turning off acpi via /etc/lilo.conf had no effect, I'm afraid.

In case you're wondering what this problem actually looks like, I made a crappy video of the problem with my digital camera:
http://www.thekramers.org/video/mythproblem.avi

Please forgive my poor camera skills, my dreadful narration, and the large file size.

Thoughts?

I had a similar issue a while back. I hadn't changed mysql.txt to the proper settings. I had trouble fast forwarding, etc.

What exactly did you change in mysql.txt? On the frontend or the backend? I find this rather mysterious because the frontend shouldn't need mysql (right?), and the backend works fine as-is as long as the frontend runs straight off the CD...

Still, I'd like to know what you did to solve the problem.

Thanx.

Thanks for the video! For some reason watching this jogged my memory to a strange solution to a similar problem that got posted on the mythtv-users mailing list, namely, setting the correct timezone.

http://gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/138287

It's at least worth trying, I guess.

I tried setting my timezone correctly last night, but sadly it had no effect. My time was correct, but set to UTC; I changed it to US/Eastern (via /usr/sbin/tzconfig), and rebooted for good measure, but the problem persists. I also synced the time to my backend, which uses ntp (from pool.ntp.org).

I'm beginning to think the problem may have to do with the fact that when Knoppmyth is *installed* (vs. running live off the CD), the backend is installed as well, even though I'm pointing to a different backend machine. I tried to simply `/etc/init.d/mythtv-backend stop` and running the frontend again, but the skip problem still happens.

Perhaps there's something else still running as a by-product of this being a 'full' installation, rather than just a frontend? Does anyone know if there are instructions for installing a machine as just a frontend as cleanly as possible? (I'll search in a minute, but if anyone knows I'd appreciate saving me the search).

Thanx.

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... nlyInstall

Also, that thread I pointed to at mythtv-user also implied that there was some kind of cleanup of the mysql database that also seemed to help. Sorry that wasn't the magic bullet.

I guess I owe you a 'doh!' for not checking the wiki on the frontend install instructions. My bad, and thanx.

As for the mysql table cleanup -- I've seen references to it in other threads, but I can't imagine it's relevant here, as my backend must be fine, b/c the frontend works when running from the live CD.

I'll re-install per the wiki instructions over the weekend; I'll likely report back to this thread on Sunday, unless I miraculously come up with some free time at home this evening (not likely with my two little boys).

Thanx so much to ceenvee703 and everybody else (especially Cecil and Dale, of course) -- I finally got this one licked. It seems this skip/jump happens on the front end if mysql is running locally. That's it. When I exited mythfrontend and ran (as root):
/etc/init.d/mysql stop
and re-ran mythfrontend, it claimed it couldn't fine the backend anymore (which is wierd, because it WAS finding it before -- I set it up in mythtv-setup), but once I entered the backend info again, it ran and it skips an jumps perfectly. Per the instructions in the wiki, I made sure mythbackend and mysql won't start automatically upon reboot. I rebooted to make sure, and sure enough, this problem seems solved.

Is it possible that when it seeks it does some database lookup, and when mysql is running locally it attempts to query the local mysql first, or something? Well, it's kinda academic for me at this point, because it works, and my wife once again considers me a technological superhero.

And now to work on getting surround sound working...(and yes, this time I checked the wiki first, so I won't be bugging any of you with dumb questions).

BTW, although I ended up spending way too much money on it, my front end box is really quite nice, and I'll be posting a link soon to my personal web page where I'll have an exhaustive doc on the hardware, reasoning behind the parts, and the setup process. I hope it will be useful reading for all knoppmyth fans. Stay tuned...