2 instances of frontend starting
Okay, I'm posting this here as I think it's post-installation/setup issue. Having sorted out my problems with getting live tv going properly (here: http://mythdora.com/?q=node/853 ), I've realised that when I boot my myth machine (combined backend/frontend), it's starting two instances of the frontend. I'm pretty sure it's been doing this right from installation, but I've only just realised what the problem is (initially i thought that the frontend might have been automatically restarting when I exited to the desktop, but I've discovered that it's actually a second frontend running). Any idea why this might be happening? Are there any logs or anything that I can check to see what's happening or something I can alter to ensure that only one instance of the frontend is started?
Thanks very much,
jakes.
2 instances of frontened starting
For anyone who's still having this problem (as I was until yesterday)...I finally found the solution here:
http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2007-April/178231.html
In a nutshell, exit from the Myth frontend, and bring up the KDE Control Center. Go to "Session Control" and you'll find that "Restore Previous Session" is checked. Change it to start with a new session.
Thanks for all the great work with MythDora!
I think I found a cause for this
I have a frontend only system which was displaying the same behaviour.
It appears to be resuming a previous session as well as starting a new instance of mythfrontend. Only by explicitly exiting out of each frontend (and not selecting exit & shutdown) does it close off both instances completely.
I had thought it may have been due to remotely rebooting the system but I have been unable to duplicate this, I now think it is due to a system hang recently when the reset button was the only way to get control.
This fault will also show up as dual audio when the system is operated with a remote as it appears to send the remote keypresses to both instances resulting in an echo as the audio is played twice - even though you can only see one instance of the video at a time.
Steve
So are you saying that after
So are you saying that after a reboot when the system goes into it's frontend, you exit the frontend and then you have another frontend there waiting on you? What I want you to do is after a reboot when the frontend comes up, go to the xterm in MythDora Tools and enter ps -ef. See if you can see two frontends listed. Make sure you don't get confused on seeing a kde mythfrontend and a seperate mythfrontend on it's own cause one is spawned as a child process. I have this also but it's only one frontend instance.
I have the same frontend/backend install as you and have even entered in the backend workaround just to be sure it wasn't that and I only have one instance of the frontend. In your quest to solve the backend problem, you didn't alter anything by chance did you?
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
So I did what you suggested
So are you saying that after a reboot when the system goes into it's frontend, you exit the frontend and then you have another frontend there waiting on you?
Yes, that's correct and I can Alt-Tab between them. They're listed in the little window when you use Alt-Tab as mythfrontend and mythfrontend (2).
What I want you to do is after a reboot when the frontend comes up, go to the xterm in MythDora Tools and enter ps -ef.
Okay I ran ps -ef immediately after boot. I got two frontends listed, I couldn't tell if one was the kde frontend process that you're referring to. The entries in the processes list were like this:
mythtv 3177 3144 3 11:20 ? 00:00:00 mythfrontend -session 10fde1e8d8
...
mythtv 3279 3216 8 11:20 ? 00:00:00 mythfrontend
No mention of kde for either one. So I exited out of one of the frontends and ran ps -ef again and now have only:
mythtv 3279 3216 3 11:21 ? 00:00:05 mythfrontend
Is this what you'd expect?
In your quest to solve the backend problem, you didn't alter anything by chance did you?
I really hope not. I can't remember changing anything. I don't know enough about myth to even know what things I might change. Basically anything I did change was either at your suggestion, or was with the Utilities/Setup menus in mythfrontend. I haven't been digging around in config files, if that's what you mean.
Thanks again for your help,
jakes.
Quote:No mention of kde for
No mention of kde for either one. So I exited out of one of the frontends and ran ps -ef again and now have only:
mythtv 3279 3216 3 11:21 ? 00:00:05 mythfrontend
Is this what you'd expect?
No this isn't supposed to be happening. The KDE I'm refferring to is that you should see a process that is KDE related from a fresh reboot with mythfrontend.sh at the end like so"
/bin/bash /home/mythtv/.kde/Autostart/mythfrontend.sh
then a few lines under that then you should see the mythfrontend process.
If you exit the frontend and then get back in again you should see this type of process from ps -ef
/bin/bash /usr/local/pvr/mythfrontend.sh
with another mythfrontend right underneath.But your saying you don't have anything KDE related which doesn't make sense cause then the frontend wouldn't be starting automatically. That mythfrontend -session is the suspicious one. Not sure what happened here. This is the first I've heard of this glitch. We'll have to open up /usr/local/pvr/mythfrontend.sh and debug this somehow. If you can comment out mythfrontend where it says #Now fire up mythfrontend then save it and then reboot and we'll see if a frontend actually does startup somehow.
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
Hi Dennis, Okay, I made a
Hi Dennis, Okay, I made a slight error - my xterm window wasn't wide enough so I missed the /bin/bash /home/mythtv/.kde/Autostart/mythfrontend.sh, but it is there, and the normal mythfrontend process is a few lines below it just like you said. But the mythfrontend session process is before the kde mythfrontend process. When I exit from the first mythfrontend, this is the process that is killed. Opening an xterm in the second (still running) instance of the frontend, shows the processes just as you're describing they should be.
Commenting out mythfrontend from mythfrontend.sh stops mythfrontend starting at all. Using ps -ef i also checked, and that mythfrontend -session process hasn't started up either (ie, there are no mythfrontend processes starting by accident when mythfrontend is commented out).
Nevermind, problem seems to be fixed
It seems that the problem has fixed itself for some reason. I have rebooted several times in a row, just to check and now everything appears to be working correctly and only one frontend is starting up. Maybe changing the mythfrontend.sh file and not starting mythfrontend changed something? In any case, it's working properly now. Thanks again, Dennis, for your swift responses.
Hmmmm, me scratches
Hmmmm, me scratches head.....hehehe.
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
I also had multiple mythfrontend processes.
Hi all.
I just installed MythDora over the weekend (great package; many kudos doodtv!), and I saw the same thing -- several instances of mythfrontend.
I think this might be a "feature" of Fedora Core 5 or the window manager. When I first logged in (as root), I launched a few things like xload, Firefox, etc. I rebooted the machine, and when I logged back in (again as root), xload, Firefox, etc automatically relaunched. This behavior didn't exist in FC1 (what I had been running before installing MythDora).
During my initial experimentation with MythDora, the system hung several times, and each time I had to reboot the machine in a not-so-graceful way. At some point later I noticed several mythfrontend processes. I manually killed the mythfrontend processes, made sure they were gone, then rebooted the machine. After that reboot, I no longer had multiple mythfrontend processes.
I'm guessing that each time the machine hung and was rebooted, the previous mythfrontend processes were restarted in addition to a new mythfrontend process. Thus, I ended up accumulating mythfrontend processes.
I don't know if there's something that can be done to insure that only one mythfrontend process ever gets started. But, it could be that there are times when you want multiple frontends running on a machine (E.G., one on the console, one via a 'vnc' session, etc). Dunno...
-Jon
1/7/2007
-Jon
http://www.scheerfun.org/
Why are you logging in as
Why are you logging in as root? There is no need to do this. A mythfrontend for the user mythtv gets automatically started for you. You logging in manually as another user is more than likely the cause.
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
Oh, sorry I wasn't more clear...
Oh, sorry I wasn't more clear -- I needed to do some various house keeping things (configure and initialize VNC, etc).
-Jon
-Jon
http://www.scheerfun.org/
OK but are you continuing to
OK but are you continuing to log in as root? If you reboot, it will come up automatically in mythfrontend as user mythtv and should NOT be using multiple frontends. If it does then your install wasn't good or you logging in as root caused something.
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
Not as root.
No, I let the system come up and "do it's thing". Since I haven't finished configuring everything on the machine (samba, etc) I sometimes access the system as root via VNC, but my plan is to have it setup downstairs with the rest of my servers and run strictly as a backend.
-Jon
http://www.scheerfun.org/
-Jon
http://www.scheerfun.org/
Does it start multiple times
Does it start multiple times even if you are not logged into anything remotley? Do a ps -ef and see what is grabbing another frontend instance.
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
It's all good.
No, the multiple instances didn't come back once I killed them and rebooted the machine.
-Jon
-Jon
http://www.scheerfun.org/
doodtv - just to confirm multiple instances of frontend
Hi - just installed mythdora and can confirm i have had up to FOUR instances of frontend running at once!!. How does it happen? Well i haven't figured out yet how to close frontend and get back to the desktop. I ended up having to CTL_ALT_BKSPACE to start a new session, or else reboot by turning off the computer with mythdora running. The result was - each time i did either of these, i got myself another copy of frontend open.
I finally had to CTL-ALT-DEL to get the process manager, manually kill each copy, and then reboot the machine properly from the desktop.
BTW - how DO YOU close frontend and get back to the desktop. ESC will get me backwards through levels of menus but stops working at the main menu. It won't return me to the desktop. neither will the back key on my MCE remote which works well for any other required key press.
Also, while I am at it - why can i not resize any windows, or close them using the little "windows-type" cross in the top right of the window?
Grateful for any help,
RJ
Quote:BTW - how DO YOU close
BTW - how DO YOU close frontend and get back to the desktop. ESC will get me backwards through levels of menus but stops working at the main menu. It won't return me to the desktop.
Thats because ESC won't take you out to the desktop. You have to answer either yes or no if you want to exit out completely. If your not seeing this at all then you have a screen sizing issue. I have no idea how multiple frontends can get created and I ctl+alt backspace all the time. I have yet to see this happen on any version build or any testbox.
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
Sorry but...
Umm..
1. first, if I am at the screen in frontend that offers the alternatives of watch tv etc, - how do i get out and back to the desktop? If I press ESC, nothing happens. I am not offered any dialogues like "Are you sure you want to exit" etc.
2. Could you explain what sort of "screen sizing" problem I might have? I have been using linux now for nearly a year (four different distros) and I have never had any problems with this?
3. Sorry to be so noobie stupid but I am afraid I currently have FOUR instances of frontend open.. I had one open - and had to restart because I have no other way of getting back to the desktop and low and behold I Now have four. I can cycle through them using ALT-TAB
Strange But True
rj
There's your problem. If the
There's your problem. If the ESC key doesn't work then something is really wrong. Are you doing this via the keyboard or remote? Use the keyboard to find out. Have you changed the settings in frontend that doesn't allow ESC to work?
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
ESC works fine for all but final step
d00dtv
Thanks for sticking with me ... The ESC key works fine from both the PS2 keyboard and the remote. By that I mean if I am several levels down in some submenu or other, if I hit the escape key it takes me back up a level until I finally get back to the main menu. I can explore any of the menu options and get back again via ESC. It is just that when i am at the opening menu, ESC does nothing at all. That is, I cannot ESC from the frontend menu back to the desktop (except by rebooting). I have now created a new user that enables me to avoid the autostart feature of mythdora when the user is mythtv.
I have not made any changes to the settings except to enter my IP address under General, and a few other basic setups for my card etc. I have left all other settings as the defaults. I am thinking i might just try a re-install.
rj
d00dtv Just to let you know,
d00dtv
Just to let you know, a re-install solved the various issues of
1. not able to resize windows
2. multiple instances of frontend
3. ESC key not working to exit main frontend menu.
Not sure how or why but it's fixed. Now if i can just get a signal from my sky digibox .... !!!!