test1-4 that
are now being transmitted (not sure on which mplex, presume its one of the
TVNZ ones) but noticed the same memory creep while watching these channels
on live tv. So I've disabled the DVB-S card and everything is fine except
for the programs I can't record :-(



Has anyone tried this on the most recent 0.19-fixes? (Mine dates from January) Or on 0.20-SVN? Should we raise a ticket on the mythtv TRAC?


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On 9/6/06, Nick & Ann Read <nick.read@engineer.com> wrote:
> I've only got 384M/980M swap which WAS fine up until now.

Ha, I've only got 256M/512M. My box can only manage about 15mins of a
DVB recording now.

> Has anyone tried this on the most recent 0.19-fixes? (Mine dates from January) Or on 0.20-SVN? Should we raise a ticket on the mythtv TRAC?

I think someone should try svn before raising a ticket.

Cheers,
Steve

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Steve Hodge wrote:
> On 9/6/06, Nick & Ann Read <nick.read@engineer.com> wrote:
>> I've only got 384M/980M swap which WAS fine up until now.
>
> Ha, I've only got 256M/512M. My box can only manage about 15mins of a
> DVB recording now.
>
>> Has anyone tried this on the most recent 0.19-fixes? (Mine dates from
>> January) Or on 0.20-SVN? Should we raise a ticket on the mythtv TRAC?
>
> I think someone should try svn before raising a ticket.

Have you tried leaving the unit playing via mplayer or xine?

1. Shutdown mythbackend and mythfrontend

2. Make sure you have an approrpriate channel map for xine or mplayer

3. mplayer dvd://

4. Leave another terminal window open running top

5. Wait - Even try leaving it like this overnight.

That should sort out if it is the dvb driver or MythTV.

Steve

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On 9/7/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> Steve Hodge wrote:
> > On 9/6/06, Nick & Ann Read <nick.read@engineer.com> wrote:
> >> I've only got 384M/980M swap which WAS fine up until now.
> >
> > Ha, I've only got 256M/512M. My box can only manage about 15mins of a
> > DVB recording now.
> >
> >> Has anyone tried this on the most recent 0.19-fixes? (Mine dates from
> >> January) Or on 0.20-SVN? Should we raise a ticket on the mythtv TRAC?
> >
> > I think someone should try svn before raising a ticket.
>
> Have you tried leaving the unit playing via mplayer or xine?
>
> 1. Shutdown mythbackend and mythfrontend
>
> 2. Make sure you have an approrpriate channel map for xine or mplayer
>
> 3. mplayer dvd://
>
> 4. Leave another terminal window open running top
>
> 5. Wait - Even try leaving it like this overnight.
>
> That should sort out if it is the dvb driver or MythTV.

I just used dvbstream to grab about 30 mins worth without any
problems. That pretty much eliminates the driver, right?

Cheers,
Steve

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Guy's

I've chatted with Craig over at apsattv and he feels the error messages in the
log's are related to a bad video stream and our lockups could be caused by
too many signal dropouts.

Has anyone tried TVNZ off 12971v with any luck?

Definitely affecting us all the same way 1g of swap/mem will last about half
an hour until killed.

Only 12 day's till D1 goes up then shortly after we might be able to try
channels off it.

Tim

On Wednesday 06 September 2006 14:56, Wade Maxfield wrote:
> >Has anyone had any luck tracing the cause of the recent DVB issues that
> > were widely reported.
> >
> >Is anyone running a DVB card and has not experienced crashes over the last
> >week, if so could you perhaps post your setups and versions so we can
> >perhaps find some commonality.
> >
> >I'm running a skystar technisat with knoppmyth R5C7 with IVTV upgraded to
> >4.4.
> >Mythbackend consumes 100% system resources within about 30 minutes of
> >opening the DVB card.
> >Tonnes of free disk space and repaired and checked MYSQL tables.
> >Nothing odd coming up in any system or myth logs.
> >
> >My conclusion based on the fact that many people are having the same
> > problem running various different versions of myth is that either
> > something has changed in the DVB signal or there are too many errors or
> > problems with the signal and either the card or mythbackend isn't coping
> > with it.
> >
> >Regards
> >Toby Mills
> >www.np.co.nz
>
> No luck tracing, but my machine hasn't actually crashed. I've just
> noticed tremendously slow downs, towards the end of recording, and
> this was verified watching top at the time.
> Machine running FC5 x86_64 (kernel 2.6.17-1.2174), ivtv 0.7, 2GB RAM,
> 2GB SWAP, combined backend/frontend but only acting as a backend at
> the time.
>
> I don't know all the intricacies of top and what all the data means but:
>
>
> 3.5hr program on Sunday night
> at start of recording Free Mem was around 1.6G and Free swap was 2G,
> by the end of the recording Free Mem and Free Swap were both less
> than 16M. Right at the end of the recording, before commflagging
> started, the wa% was sitting around 80-95%. mythbackend CPU was
> around 4% for the whole of the recording. Normally it's less than 1%
> when using the PVR150.
>
> 2 x 1hr programs back to back on Monday night. At the end of the
> first program Free Mem was less than 16M and Free SWAP was around
> 700M, about 3 minutes after the recording finished I got about 600M
> of swap back. By the end of the second recording Free SWAP was back
> down to 16M. A couple of minutes later it gave some back (900M or so)
>
>
> So for some reason mythbackend just keeps grabbing memory and not
> giving it all back. I'm guessing I haven't crashed yet, since I have
> a bit more headroom.
>
> One thing I have noticed in my backend log is towards the end of the
> recording I have lots of messages like
> [mpeg2video @ 0x31fac5c150]invalid mb type in I Frame at 1 31
> [mpeg2video @ 0x31fac5c150]ac-tex damaged at 0 32
> [mpeg2video @ 0x31fac5c150]ac-tex damaged at 0 33
> [mpeg2video @ 0x31fac5c150]ac-tex damaged at 0 34
>
> which from looking in the gossamer archives seems to suggest either
> weak signal strength or PCI timing issues/conflicts between hard
> drive controller and DVB card PCI bridge chip. The messages I saw
> regarding the signal strength all said that their TV/STB had no
> problem, just their DVB card/myth box. Which is similar to my
> experience. So I think it's got to be the signal. Maybe it'll all
> come right when the switch to Optus D1 happens (anyone have a
> guesstimate?)
>
> In the mean time I've switched the priority of my DVB card to be
> lower than my PVR150
>
> - Wade
>
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--
Regards
Tim, Donna & Erin Gibson
ICQ - 2207616

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On 11:49 am 09/07/06 "Steven Ellis" <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> Steve Hodge wrote:
> > On 9/6/06, Nick & Ann Read <nick.read@engineer.com> wrote:
> >> I've only got 384M/980M swap which WAS fine up until now.
> >
> > Ha, I've only got 256M/512M. My box can only manage about 15mins
> > of a DVB recording now.
> >
> >> Has anyone tried this on the most recent 0.19-fixes? (Mine dates
> >> from January) Or on 0.20-SVN? Should we raise a ticket on the
> > mythtv TRAC?
> > I think someone should try svn before raising a ticket.
>
> Have you tried leaving the unit playing via mplayer or xine?
>
> 1. Shutdown mythbackend and mythfrontend
>
> 2. Make sure you have an approrpriate channel map for xine or mplayer
>
> 3. mplayer dvd://
>
> 4. Leave another terminal window open running top
>
> 5. Wait - Even try leaving it like this overnight.
>
> That should sort out if it is the dvb driver or MythTV.
>
> Steve
>



how does mplayer dvd:// help? It doesn't test mythtv or dvb.

perhaps you mean mythtv dvb:// ?


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Nick Rout wrote:
> On 11:49 am 09/07/06 "Steven Ellis" <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
>
>> Steve Hodge wrote:
>>
>>> On 9/6/06, Nick & Ann Read <nick.read@engineer.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I've only got 384M/980M swap which WAS fine up until now.
>>>>
>>> Ha, I've only got 256M/512M. My box can only manage about 15mins
>>> of a DVB recording now.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Has anyone tried this on the most recent 0.19-fixes? (Mine dates
>>>> from January) Or on 0.20-SVN? Should we raise a ticket on the
>>>>
>>> mythtv TRAC?
>>> I think someone should try svn before raising a ticket.
>>>
>> Have you tried leaving the unit playing via mplayer or xine?
>>
>> 1. Shutdown mythbackend and mythfrontend
>>
>> 2. Make sure you have an approrpriate channel map for xine or mplayer
>>
>> 3. mplayer dvd://
>>
>> 4. Leave another terminal window open running top
>>
>> 5. Wait - Even try leaving it like this overnight.
>>
>> That should sort out if it is the dvb driver or MythTV.
>>
>> Steve
>>
>>
>
>
>
> how does mplayer dvd:// help? It doesn't test mythtv or dvb.
>
> perhaps you mean mythtv dvb:// ?
>
Well spotted.. Typo. I did mean

mplayer dvb://

If you have a correct channels.conf it will tune and play your first dvb
channel

--
Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited
email - steven@openmedia.co.nz
sales - sales@openmedia.co.nz
support - support@openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz


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On 9:00 pm 09/07/06 Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> Nick Rout wrote:
> >
> > how does mplayer dvd:// help? It doesn't test mythtv or dvb.
> >
> > perhaps you mean mythtv dvb:// ?
> >
> Well spotted.. Typo. I did mean
>
> mplayer dvb://
>
> If you have a correct channels.conf it will tune and play your first
> dvb channel


I have a geexbox machine with a skystar dvbs card in it. (no room in the
mythbox and geex is a bit of fun really). I will set it to play tonight and
see what happens.

I also have a custom slax boot disk with dvb utilities included and can
have a play with that some time.


Its all a matter of time. The W (as in WAF) is watching the tv that has the
geexbox attached at present, if she stops watching it i can have a play :-)


>
> --
> Steven Ellis - Technical Director
> OpenMedia Limited
> email - steven@openmedia.co.nz
> sales - sales@openmedia.co.nz
> support - support@openmedia.co.nz
> website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz
>
>
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On 9/7/06, Tim, Donna & Erin Gibson <tim_donna@slingshot.co.nz> wrote:
> Guy's
>
> I've chatted with Craig over at apsattv and he feels the error messages in the
> log's are related to a bad video stream and our lockups could be caused by
> too many signal dropouts.

I don't think so - the picture is perfect. If it was either a bad
video stream or signal dropout (i.e. similar to rainfade) I'd expect
some degree of picture degradation.

> Has anyone tried TVNZ off 12971v with any luck?

Yes, no difference.

> Definitely affecting us all the same way 1g of swap/mem will last about half
> an hour until killed.
>
> Only 12 day's till D1 goes up then shortly after we might be able to try
> channels off it.

Cheers,
Steve

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>I don't think so - the picture is perfect. If it was either a bad video
stream or signal dropout (i.e. similar to >rainfade) I'd expect some degree
of picture degradation.

I'm noticing tiny glitches in the signal from the sky decoder, they are
about 10pix by 10pix blocks that flash on the screen for one frame every 2
or 3 minutes. This would indicate to me that even the sky decoders are
having a rough time although they seem to cope with dropouts much better.

Toby


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On 9/8/06, Toby Mills <toby@np.co.nz> wrote:
> >I don't think so - the picture is perfect. If it was either a bad video
> stream or signal dropout (i.e. similar to >rainfade) I'd expect some degree
> of picture degradation.
>
> I'm noticing tiny glitches in the signal from the sky decoder, they are
> about 10pix by 10pix blocks that flash on the screen for one frame every 2
> or 3 minutes. This would indicate to me that even the sky decoders are
> having a rough time although they seem to cope with dropouts much better.

Interesting. Anyone else seeing this? I haven't noticed anything
through Sky and I just looked at 5 mins of the stuff I grabbed
yesterday via dvbstream and couldn't spot any glitches in that either.

I'd expect that if the problem was signal dropout then dvbstream would
show the same behaviour as mythtv, but it doesn't - it's works
perfectly. So I'm still of the opinion that it's a bug in mythtv,
though I've got no theory on why it's suddenly appeared.

Cheers,
Steve

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I'm sure if there are small but noticeable glitches on Sky boxes our mythtv
setup will clean some of it up and we may see a picture that look's pretty
damn good... but could still cause a memory leak or something that is causing
us these headaches.

Tim

On Friday 08 September 2006 09:19, Toby Mills wrote:
> >I don't think so - the picture is perfect. If it was either a bad video
>
> stream or signal dropout (i.e. similar to >rainfade) I'd expect some degree
> of picture degradation.
>
> I'm noticing tiny glitches in the signal from the sky decoder, they are
> about 10pix by 10pix blocks that flash on the screen for one frame every 2
> or 3 minutes. This would indicate to me that even the sky decoders are
> having a rough time although they seem to cope with dropouts much better.
>
> Toby
>
>
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ICQ - 2207616

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