> On 08/07/07 03:34:15, William Powers wrote:
>> I am consistently having a problem with hard lockups that occur every
>> few days to every few weeks. I am reasonably confident I have
>> isolated
>>
>> it to the ivtv driver. The problem was not present in 0.4.8. It is
>> present in 0.8.2, 0.9.1, 0.10.1, 0.10.2 and 0.10.3. Other than that,
>> I
>>
>> cannot say exactly when the problem appeared.
>>
>> For info, I have two PVR-250 MCEâs and one PVR-500 MCE. I also make a
>> fair amount of recordings; between 4 and 10 a day. The lockups only
>> occur at the very start of a recording; if the recording starts
>> successfully, everything is good until the next recording tries to
>> start.. After a lockup and a hard reboot of the box, there is never
>> anything in the logs or other messages to indicate what the problem
>> might have been: Just a âBâ (zero length) file for the recording
>> that
>> failed to start properly.
>>
>> I tried to work my way out of the problem with hardware and software
>> changes. Hardware-wise Iâve changed pretty much everything in the box
>> except the video hard drive, which is itself a recent WD 500G SATA
>> drive. Iâve also made all of the software changes and tweaks I could
>> find documented in the mailing list archives and the wiki.
>>
>> For the record, the following is a chronology of the biggest hardware
>> and software changes that I made and how they did or did not effect
>> the
>> problem:
>>
>> 0.4.8, FC3, 2.6.15, Sempron 64 2600, NF3-250, 2G DDR-400, jfs â
>> perfect
>> in every way except choppy HD playback from the slave backend.
>>
>> 0.4.8, FC3, 2.6.15, Pentium D-820, Intel 865, 2G DDR-400, jfs â
>> perfect
>> in every way
>>
>> 0.10.1, FC6, 2.6.19, Pentium D-820, Intel 865, 2G DDR-400, jfs â poor
>> video quality, intermittent lockups
>>
>> 0.10.2, FC6, 2.6.19, Pentium D-820, Intel 865, 2G DDR-400, jfs â poor
>> video quality, intermittent lockups
>>
>> 0.10.2, FC6, 2.6.19, Pentium D-820, Intel 865, 2G DDR-400, ext3 â
>> poor
>>
>> video quality, intermittent lockups
>>
>> 0.10.3, FC6, 2.6.19, Pentium D-820, Intel 865, 2G DDR-400, ext3 â
>> excellent video quality, intermittent lockups
>>
>> 0.10.3, FC6, 2.6.19, Core 2 Duo E6420, NForce 650i, 2G DDR2-800, ext3
>> â
>> intermittent lockups
>>
>> 0.10.3, FC6, 2.6.20, Core 2 Duo, E6420, NForce 650i, 2G DDR2-800,
>> ext3,
>> maxcpus=1 - ran 23 days before locking up.
>>
>> 0.10.3, FC6, 2.6.20, Core 2 Duo, E6420, NForce 650i, 2G DDR2-800,
>> ext3
>> â
>> locked up after three days.
>>
>> The slave backend is similar (FC6, 2.6.19, E4300, Intel 865, 2G
>> DDR-400,
>> jfs) except that it doesnât have IVTV installed and it has not
>> sufferedm
>> a single lockup or failure to record throughout the same period.
>>
>> At this point, my best option appears to be to go back to 0.4.8.
>> Unfortunately, going back to 0.4.8 means going back to a kernel
>> version
>> <= 2.6.15 which wonât support my current motherboard, so I have kinda
>> painted myself into an upgrade corner. Iâll either have to buy yet
>> another new motherboard, one with a 945 chipset perhaps, or Iâll have
>> to
>> do a big hardware round-robin to free up an older chipset motherboard
>> for the Myth box, one that certainly wonât support HD playback. That
>> leaves me back where I started. My only other option is to replace
>> the
>>
>> video partition hard drive.
>>
>> In the meantime, while I think about what course to take, I would
>> appreciate any suggestions on ways to further troubleshoot or isolate
>> the problem. Downgrading might fix my stability problem but, even if
>> it
>> does, it wonât help fix the driver.
>>
>> Bill
>
> Yep, I have the same.
> It has always happened to my knoppmyth box, various versions, various
> hard configs.
> Always at the start of a recording.
> Sometimes we can stay up for 20 days days sometimes its 1.
> I used to get dumps in the log but they disappeared, with one of the
> upgrades.
>
> I do remote logging and removed the caching so that the log would
> appear in real time.
>
> I have a aviosys power switch box and chunk of code that looks for
> mythtv not working and then it power cycles it.
>
> Not the best solution but it seems to work.
>
> Also need to remove the lock file since knoppmyth does not do this on
> boot and then the backend wont start.
>
> At the moment, my myth box won't start unless I hit a key on the
> keyboard, I have not idea what has caused this new feature! I did have
> to put a new power supply in the other day when the smoke that makes it
> work leaked out.
This week I'll release ivtv-0.10.4 which fixes one deadlock that can occur
if both a video and a vbi stream is opened almost simultaneously. This
might (or might not) be the cause of these problems. But in addition it
will also have improved logging that should make it easier to trace issues
like this.
If MythTV does indeed open both the vbi and video device when a recording
starts, then this is almost certainly the cause of the lock up and then
ivtv-0.10.4 will fix it.
Regards,
Hans
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