I had Knoppmyth (R5F27) running with a PVR-250, then upgraded to a PVR-500 and have experienced problems. The computer ...

o Dell Precision 650
o 1GB RAM
o hda is 20 GB
o hdb is 120 GB (myth partition)
o hdc is 120 GB (unused right now)

With the 250 in place, I did an auto install using hda. I then formatted hdb using the same filesystem and settings that Knoppymyth uses for the myth parition and simply mounted hdb as my myth partition. This configuration ran well for a number of weeks.

Then, I purchased a PVR-500. The machine was shut down, new card installed, and then rebooted. Configuration with the new card went as expected and everything ran fine for a few days. I decided to change and few things, and at one point rebooted the machine. This is when my problems started.

The boot sequence appears to go fine until X starts, and then the screen goes black and I cannot access the machine remotely or go to another virtual console. I have reviewed both of the ¨black screen¨ threads, but do not believe they apply. Neither mentions a loss of network connectivity.

I can boot into single user mode, and execute all of the startup scripts for runlevel 5 with no problem. I can also start X-Windows using ...

/usr/bin/openvt -fwc 6 -- /bin/su - mythtv -c /usr/bin/startx >& /dev/null

... and everything appears to work. If I remove the card completely, boot up into the mythfrontend proceeds normally. I have also moved the card to another slot, and get the same behavior.

At this point, I am pretty well confused/lost. If anyone can provide some ideas, I would be most grateful =)

Here is the relevant information from dmseg regarding the tuner card:

Linux version 2.6.18-chw-13 (root@mythtv) (gcc version 4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)) #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Jun 2 21:06:06 PDT 2007
ivtv: Start initialization, version 1.1.0
ivtv0: Initializing card #0
ivtv0: Autodetected Hauppauge card (cx23416 based)
tuner 1-0043: chip found @ 0x86 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
tda9887 1-0043: tda988[5/6/7] found @ 0x43 (tuner)
tuner 1-0043: type set to tda9887
tuner 1-0060: chip found @ 0xc0 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
tuner 1-0060: type set to tea5767
tuner 1-0061: chip found @ 0xc2 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
tveeprom 1-0050: Hauppauge model 23552, rev E492, serial# 10491148
tveeprom 1-0050: tuner model is Philips FQ1236A MK4 (idx 92, type 57)
tveeprom 1-0050: TV standards NTSC(M) (eeprom 0x08)
tveeprom 1-0050: second tuner model is Philips TEA5768HL FM Radio (idx 101, type 62)
tveeprom 1-0050: audio processor is CX25843 (idx 37)
tveeprom 1-0050: decoder processor is CX25843 (idx 30)
tveeprom 1-0050: has radio, has no IR receiver, has no IR transmitter
ivtv0: Autodetected WinTV PVR 500 (unit #1)
cx25840 1-0044: cx25843-24 found @ 0x88 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
wm8775 1-001b: chip found @ 0x36 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
tuner-simple 1-0061: type set to 57 (Philips FQ1236A MK4)
tuner 1-0061: type set to Philips FQ1236A MK4
ivtv0: Registered device video0 for encoder MPG (4096 kB)
ivtv0: Registered device video32 for encoder YUV (2048 kB)
ivtv0: Registered device vbi0 for encoder VBI (1024 kB)
ivtv0: Registered device video24 for encoder PCM (320 kB)
ivtv0: Registered device radio0 for encoder radio
ivtv0: Initialized card #0: WinTV PVR 500 (unit #1)
ivtv1: Initializing card #1
ivtv1: Autodetected Hauppauge card (cx23416 based)
tuner 2-0043: chip found @ 0x86 (ivtv i2c driver #1)
tda9887 2-0043: tda988[5/6/7] found @ 0x43 (tuner)
tuner 2-0043: type set to tda9887
tuner 2-0061: chip found @ 0xc2 (ivtv i2c driver #1)
cx25840 2-0044: cx25843-24 found @ 0x88 (ivtv i2c driver #1)
wm8775 2-001b: chip found @ 0x36 (ivtv i2c driver #1)
tveeprom 2-0050: Hauppauge model 23552, rev E492, serial# 10491148
tveeprom 2-0050: tuner model is Philips FQ1236A MK4 (idx 92, type 57)
tveeprom 2-0050: TV standards NTSC(M) (eeprom 0x08)
tveeprom 2-0050: second tuner model is Philips TEA5768HL FM Radio (idx 101, type 62)
tveeprom 2-0050: audio processor is CX25843 (idx 37)
tveeprom 2-0050: decoder processor is CX25843 (idx 30)
tveeprom 2-0050: has radio, has no IR receiver, has no IR transmitter
ivtv1: Correcting tveeprom data: no radio present on second unit
ivtv1: Autodetected WinTV PVR 500 (unit #2)
tuner-simple 2-0061: type set to 57 (Philips FQ1236A MK4)
tuner 2-0061: type set to Philips FQ1236A MK4
ivtv1: Registered device video1 for encoder MPG (4096 kB)
ivtv1: Registered device video33 for encoder YUV (2048 kB)
ivtv1: Registered device vbi1 for encoder VBI (1024 kB)
ivtv1: Registered device video25 for encoder PCM (320 kB)
ivtv1: Initialized card #1: WinTV PVR 500 (unit #2)
ivtv: End initialization
bttv: driver version 0.9.17 loaded
bttv: using 8 buffers with 2080k (520 pages) each for capture
saa7130/34: v4l2 driver version 0.2.14 loaded
cx88/2: cx2388x MPEG-TS Driver Manager version 0.0.6 loaded
cx88/2: cx2388x dvb driver version 0.0.6 loaded
cx88/2: registering cx8802 driver, type: dvb access: shared

_________________
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R. Wayne McCorkle

You could try booting up normally to the point it locks up and let it set
for a while (a hour say). Then reset the machine and boot up on a
Knoppix CD, mount the root hard drive partition and go looking in
/var/log and /var/log/mythtv directories for log files. The last few
lines may give you clues...

Good luck,
Cliff

What was it you changed? Have you reverted those changes?

Thanks for the replies so far. Cliff, I will find some time in the next day or so to try your suggestion.



I was making changes to the appearance of the front end, trying different themes and fiddling with the DisplaySize parameter in the xorg.conf file. I did not specifically revert those changes, and at this point ... I have a fresh install.

_________________
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R. Wayne McCorkle

More troubleshooting.

I shut the machine down, pulled the 500 out, put the 250 in, and rebooted. The configuration screen came up, reconfigured for the new hardware, everything works fine. Reboot the machine, everything works fine.

Shut the machine down, pulled the 250 out, put the 500 in, and rebooted. Once again the configuration screen came up, reconfigured for the new hardware, and everything appears to work fine. Upon reboot, I get the black screen again with no network connectivity, and I cannot switch to another virtual console.

Also followed Cliff's suggestion, and compared log entries with the working configuration vs. the non working ... could not identify any differences.

Question: Is there anything that happens between completion of the run-level 5 start scripts and launching of X? Based on the inittab file, all I can really determine is that getty's get run on the virtual consoles before X gets started.

_________________
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R. Wayne McCorkle

Since you have an unused hard drive you could try a simple
install with the minimum hardware in the box.

Move the PCI cards to different slots. Most motherboards share
IRQ's between PCI slots 4 and 5 so don't use slot 5. I would also
avoid using PCI slot 1 if you have AGP (for this test anyway).

Do an install with just the 500 with your unused HD set to hda and
your CD set to hdc. Leave the case open, do the install when the
room is cool and have a fan blowing into the open case.

If this doesn;t work, post as an install bug.

Cliff

_________________
R5F27 using R5F1 Nvidia drivers
HD-5500 analog from NTSC Sat Rx, with OTA DVB too
GeForce MX-440 SVideo tvout to a TV
Older dual core 3.4ghz Intel CPU
Asus P5PE-VM Motherboard
2 GB RAM
1 TB LVM2
VirtualBox
Samba