Mailing List Archive: MythTV: Users

Rebuild system, keep recordings info

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philledwards at gmail

Feb 28, 2010, 1:44 PM

Post #1 of 6 (1356 views)
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Rebuild system, keep recordings info

I need to rebuild my system because a) I want to go back to Fedora
from Centos and b) there's something weird going on with my recordings
which is resulting in at least 50% of recordings showing "Recording
unavailable" when I try to watch them. I think the channel scan data
has got messed up, which means I can't restore the database as that
will just bring over the old messed up channel data into the nice
pristine new system. I'm wondering what's the best way to recreate the
recordings so they can be watched through Watch Recordings. I know
that some people recommend just putting them in Watch Videos, but I
don't want to do this.

I've seen some people talk about restoring the record and recorded
tables (see http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/342014#342014)
but I'm not sure how well this works or if there are other tables that
need to be restored as well on 0.22. If this does work on 0.22 it
would seem like an easy option. Does this also restore seek data? Is
this the more complete list:
record recorded recordedcredits recordedfile recordedmarkup
recordedprogram recordedrating recordedseek recordmatch oldprogram
oldrecorded

I've also seen people mention Myth.rebuilddatabase.pl
(http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Myth.rebuilddatabase.pl) but this is
deprecated and seems to have a flaw where recording file size has to
be added later via an additional bit of scripting.

There's some instructions for this at
http://www.mythpvr.com/mythtv/tips/migrate-recordings.html which
restore these tables, but I'm not sure if this is still valid for
0.22: record recorded oldrecorded recordedprogram recordedrating
recordedmarkup recordedseek.

Or should I just do it this way -
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore#Partial_restore_of_a_backup

Can someone please advise the best way? I don't want to get it wrong
and stuff up a brand new build!
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mtdean at thirdcontact

Feb 28, 2010, 4:20 PM

Post #2 of 6 (1277 views)
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Re: Rebuild system, keep recordings info [In reply to]

On 02/28/2010 04:44 PM, Phill Edwards wrote:
> I need to rebuild my system because a) I want to go back to Fedora
> from Centos and b) there's something weird going on with my recordings
> which is resulting in at least 50% of recordings showing "Recording
> unavailable" when I try to watch them. I think the channel scan data
> has got messed up, which means I can't restore the database as that
> will just bring over the old messed up channel data into the nice
> pristine new system.

Yep. So you restore the /complete/ database, then you use Delete all
capture cards (not Delete all capture cards on <hostname>) and Delete
all video sources to clean out the bad Input Connections configuration:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/264034#264034

> I'm wondering what's the best way to recreate the
> recordings so they can be watched through Watch Recordings. I know
> that some people recommend just putting them in Watch Videos, but I
> don't want to do this.
>
> I've seen some people talk about restoring the record and recorded
> tables (see http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/342014#342014)
> but I'm not sure how well this works or if there are other tables that
> need to be restored as well on 0.22. If this does work on 0.22 it
> would seem like an easy option. Does this also restore seek data? Is
> this the more complete list:
> record recorded recordedcredits recordedfile recordedmarkup
> recordedprogram recordedrating recordedseek recordmatch oldprogram
> oldrecorded
>

If you feel you must throw away the baby with the bath water, at least
use the restore script to do it:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore#Partial_restore_of_a_backup
. However, there's no good reason for you to do one based on your
description.

> I've also seen people mention Myth.rebuilddatabase.pl
> (http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Myth.rebuilddatabase.pl) but this is
> deprecated and seems to have a flaw where recording file size has to
> be added later via an additional bit of scripting.
>
> There's some instructions for this at
> http://www.mythpvr.com/mythtv/tips/migrate-recordings.html which
> restore these tables, but I'm not sure if this is still valid for
> 0.22: record recorded oldrecorded recordedprogram recordedrating
> recordedmarkup recordedseek.
>
> Or should I just do it this way -
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore#Partial_restore_of_a_backup
>
> Can someone please advise the best way? I don't want to get it wrong
> and stuff up a brand new build!
>

Again, use the restore script from the last link with --partial_restore
if you like pain with no gain or, better, just do a complete restore and
then Delete all capture cards and Delete all video sources.

Mike
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philledwards at gmail

Feb 28, 2010, 5:55 PM

Post #3 of 6 (1281 views)
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Re: Rebuild system, keep recordings info [In reply to]

mtdean at thirdcontact

Feb 28, 2010, 7:09 PM

Post #4 of 6 (1272 views)
Permalink

Re: Rebuild system, keep recordings info [In reply to]

On 02/28/2010 08:55 PM, Phill Edwards wrote:
>> Yep. So you restore the /complete/ database, then you use Delete all
>> capture cards (not Delete all capture cards on<hostname>) and Delete all
>> video sources to clean out the bad Input Connections configuration:
>> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/264034#264034
>>
> Thanks Mike. Looking at this comment, it may be that I can fix my
> failing recordings issue without rebuilding, so I'll give that a try
> first and see how I go.
>

Even better! :)

If it is the Input Connections configuration that's the problem, the
procedure I mention above and in the linked post combined with properly
reconfiguring the Input Connections will fix the problem. Here, "Input
Connections configuration" refers to the video sources, channels
(including tuning information), and capture cards, and card inputs
configuration.

If this approach doesn't help, and you're sure you've reconfigured
things properly, the issue is likely elsewhere (potentially outside of
MythTV--like with the capture cards/drivers/signal).

> Thanks for potentially saving me a lot of unnecessary work!
>

I hope this approach does just that for you. Good luck!

Mike

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philledwards at gmail

Feb 28, 2010, 11:58 PM

Post #5 of 6 (1254 views)
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Re: Rebuild system, keep recordings info [In reply to]

> Yep. �So you restore the /complete/ database, then you use Delete all
> capture cards (not Delete all capture cards on <hostname>) and Delete all
> video sources to clean out the bad Input Connections configuration:
> �http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/264034#264034

I've given this a try and it's not gone how I thought it would. I did
the "Delete All" things and then went into channel editor to do a
scan. I tried to get the channel data in 2 ways:

1) Import channels.conf by specifying the location of the
channels.conf file as /tmp/ (this is where I'd put it from a previous
run of "scan" at the linux command line. The screen then went blank
and didn't respond for a good 10 minutes, at which point I did a
Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart X.
I also tried specifying the file as /tmp/channels.conf but that didn't
create any channels.

2) Do a full scan.This told me that it found x non-duplicate channels
and y duplicates. I found this horribly confusing because if I
selected the option to insert the duplicates it wanted me to give them
all unfriendly numeric names. And if I chose not to insert them I
ended up with channels missing (in which case perhaps they weren't
duplicates after all!) How come it finds duplicates? This never used
to happen to me on previous versions of MythTV when I did channel
scans.

So I now seem to be stuck, unable to populate the channel data.
Unfortunately the Frontend Channel Editor pageon the wiki didn't shed
much light on things either. It simply advises "Perform the proper
channel scan in mythtv-setup (8-VSB for OTA ATSC or QAM-256 or QAM-64,
with the frequency list that matches your cable system i.e. Cable,
Cable HRC, or Cable IRC)". I don't know what that means!
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mtdean at thirdcontact

Mar 1, 2010, 10:56 AM

Post #6 of 6 (1205 views)
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Re: Rebuild system, keep recordings info [In reply to]

On 03/01/2010 02:58 AM, Phill Edwards wrote:
>> Yep. So you restore the /complete/ database, then you use Delete all
>> capture cards (not Delete all capture cards on<hostname>) and Delete all
>> video sources to clean out the bad Input Connections configuration:
>> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/264034#264034
>>
> I've given this a try and it's not gone how I thought it would. I did
> the "Delete All" things and then went into channel editor to do a
> scan. I tried to get the channel data in 2 ways:
>
> 1) Import channels.conf by specifying the location of the
> channels.conf file as /tmp/ (this is where I'd put it from a previous
> run of "scan" at the linux command line. The screen then went blank
> and didn't respond for a good 10 minutes, at which point I did a
> Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart X.
> I also tried specifying the file as /tmp/channels.conf but that didn't
> create any channels.
>
> 2) Do a full scan.This told me that it found x non-duplicate channels
> and y duplicates. I found this horribly confusing because if I
> selected the option to insert the duplicates it wanted me to give them
> all unfriendly numeric names. And if I chose not to insert them I
> ended up with channels missing (in which case perhaps they weren't
> duplicates after all!) How come it finds duplicates? This never used
> to happen to me on previous versions of MythTV when I did channel
> scans.
>
> So I now seem to be stuck, unable to populate the channel data.
> Unfortunately the Frontend Channel Editor pageon the wiki didn't shed
> much light on things either. It simply advises "Perform the proper
> channel scan in mythtv-setup (8-VSB for OTA ATSC or QAM-256 or QAM-64,
> with the frequency list that matches your cable system i.e. Cable,
> Cable HRC, or Cable IRC)". I don't know what that means!
>

Using the channel scanner is the right approach--channels.conf import
doesn't get much love at all and probably won't work. The channel
scanner needs some work, so it basically requires you to scan, add all
the dups, then go through and delete the channels that are wrong and
potentially rename/re-calsign channels.

Options are to a) live with the limitations of the channel scanner for
now and do the little bit of extra work it takes, b) keep the old config
that doesn't work, or c) fix the channel scanner (for your
area/channels) yourself.

Or, I suppose, you could drop your 0.22-fixes database, install MythTV
0.21-fixes, configure the backend(s)--including Input Connections
configuration and channel scan--then upgrade to 0.22-fixes, then do a
partial restore of your original 0.22-fixes database into the new
0.22-fixes (upgraded from the "blank" 0.21-fixes-with-channels) database.

Take your pick. :)

Mike
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