[pvrusb2] Mythtv hangs on livetv

[Mike Isely]

On Tue, 13 Dec 2005, Julio Arruda wrote:

> From a couple of tests I did few weeks ago, is not exactly MythTV hanging..
> It seems when you start to 'read' from the livetv buffer (or from the 
> blablabal .nuv 'non-live' recordings in my case also, while they are being 
> recorded),the pvrusb2 driver can't read from the PVRUS2 box anymore.

Are you seeing any log messages from the driver which might suggest this?

If you go back to an older driver snapshot does the problem still happen?

If you cat /dev/video0 (or whatever your /dev name is), does it fail 
there?

If you try mplayer /dev/video0 (or whatever your /dev name is), does it 
also fail there?

Diagnosing a problem like this is a matter of searching out clues and 
ruling out common causes.  Though the pvrusb2 driver has had some recent 
changes, they are largely cosmetic in nature, so I would expect bugs 
introduced by such changes to NOT be subtle.  (The buffering code in 
particular has not changed at all.)  On the other hand I have learned over 
time that MythTV is an unending source of stability headaches - stuff that 
works one week stops working in a future snapshot.  Somebody here recently 
said that he's using a recent snapshot because "now it's possible to watch 
a recording while it's being recorded" - well I've been doing that with 
version 0.18.1 since last May so I guess this was something that had been 
broken and since reintroduced as a new feature.

Anyway, rather than laying blame here, what really needs to happen is that 
we have to rule things out.  If for example somebody can demonstrate the 
hang with mplayer, then MythTV will have been ruled out.  On the other 
hand if mplayer continues to be stable, if you can "cat" the video for 
hours on end, and if xawtv is stable (well, at least if it is as stable as 
it usually is), then that might point the finger at MythTV.  Along with 
that, if you can extract suspicious entries in your kernel log from the 
pvrusb2 driver (like for example the driver complaining about timeouts to 
the hardware), then that's a solid clue suggesting a driver and/or a 
hardware problem.

The only clues I see so far are in the log that Roger sent, and it is 
pretty suggestive of some kind of clash between MythTV and the X server he 
is running.

I'll keep an eye out for problems on my end, but so far I haven't seen any 
(well I haven't seen any *new* problems).

We need more information here.

   -Mike


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