[mythtvnz] Recordings not happening without a reboot

[Stephen Worthington]

On Fri, 20 Jun 2014 09:18:53 +1200, you wrote:

>On 19/06/14 19:41, Stephen Worthington wrote:
>> On Thu, 19 Jun 2014 19:21:04 +1200, you wrote:
>> 
>>> My MythTV woes continue.
>[snip]
>>>
>>> How can I start to diagnose the problem?
>> 
>> If you look at the Upcoming Recordings list, are your recordings still
>> there?  What does mythbackend.log actually show around the time of the
>> a scheduled recording that did not happen?  If you shut down
>> mythbackend after recordings have failed ("stop mythtv-backend"), does
>> the log show anything then?  Does it shut down cleanly?  Is your
>
>The recordings are still there and the log has nothing
>
>Jun 19 17:55:09 gently mythbackend[1605]: I HouseKeeping
>housekeeper.cpp:225 (R\
>unHouseKeeping) Running housekeeping thread
>Jun 19 18:00:09 gently mythbackend[1605]: I HouseKeeping
>housekeeper.cpp:225 (R\
>unHouseKeeping) Running housekeeping thread
>
>Should have recorded both news programmes

OK, so the problem would seem to have happened further back in time.
But I am surprised that there is nothing logged if your schedule is
still showing the scheduled recordings at that time.

>> database OK - is anything reported in the daily email from the
>> /etc/cron.daily/optimize_mythdb run?  If you are not set up to receive
>
>That file does not exist

It is always a good idea to have the automatic daily optimise enabled.
Run mythbuntu-control-centre and go to the MySQL tab.  Set the two
options:

  Enable daily MySQL DB Optimse/Repair cron job
  Enable MySQL performance tweaks

and Apply them.

You should also already have smartd installed to monitor you hard
drives via SMART and email you if any problems occur (smartmontools
package).  Doing that normally also gets you to install email on the
box (postfix and mailx packages if I remember correctly), and having
them installed allows cron jobs such as optimise_mythdb to email you
their results.  To see those emails, you need to run a command prompt
as root and run the mail command.  You can also set things up so that
the emails are sent on to an external email address such as your
regular email address.

>> those emails, try running that command manually from a root prompt or
>> sudo.
>
>> 
>> To get more relevant data logged, you should probably add the "-v
>> record" option to the end of the line in /etc/init/mythtv-backend.conf
>> that runs mythbackend.  Then do the command "restart mythtv-backend"
>> (not while recording, obviously).
>
>Hmm...  More logs!  OK
>
>
>> Are all your tuners working?  Go to WatchTV, then use the M -> Source
>> -> Switch Input menu to change to one multirec tuner from each of your
>> physical tuners and make sure each tuner is working.
>> 
>
>I have tested that.  No they are not.   forgot that in my original email.

So the tuners have stopped working at some point before you notice the
lack of recordings.  That is a big symptom.  You need to go back
through the logs (including syslog and kern.log) from when recordings
fail to see if there is anything about the tuners.  And you should try
"restart mythtv-backend" rather than a reboot to see if that gets
things working again - it might be the tuners are working but
mythbackend is not talking to them.  And check they are still there
when the problem happens - do "ls -al /dev/dvb*".  If mythbackend
could not see the tuners, it should have been marking all the
scheduled recordings as conflicts.

>> One more thing to check - is the partition with your database on it
>> full?  Do you have a runaway log file?  That can may mythbackend do
>
>No.  It is not full.
>
>Thanks for your attention.  I have to go away for 3 days now so I'll
>check the logs on my return to see if there is anything more interesting
>in there.
>
>Worik