Recently I built a clean R5A22 backend, and am enjoying all the new features. I usually watch my shows on a Mac OS X frontend. I thought I would share the steps necessary to use a Mac OS X frontend with R5A22 backend:

1) R5A22 Backend: Edit /etc/mysql/my.cnf, comment out 'skip-networking'. The backend will only accept the mythtv user with a password of mythtv.

2) R5A22 Backend: Reboot system

3) Mac OS X box: Install mythfrontend 0.18.1 build for Tiger from here:
http://willamette.edu/~gkruse/myth/MythFrontend-SVN-7501-With-Plugins-OpenGl.dmg

4) Drag the application from the disk image to your Applications folder. Launch MythFrontend. Menus appear:

- Select your language on the first screen. Select Next to continue.
- On the second screen, fill in your Backend host IP in the "Hos Name:" field. Leave the rest as default. Select Next to continue.
- Check "Use Custom identifier..." if you want to name this frontend computer something other than your existing computer name. Remember the name you used, because you will need to find it in the database. Select Finish to continue.
- You are now at the main menu, but won't be able to connect yet, so hit esc until you exit the frontend.

5) You'll now need to edit an SQL database. If you are good at doing this from the command line, that's fine. Otherwise, download this excellent free MySQL GUI for OS X: http://cocoamysql.sourceforge.net/

- When you open CocoaMySql, it asks you for connection information, enter:
Host:10.10.10.44 (IP of your Backend)
User:mythtv
Password:mythtv
Database:mythconverg
If it can't connect, go back and check step (1).
- In the list of Tables on the left, click "settings"
- Click "content" at the top, scroll through your table and you should see a bunch of rows that have the name of your host in them, copy this host name down exactly
- Choose "value" and "is" in the dropdowns, enter "MasterServerIP" in the box, click "Search"
- Click one of the rows that appears, and click the "duplicate selected row" button in the bottom right
- Change the hostname column to your hostname, so you now have a row that looks something like this:
Code:
MasterServerIP     10.10.10.44     MKG5

- Done. You now have a setting to allow your frontend to see your backend. Quit CocoaMySQL.

6) Launch mythfrontend on your Mac, Select Media Library -> Watch Recordings, and you should see all your shows.

Note: It is possible to get Video, Music, etc. working as well, but this requires mounting the NFS share from your Mac. I'll leave this as an exercise for the reader :-)

It's great to be able to watch your shows wirelessly from your PowerBook, or at full 1920x1080 HDTV on your Desktop G5 with Cinema display :-) [in my case, a Dell 24" mounted on my bedroom wall, connected to my desktop G5 in a different room with a 30ft DVI cable] For remotes, I highly recommend the RF ATI Remote Wonder.

Wiki writeup here: http://knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=MacOSXMythFrontend

my Homepage here: http://www.markandjo.com/markblog

I appreciate you taking the time to put this together. The interesting thing is that I didn't have to do anything like this to get my Mac Mini frontend working with my R5A22 backend (other than change my.cnf). I'm curious, did you have frontend working with your backend before you upgraded to A22?

Thanks

When I got my OSX front end running with A22, step 5 was NOT needed.

Exactly. That's why I was curious.

I was starting from scratch with this build. I first installed clean R5A22 on MBE, and ran frontend on that successfully.

I then installed Mythfrontend on the mac, but it would not show recordings until that db row was created.

As to why you didn't need step 5, I am unsure. Possibly you happened to already have this record in your db because you upgaded from a prior version of KnoppMyth?

A test install with R5A12 did not need step 5, so had I "upgraded", I would not have needed the step.

Please note that the svn build linked in the post above is usually updated weekly. Please do not link directly to the builds but rather to http://willamette.edu/~gkruse/myth/ Following this link, you will be able to get the most current build, as well as my original build in order to work with older versions of svn. I may be able to provide specific builds upon request.

Can anyone tell me which version of the Mac frontend binary will work with an R5A26 backend?

I've tried a number of the Mac binaries but they all have had compatibility issues. (Frontend built on v15, back end on v13, etc...I can be more specific with this error if need be)

The Mac is OS 10.3.9

Cheers,
abc

Well, duh, it's the top link to the 0.18.1 binary on this: http://www.mythtv.info/moin.cgi/MythOnMacOsx page.

Well, I'm still looking for the version with full plug-in support. I'll post it here when I find it.

abc

I am trying to build you one with MythNews, MythVideo and MythWeather, and we can probably work out some way to get it to you, but really, what is the point? You have better applications on the Mac.

_________________
| Nigel Pearson, nigel.pearson.au@gmail.com
| "Things you own end up owning you" - Tyler, Fight Club

I just got a mini and was trying to set up myth frontend on it to my MythBox. I went through the setup as listed above then it crashed out and will not reload. So i have never had it completely working and now it will not lauch at all.

My Questions are:

Is there an incomptatablity with 10.4.4
and
I know this is a binrary build, but does that mean that i still need to install the dependacies that are listed at the bottom of the myth on osx page that were set up for 0.16 builds?

thanx in adance for any insight you might have into this issue.

xtopher,
I use a KnoppMyth R5A22 backend and OS X frontends. The Myth build of OS X I use is: 0.18.0.cvs.20050809, found here:
http://willamette.edu/~gkruse/myth/
Works perfectly with 10.4.4. Make sure you create the ~/.mythtv directory (that's where mysql.txt resides, as well as themecache).

Good Luck.

-B

Please open Console.app and post any MythFrontend.app related errors.

_________________
| Nigel Pearson, nigel.pearson.au@gmail.com
| "Things you own end up owning you" - Tyler, Fight Club

here is what i got

2006-01-30 07:59:37.706 Using runtime prefix = /Applications/MythFrontend.app/Contents/Resources
2006-01-30 07:59:37.714 New DB connection, total: 1
Total desktop width=1024, height=768, numscreens=1
2006-01-30 07:59:37.779 Using screen 0, 1024x768 at 0,0
2006-01-30 07:59:37.805 Setting Lock for Database Schema upgrade. If you see a long pause here it means the Schema is already locked and is being upgraded by another Myth process.
2006-01-30 07:59:37.808 New DB connection, total: 2
2006-01-30 07:59:37.819 Told to create a NEW database schema, but the database
already has 70 tables.
If you are sure this is a good mythtv database, verify
that the settings table has the DBSchemaVer variable.

2006-01-30 07:59:37.820 Database Schema upgrade FAILED, unlocking.
2006-01-30 07:59:37.822 Couldn't upgrade database to new schema, exiting.