Recent Changes

[Pantera116]

I have finally up dated my backend /frontend and my remote frontend to 0.24.

I was extremely careful and did a database backup prior to the update and also ran
clonzilla to do a / drive backup of both system to an external usb harddrive before
the upgrade.

Pleased to report the the upgrade went well. No real issues only the need to select
my sound card (Asus DX) on the backend machine.

Another change has been the move to a Playstation 3 remove from the hauppauge unit
i was using. The new remote is Bluetooth connected and works as a input deivce via
a belkin bluetooth dongle. I used the setup approach originally found to work on XBMC.
All working nicely.

next job is more storage.......

[marc]

Very interesting! You are giving me faith to try this out. I may ask for details on the steps. Great!

[Pantera116]

No problem marc if you want some more detail.

I should mention that now the 0.24 ppa repositories are selected i am continuing to get fixes updates.

My initial 0.24 fixes was 105 since then i have had 108, 112 and i am now on 116. None of these changes
have caused any problems.

I have this week been expanding my recordings storage. I ordered a 2tb Seagate LP barracuda (5900rpm)
which arrived Monday. Once i defined the single primary partition and formatted it in EXT4 i copied across
some 760gb of recording from my old 1TB drive. The file copying took about 2 hours as i was getting
sustained transfer rates of 90 to 95 Mb/s.

I had to check the UUID reference for the new drive and i was then able to change the /etc/fstab to mount
this new drive with the recordings in place of the original drive with its recordings. All working fine.

I am now in the process of amending the use of the other two 1TB drives on the system. I should hopefully
when i am all done have one of the drives for videos and the other for /var/lib/mythtv, this will include
music, pictures, fanart , exports etc. This is probably overkill, but i could not think how else to divide it up.

My / and home are on a separate small 40 gb drive.

Plans after this is possibly a DVB S2 card in order to pick up some FTA HD.

[marc]

Thanks! I'll probably focus on the backup questions first. I've been itching to change to arch for my backend but have always been afraid of loosing my recordings history. Everyone talks about the fragility of the db. Thus, I've never attempted anything so bold as a reinstall. I have stuck with ubuntu for years now.

So yes, I will be picking your brain.

[Pantera116]

If you want a minimum risk option why not get a spare hard drive to put a new install on.

I do not know how you have your set-up configured, but if you have OS and storage on separate
drives you could keep you current / drive as a fall-back option.

Your data base could be restored from backup on to the new disk. Instructions on the Mythbuntu
site cover this task well.

My reconfiguration of the two 1 TB drives is now complete and it is all working as it should.

I used a parted magic live CD to sort out the file moves, repartitioning, formatting and editing of the
fstab. I did initially try deleting unused partitions and resizing but it was really slow.

[marc]

I most likely will go this route as I have a spare drive.
I'm just not to trusting of migrating the DB.

So, your suggestion is the least risk as I can always make the old drive the first boot again if the new install fails.
Thankfully the media is all on a separate raid.

So, just downtime is the real risk. The damned thing is recording or being used nearly constantly.

Marc

[perato]

I've been using MythTV 0.24 for about a month on archlinux (combined frontend/backend). Generally, it is better than 0.23 although when playing some recordings, mostly from CBS, the MythTV internal player will hang when fast forwarding or rewinding. I have to kill mythfrontend and restart it.

[marc]

Whoa. That's strange. OTA 1080i recording? Which tuner do you use? You say FF. Do you mean skip forward and back?

[perato]

Yes, skipping. I don't mean speeding up playback. I use Hauppauge HVR-2250 for the tuner.. WNBC is 1080i but mythfrontend doesn't hang with those recordings. Sometimes recordings from WABC (720p) hang sometimes not. I only record OTA. I don't use cable, satellite, or FIOS TV.

[marc]

Yes, skipping. I don't mean speeding up playback. I use Hauppauge HVR-2250 for the tuner.. WNBC is 1080i but mythfrontend doesn't hang with those recordings. Sometimes recordings from WABC (720p) hang sometimes not. I only record OTA. I don't use cable, satellite, or FIOS TV.

Interesting. I'll be sure to test some 720P recordings before I update the remote front-ends.

[perato]

The problem was with the database. When upgrading from mysql 5.1 to 5.5, the 5.1 database would not work. I ended up dropping the database, downgrading mysql (and mysql-clients and libmysqlclient) back to 5.1, updating the firmware on the HVR-2250, and then running mythtv-setup again to setup the tuners. Skipping and commercial detection work with Mythtv 0.24 now.

[marc]

Wow, what a fix! Was this posted as a solution on one of the forum boards or did you sum up the problem on your own?

[perato]

I figured it out after I tried to optimize the database hoping that would fix the mysql 5.1 database and make it compatible with 5.5 after running mysql_upgrade didn't work. The optimize failed. So I tried to restore an old database, which failed. Then I tried dropping the entire database. Now I know how dependent mythtv is on mysql. The mysql database stores practically everything except for the recording file and the png screenshot associated with the recording. All tuner setup, schedule setup, program guide, recording rules, etc. are all in the mysql database. Luckily, I didn't have to reinstall the OS. When I ran Mythbuntu, trying to fix things was basically impossible, but luckily whenever something goes wrong in archlinux, there is a way to fix it or a way to work around it.

[marc]

I know that supposedly there is a database update that is to be selected from the mythtv backend setup.

Is that what failed originally?

I bet they have a database migration tool to split the old DB format to the newer tables. If not, too bad they don't have a fix which may let you move to the newer mysql.

I look forward to my upgrade to arch soon!

[perato]

The original problem was that archlinux updated mysql from 5.1 to 5.5. It wasn't a mythtv update. I don't use LinHES (based on Arch), which might have a graphical update program. IIRC, mythbuntu has a Mythbuntu Control Center from which you can update or you can use the regular ubuntu update graphical program. I ran "pacman -Syu" to update and upgrade the packages and did not notice mysql in the list of packages to be upgraded. That's what led to the upgrade from mysql 5.1 to 5.5, and mysql 5.5 could not read the mysql 5.1 database. I'll wait until Myth 0.25 is in arch repos and will try to upgrade Myth and mysql together.

I run archlinux on a desktop and on my myth box. I prefer it because of the customizability and more up to date software in repositories. For example, Myth 0.24 is not available yet in mythbuntu (except maybe in a PPA) but has been in arch repos for months now. I tried mythbuntu 10.04, mythbuntu 10.10, and I tried to install LinHES. I didn't even get past the LinHES installer. LinHES had limited options about how I could partition and format the SSD so I did not install it. I installed Mythbuntu 10.04 and it worked so-so but the log files would go haywire every so often and chew up an entire partition. Then I upgraded to 10.10 and the log files calmed down but recordings would sometimes get cut short. So I moved to archlinux and have had fewer problems and the problems I've had, I could fix. I would recommend archlinux if you want the customizability or the rolling release style. However, definitely read the Arch Wiki; the setup guides are excellent.