I've wasted untold hours over the past week trying to get an HD MythTV box running, to no avail. I've followed all the instructions in this extremely helpful post

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5635

...and everything seems to be set up the way it's supposed to be set up: When I do a scan in the channel editor, I get a whole bunch of channels, and after I download schedule data via /etc/cron.daily/mythtv-backend and launch the backend, I get a message telling me that my starting channel of choice has been successfully tuned in and that the backend "seems to be woken by user". Then I launch the front end and select "Watch TV" and all I get is a blank screen, which can only be escaped by hitting the reset button on the case. I've tried rebooting after launching the back end, and it makes no difference whatsoever--I absolutely cannot get a picture! I've searched these boards and the Wiki at length and cannot find a solution--everything seems to be as it should be. I'm really frustrated and desperate and would be eternally grateful for help on fixing matters.

Hardware-wise, I'm using a Biostar TForce-6100 mobo with an eVGA GeForce MX 4000 (PCI version) in lieu of the mobo's onboard video (since NVidia doesn't have a Linux driver yet) with an Athlon 64 3000+ processor and no additional capture cards besides the HD-3000.

Forget live TV for a moment. Are you able to see anything when you record TV and watch it afterwards? Have you looked at messages from the backend? Sometimes it will say if there is a problem tuning a channel.

Realize that when you watch Live TV it will first tune the channel you specified as the "starting channel" when you set up Myth. Oftentimes, this winds up being a channel with no signal, which will result in the symptoms you describe. But recording the program and watching later gets around this pitfall and will reveal if your system is basically working or not.

The logs from the backend are in /var/logs/myth-backend or something like that. The log will say that it's trying to tune in a channel, and you can see which channel it's being tuned to. It then will say something about not finding a signal (probably) and aborting.

Also, you can get messages from the frontend by launching it from a window. Just exit the frontend, open a shell window and run mythfrontend from it with:


Maybe it will reveal something.

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Well, as my starting channel, I deliberately chose a channel that has the strongest OTA HD signal in my area, so I can't see any reason why I'm unable to watch it live if the card is tuning it in. I haven't read the logs yet, but when I launch the backend from the console, I'm told that it successfully tunes in the channel.

I set up a test recording before I left the house for work this morning and we'll see how it turned out when I get home tonight. However, I had to set up the recording manually rather than select something from the program guide because of a whole 'nuther situation...

If I run MythTV setup with the back end off (as I understand I'm supposed to), scan for channels and then run mythdatabasefill, the program info gets dowloaded from Zap2it but the backend doesn't wake up and the connection times out when an attempt is made to funnel the program data into the back end's database. If I run setup, then launch the back end from an X shell and then run mythdatabasefill, the program info gets downloaded and seems to transfer to the back end successfully...but then, when I attempt to launch the front end, I get a "Cannot connect to X server" error. Then, when I reboot (the only way I've reliably been able to get around a "Cannot connect to X server" error), the schedule info grid is 100% blank when I check it out in the front end.

I really feel like I'm going around in circles here...

I would try reinstalling with R5A22; I am pretty sure that some of the HD3000 setup is made easier due to changes in MythTV and/or some scripts that are included.

With R5A16, what instructions were you following? Did you try the DVB_fixer script?

I'll download the new version tonight and give it a go. Do you recommend updating my existing install or starting from scratch? I'm not too psyched about the prospect of having to reconstruct my painstakingly-assembled XF86Config-4 file (I haven't been able to successfully install Firefox on the box, which makes it harder to email the file to myself or what have you), but if a scorched-earth approach is more likely to produce good results, I'll do it.

an upgrade would be fine, but an upgrade does wipe your / dir, so you will want to copy any files you want over to the /myth dir which does not get touched in an upgrade then copy them back after the installaiton is done. I have a copy of my XF86Config-4 file along with a few other things that stays in my /myth/backup directory all the time.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

wget is your friend. Use a program like Putty to establish an SSH session from the computer which has a browser to your Myth box. Then copy the URL of the file you want to download, switch to the Putty session, and type:

wget <<pasted URL>>

This will download the file using http or ftp protocol directly into your Myth box, greatly easing the hassle of getting those drivers et. al.

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Well, to my great surprise, the demo recording I programmed in manually before leaving for work (an hour of "unknown program", since I was unable to pass schedule info to the back end) actually seems to have recorded--if I go to "watch recordings", it shows up in a preview window. If I select that program and hit return, however, I get a blank screen. If I hit "esc" on the blank screen, I'm returneed to the "select recording" screen, now zoomed in so much that interface elements are offscreen. Hitting "esc" or crtl+alt+f1 or +f2 does nothing--I'm still on that screen and can only get off it by rebooting.

I just burned R5A22 onto a CD and am hoping that an install will improve matters. Wish me luck...