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Paul Wayper | 7 Jul 2012 07:07
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[clug] MythTV backend uncommunicative


Hi all,

I've recently upgraded my home server to CentOS 6 and MythTV 0.25, and all of
a sudden my MythTV backend is just not responding to network traffic.  I can
see the TCP handshake, and the front end or other program sends its MYTHPROTO
handshake, but the backend just never seems to respond and, from strace and
mythbackend's debugging, it's like the packet never actually gets received.

Has anyone seen anything like this before?  I'm kind of stumped at this point
I know that there's something going wrong here but I have no idea what may
be causing it.

I've checked the firewall - the machine's firewall isn't preventing the packet
from getting through.

netstat says that the program is listening on port 6543 on all interfaces.

mythbackend --printsched -v all and similar shows that the program is able to
talk to the database on port 3306.

Any ideas of things I can pursue to fix this would be greatly appreciated,
because I'm at a bit of a dead end.

Thanks in advance,

Paul
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Eyal Lebedinsky | 7 Jul 2012 07:20
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Re: [clug] MythTV backend uncommunicative

Are the front- and back-end on the same machine? If not, then ensure that
the exact same version is installed everywhere. Mythtv is amazingly unforgiving
any version mismatch (if I was doing such a design I would be fires on the spot).
Even if I did not mention that the client talks directly to the DB...

Can you browse to port 6544 on the server?

This, of course, does not matter if the frontend is a DLNA client.

Eyal

On 07/07/12 15:07, Paul Wayper wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hi all,
>
> I've recently upgraded my home server to CentOS 6 and MythTV 0.25, and all of
> a sudden my MythTV backend is just not responding to network traffic.  I can
> see the TCP handshake, and the front end or other program sends its MYTHPROTO
> handshake, but the backend just never seems to respond and, from strace and
> mythbackend's debugging, it's like the packet never actually gets received.
>
> Has anyone seen anything like this before?  I'm kind of stumped at this point
> - - I know that there's something going wrong here but I have no idea what may
> be causing it.
>
> I've checked the firewall - the machine's firewall isn't preventing the packet
> from getting through.
>
(Continue reading)

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Paul Wayper | 7 Jul 2012 12:55
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Re: [clug] MythTV backend uncommunicative


On 07/07/12 15:20, Eyal Lebedinsky wrote:
> Are the front- and back-end on the same machine? If not, then ensure that
> the exact same version is installed everywhere. Mythtv is amazingly unforgiving
> any version mismatch (if I was doing such a design I would be fires on the spot).
> Even if I did not mention that the client talks directly to the DB...

Client can talk to the database no problems.  It's the client handshake to the
mythtv server that's not happening.  I've had slight version mismatches in the
past without this problem - point releases within a version will work, but
0.24 won't talk to 0.25.

> Can you browse to port 6544 on the server?

Nope.  Looks like the same problem.

I'm trying an alternate repository (ATrpms instead of RPMFusion) for the
package, to see if that helps.  Then I will try compiling from source.

Thanks in advance,

Paul
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Paul Wayper | 8 Jul 2012 02:16
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Re: [clug] MythTV backend uncommunicative


Hi all,

Well, the good news is that I removed the RPMFusion packages (thanks to
yum-plugin-remove-with-leaves) and installed the ATRPMs packages (slightly
more bleeding edge), and now it Just Works.  I don't know what had wedged
where, but it's clear that it wasn't my configuration...

The next niggle is that the sound is no longer sent to the HDMI connector on
the front end.  When I select the HDMI connector in ALSA, nothing comes out on
either the TV or the computer output; ALSA can output to the computer's normal
audio out but the TV expects the audio on HDMI when it's video is coming from
HDMI.  I may try going back to the VGA cable and see if it looks OK with
1920x1080 (or even if the video card can detect the TV goes up to that at all).

Onwards.

Have fun,

Paul
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Stephen Gibson | 9 Jul 2012 00:20
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Re: [clug] MythTV backend uncommunicative

Hi Paul,
             As you have determined 0.25 frontend will not interrogate a 
0.24 (and below) backend. My mythbuntu distribution automagically 
updated the backend database to the new format (both on the same host 
PC). I discovered the incompatibility after playing with the mythtv 
addon for xbmc (on an ATV2), which does not yet talk with 0.25.

Sound via HDMI does work. Let me know if you need the settings.

Steve.

On 08/07/12 10:16, Paul Wayper wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hi all,
>
> Well, the good news is that I removed the RPMFusion packages (thanks to
> yum-plugin-remove-with-leaves) and installed the ATRPMs packages (slightly
> more bleeding edge), and now it Just Works.  I don't know what had wedged
> where, but it's clear that it wasn't my configuration...
>
> The next niggle is that the sound is no longer sent to the HDMI connector on
> the front end.  When I select the HDMI connector in ALSA, nothing comes out on
> either the TV or the computer output; ALSA can output to the computer's normal
> audio out but the TV expects the audio on HDMI when it's video is coming from
> HDMI.  I may try going back to the VGA cable and see if it looks OK with
> 1920x1080 (or even if the video card can detect the TV goes up to that at all).
>
> Onwards.
(Continue reading)

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Paul Wayper | 10 Jul 2012 13:26
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Re: [clug] MythTV backend uncommunicative


On 09/07/12 08:20, Stephen Gibson wrote:
> Sound via HDMI does work. Let me know if you need the settings.

It used to work for me using the Nouveau drivers but on the Ion they are
simply not fast enough to do high def video decoding.  Even at standard def
they produced a lot of tearing in the middle of the screen, most noticeable in
pan shots.  I installed the NVidia drivers and they solved that; but then HDMI
sound wouldn't work.

The sound controls in MythTV indicate that the front end has a ALSA:hdmi
device that it can put sound to.  This also indicates that it can take a
variety of digital inputs - e.g. Dolby DTS.  I've tried turning all those off,
all on and only Dolby DTS on; no sound comes out of the TV in any of those
configurations.  The standard ALSA analogue audio, and the PulseAudio output,
work - but they output to the standard audio output, not the HDMI.

What have you done with your config, Steve?

(Posting to the list in the hopes that some edification results).

Have fun,

Paul
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Stephen Gibson | 10 Jul 2012 13:48
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Re: [clug] MythTV backend uncommunicative

Note, nothing clever on my part, I am pretty sure that the audio was 
automagically detected with the mythtv wizard.

Mythfrontend audio:

ALSA:hw:CARD=PCH,DEV=7

no digital component items

Speaker config: Stereo

HDMI connected to TV.

This system is ASRock H61M/U3S2

dmesg | grep sound
[    4.346365] input: HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=7 as 
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input4
[    4.346438] input: HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=3 as 
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input5
[    4.346504] input: HDA Intel PCH Line as 
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input6
[    4.346564] input: HDA Intel PCH Rear Mic as 
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input7
[    4.346619] input: HDA Intel PCH Line-Out as 
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input8

Steve.

On 10/07/12 21:26, Paul Wayper wrote:
(Continue reading)

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Ian Munsie | 12 Jul 2012 10:49
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Re: [clug] MythTV backend uncommunicative

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 9:26 PM, Paul Wayper <paulway@...> wrote:
> The sound controls in MythTV indicate that the front end has a ALSA:hdmi
> device that it can put sound to.

<snip>

> The standard ALSA analogue audio, and the PulseAudio output, work - but they
> output to the standard audio output, not the HDMI.

Hey Paul,

Disclaimer: I haven't ever done this :/
All my below knowledge actually comes from getting PulseAudio to route to
anything BUT the HDMI that it uselessly decided to default to ;)

To get PulseAudio to route the audio out HDMI you need to run Pulse Audio
Volume Control (pavucontrol), and check:
1) In the configuration tab, check that the HDMI device is enabled and set to
   an appropriate profile (since you are using an nVidia graphics card this
   should show up as a separate device to your normal sound card).
2) In the playback tab, that the stream from MythTV is being routed to the HDMI
   device (you may first need to get MythTV to start playing something for it
   to appear in this tab).
3) There are also settings in the output devices tab that may be relevant.

I don't know whether this will solve your problem, since you note that
ALSA:hdmi doesn't work, and AFAIK PulseAudio will route to that.

Also, Appendix I in the nVidia driver documentation points to this document
which has a lot of troubleshooting info, known bugs, etc:
(Continue reading)

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