MythTV Paully

Introduction
This page has all my tips, tricks, help and notes for MythTV. Some of the data is based upon my geographical location - which is Folkestone, Kent, UK.

Cannot Play Or Rip DVD Movies / 'Missing' DVD-ROM Drive
Problem - You cannot play or rip DVD movies. It just quits back to the menu.

Reason - This is due to the UDEV software rediscovering the PCI bus and not creating the correct symlinks for /dev/dvd. This can happen if you have changed the hardware inside your computer (e.g. new DVD-ROM drive or motherboard) since you first installed the MythTV software.

Solution - Removing the file /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-cd.rules and reboot will recreate the file with default udev rules and the cdrom, cdrw, dvd and dvdrw symlinks will be restored and pointing to the right device.

Missing MythWeb Posters
Problem - The Internet Movie Database posters are shown as 'Missing Cover' from the Videos section of MythWeb.

Reason - This is due to a bug in the setup of MythWeb and matching the user who grabs the posters.

Solution - Find out where the posters / covers are being stored by looking in the MythWeb settings for VideoArtworkDir (http://your.mythserver.ip.address/mythweb/settings/mythtv), then update the symlink...

cd /usr/share/mythtv/mythweb/data/ rm video_covers rm: remove symbolic link `video_covers'? y ln -s /home/mythtv/.mythtv/MythVideo video_covers ls -l video_covers /usr/share/mythtv/mythweb/data/video_covers -> /home/mythtv/.mythtv/MythVideo

Signal Lock Error
Problem - After some time, you will not be able to watch television because MythTV cannot lock onto a signal being broadcast. You will also not be able to record any of your programs. They will show as 0 bytes of data.

Reason - Unknown.

Solution #1 - Reboot the MythTV computer. This can be automated every 12 hours with the following crontab for root...

0 6,18 * * * /sbin/reboot
 * 1) mythtv signal loss fix

Solution #2 - Change your Video Source option in the MythTV Backend Setup to the Radio Times XML feed.

Radio Times XML Feed
This forms part of the magic 3 Steps To A Perfect MythTV Setup which is also in this Wiki.

To be done.

Missing Listings Data On Some Channels
Problem - There are no programs shown for some television channels and all the radio channels.

Reason - You have chosen to receive your listings by the Radio Times XMLTV grabber, and unfortunately the Radio Times does not provide XMLTV listings data for some television channels (like Setanta Sports) and (bizarrely) none of the radio channels!

Solution - Enabled the Perform EIT Scan option in Video Sources of the MythTV Backend Setup. Then, tick the useonairguide box in http://your.mythserver.ip.address/mythweb/settings/tv for each of the channels you wish to receive over-the-air EIT listings data for.

Caution - Make sure you have used the MySQL script below or personally unticked the useonairguide boxes for all the other channels, otherwise you will be going over all the XML feed for those!

MySQL Database Tweaks
Currently working on a MySQL script to perform all the updates needed for a perfect MythTV database. The first 2 lines look like this...

use mythconverg; update channel set useonairguide=0, visible=1, commfree=1, channum=1, callsign='BBCON', name='BBC One South East', xmltvid='south-east.bbc1.bbc.co.uk' where serviceid='4172';

...check back here for when it's finished!