[mythtvnz] New install setup - recording problem

[Stephen Worthington]

On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 13:53:05 +1200, you wrote:

>
>Hi all,
>
>I'm working on a new install of mythbuntu 16.04.I have my previous install  
>of 12.04 on another drive.Both systems use the same 1TB storage.I restored  
>the db backup from 12.04 onto 16.04 and everything looks correct,I  
>carefully confirmed this against the 12.04 settings.On 16.04 I can watch  
>recordings and videos.I can also do channel scans with no apparent errors.
>
>If I try live tv I get a message saying all tuners are busy.If I try to  
>record a program in the guide I get a "recorder off_line" message.In the  
>Information menu section all tuners show "error".
>
>The tuners are a Haupauge 2200 and a HDHR and using HDHR config GUI and  
>Me-TV I have confirm the tuners are working.
>
>Mythbackend.log has a lot of these errors:
>
>Jul 29 11:58:03 myth mythbackend: mythbackend[2547]: E ProcessRequest  
>mainserver.cpp:4718 (HandleRemoteEncoder) MainServer:  
>HandleRemoteEncoder(cmd GET_STATE) Unknown encoder: 46
>
>Also,this may be totally unrelated, the directories and files on the  
>storage drive (/var/lib/mythtv) all had the owner and group listed as ntp.  
>I changed this to  owner: mythtv ;group:mythtv in accordance with what the  
>12.04 install has. I was getting "unable to create file  
>"var/lib/mythtv/recordings/.test" directory is not writable" messages on  
>startup.Changing the owner to mythtv eliminated these.
>
>Any suggestions will be much appreciated.
>
>-Paul

When you install a Linux system, the group ids and user ids are
assigned to the various groups and users.  But they can vary from one
Linux install to another, even if you use the same version of Linux.
So if you move a drive from one system to another, you often find that
the ids do not match and you get the wrong group or user.  So you may
need to chown all the directories and files to what they should be.
The chown command has a -R option to recurse directories, which helps.

As for your tuners, did you just restore the database without checking
the order the tuners are in?  Tuners can move in order between boots,
and they certainly move when installed in different slots or USB
ports, let alone when moved to a different motherboard.  So you need
to see which tuner should be on which /dev/dvb address and make sure
they are on the same ones that your old system had them.  This command
will show you what the database says the tuner addresses are:

select
cardid,parentid,videodevice,cardtype,defaultinput,tunechan,startchan,displayname,channel_timeout
from capturecard order by videodevice;

The videodevice field gives the address of the tuner.  So then you
need to use the adapter_nr option in your tuner driver setup to assign
the tuners to the correct address.  Not all tuners have the adapter_nr
option, and if any of yours do not, you will need to use udev rules to
assign them to the correct address.  But check first for adapter_nr as
that is much easier to use.

The modinfo command followed by the device driver name gives the
options for drivers.  Here is what my DVB-T drivers say:

root at mypvr:/etc/modprobe.d# modinfo dvb_usb_dib0700 | grep parm
parm:           force_lna_activation:force the activation of
Low-Noise-Amplifyer(s) (LNA), if applicable for the device (default:
0=automatic/off). (int)
parm:           debug:set debugging level (1=info,2=fw,4=fwdata,8=data
(or-able)). (int)
parm:           nb_packet_buffer_size:Set the dib0700 driver data
buffer size. This parameter corresponds to the number of TS packets.
The actual size of the data buffer corresponds to this parameter
multiplied by 188 (default: 21) (int)
parm:           adapter_nr:DVB adapter numbers (array of short)

To use the adapter_nr option, you need to create a .conf file in
/etc/modprobe.d.  I have mine in options-dvb.conf.  This is what I
have for my tuners:

#Set adapter numbers for Nova-TD 500 DVB-T card (dual tuners), and
AverMedia AverTV DVB-T Volar USB tuner (they use the same driver).
options dvb_usb_dib0700 adapter_nr=0,1,2

#Set adapter number for TurboSight TBS5922 QBOX S2 DVB-S2 USB tuner.
options dvb-usb-tbsqbox22 adapter_nr=3

#Set adapter number for TeVii S470 DVB-S2 PCIe x1 card.
options cx23885 adapter_nr=4

Finding the name of your tuner driver can be a bit difficult.  If you
do not know what it is, looking through the kern.log file for what
happens at boot time will normally tell you, but there are some
(fortunately rare) drivers that do not actually post any messages that
have the driver name in them.

If you can not use adapter_nr, let us know and we can try to help with
udev rules.

It is also possible that your tuner order is stable with each boot, in
which case you could just delete all your tuners in mythtv-setup and
re-create them.