STV6 working, but need help with nuances

[ataren]

I've successfully run STV5 for months with no issues whatsoever. Last week I did a clean install of Gentoo 2006.1 and STV6 and it's pretty much doing what its supposed to. It has successfully recorded scheduled programming and I can reach it with PlaceShifter. I'm very happy with it except for a couple of issues I've spent days [unsuccessfully] debugging.

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

1) Streamzap remote works at console level, as evidenced by codes displaying with irw program, but the Sage client does not respond to the remote [in Detailed Setup|Commands].

2) I cannot shell out to the console (with ctrl-alt-F1) from the Sage client. Nothing happens. I've checked xorg.conf and all looks fine.

3) I cannot reach the PC remotely through ssh when the Sage client is running. If I ctrl-C to the console just as Sage is loading at boot time, I can reach it remotely with ssh.

[_Demo_]

1) Could you post sage logs for this issue?

2) Make sure you don't have Option "DontVTSwitch" in your xorg.conf

3) Try running rc-update del xdm default then rc-update add xdm default. This seems like a boot scripts ordering issue. (you could also try with sshd instead of xdm)

_Demo_

[ataren]

Thanks very much for responding, _Demo_.

I've checked that xorg.conf doesn't contain "DontVTSwitch".
I've tried rc-update del and add for both xdm and sshd.

Still no luck.

I did a "find" for *.log and found nothing with "sage" in its pathname. I've attached what look like pertinent boot logs:
X.0.log
messages
dmesg

Please note that these logs reflect having ctrl-C'd to the console at boot time. I have no other way to get to the console. After Sage starts, it's too late.

If there are other logs, please advise, and thanks very much for your interest and your help.

[_Demo_]

The log file is named sagetv_0.txt (and other numbers for previous time you run the sage server) in /opt/sagetv/server/

Could you also run rc-update show to verify the programs that are loaded on startup.

_Demo_

[ataren]

Okay, I've uploaded all the logs (plus a few). I've also noticed that samba behaves like everything else; only works when Sage isn't.

Thanks again.

[_Demo_]

Could you modify your sageclient.sh so it will write to the miniclient.log file. Simply replace /dev/null with miniclient.log

Once the miniclient is running, press a few buttons on your remote to see if they are written to the log.

_Demo_

[ataren]

OK. I did as you suggested, then booted up and ran Sage, poked around in the client, cycled through a few buttons in the remote, then put it in standby, reset the PC and interrupted the Sage load (at boot) to get access to the log[s]. I've attached them, but the miniclient log has only 1 entry, "Starting MiniClient". That's it.

I've attached a copy of my rc.conf. It doesn't look right. Both DISPLAYMANAGER and XSESSION are set twice. I commented out the last three lines and, of course, it booted fine (no Sage at startup). I then tried starting up sage manually, with the startup script in /etc/X11/Sessions/sage. The server started but the client didn't, due to a failure to set up the DISPLAY variable; don't know what to set it to. I'd like to try starting the miniclient manually, to see if the remote (and everything else) works.

BTW, this rc.conf is exactly as originally installed. I've done no editing.

Thanks, as always.

[_Demo_]

Does X start before you see the logs about starting sshd?

For the remote, could you paste output of running irw.

Thanks

_Demo_

[ataren]

Yes, X does start before sshd. In fact, sshd does not start at all, unless I ctl-C out of the Sage miniclient startup (and then I see sshd start up).

Here is a short cap of the irw output:

00000000000028d1 00 Left streamzap
00000000000028d3 00 Right streamzap
00000000000028d3 01 Right streamzap
00000000000028d0 00 Up streamzap
00000000000028d4 00 Down streamzap
00000000000028d4 01 Down streamzap
00000000000028d2 00 OK streamzap
00000000000028d2 01 OK streamzap

Now, for some (a little) good news.
While trying to manually execute (line by line) the Sage startup script in /etc/X11/Sessions/sage, I noticed that the "xset" command wasn't recognized, so I did an "emerge x11-apps/xset". I can now shell out to the console and [finally] shutdown with ctl-alt-del.
I did a clean install, so x11-apps/xset may be missing from the installer.

After the miniclient starts up and I shell out to the console, there is a very long pause (about 3.5 minutes) with the last line on the console:
"Thu 1/11 19:53:59.296 Loaded font=java.awtFont[family=Arial,name=Arial,style=plain,size=28]"

and then the following messages:

Thu 1/11 19:57:27.137 Forcibly killing Mplayer process!
Thu 1/11 19:57:27.138 Error w/ Media Thread:java.io.EOFException
java.io.EOFException
at java.io.DataInputStream.Readfully(unknown source)
at java.io.DataInputStream.Readfully(unknown source)
at sage.miniclient.MiniClientConnection.MediaThread(MiniClientConnection.java:1346)
at sage.miniclient.MiniClientConnection.access$000(MediaThread(MiniClientConnection.java:6)
at sage.miniclient.MiniClientConnection.$3(MediaThread(MiniClientConnection.java:264)
Thu 1/11 19:57:27.152 stderr: CACHE THREAD ENDING
Thu 1/11 19:57:27.152 stderr: Mplayer interrupted y signal 15 in module:uninitstream
Thu 1/11 19:57:27.152 stderr consumer has closed
Thu 1/11 19:57:27.169 stdout consumer has closed
Thu 1/11 19:57:28.013 Connection accepted by server

Of course the bad news is that even when I shell out to the console, I still can't get a login prompt because the miniclient startup seems to be hung up on the above errors.
I've been contacted by George, at Sage, and he's looking at the log. Seems that you need to add "debug_logging=true" to the Sage.properties file to get debug data in the log. Now that I've got some meaningful log info, maybe this will get cleared up.

Thanks for hanging in there, _Demo_.

[harrijay]

I am having the exact same issue. Let me know what you find out.

[ataren]

I've convinced myself that the problem is limited to the miniclient. I haven't heard from Sage support in several days, despite having sent the logs they asked for.

Seriously considering going back to version 5, but I'll post anything I find.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update: 1/20/2007
Sage support says the developers are "going to have to look into this issue".

[_Demo_]

Does the problem starts when you try to watch something?

_Demo_

[ataren]

No, the problem starts at miniclient startup time. I am able to use the miniclient, but it never returns control to the current session, so everything that would normally start after the miniclient (like ssh and steamzap) never gets to start.

[harrijay]

I believed I have discovered a fix for the issue. when I was looking through this thread I noticed that _Demo_ wanted you to delete and re add xdm but in the rc.conf xdm is not launched it is startx.

Originally Posted by _Demo_

3) Try running rc-update del xdm default then rc-update add xdm default. This seems like a boot scripts ordering issue. (you could also try with sshd instead of xdm)

_Demo_

if you do emerge xdm and then change rc.conf to say DISPLAYMANAGER=xdm this allows Sage to start and also smbd sshd and everything else that gets loaded after the display manager. The only issue that i have right now is that I need to get it to autologin but I don't think that will be too difficult to fix. I will let you know if I get this resolved.

[ataren]

Originally Posted by harrijay

The only issue that i have right now is that I need to get it to autologin but I don't think that will be too difficult to fix. I will let you know if I get this resolved.

harrijay, did you get this working?

I have also been able to manually get everything working by interrupting the startsage script at boot (ctrl-c immediately after X starts up), then allow booting to complete (starts up lirc, sshd, etc.), and then "startx".

I'm surprised more people aren't having the same problem, but I suppose they wouldn't notice unless trying to use a lirc-based remote and/or ssh.

I have, so far, identified the following deficiencies in the Version 6 installation and their appropriate fixes:

1) "xset" utility not installed:
"emerge x11-apps/xset"

2) Symlink for rgb.txt not set up
cd /usr/lib/X11/
ln -s /usr/share/X11/rgb.txt rgb.txt

3) xkb folder not created
cd /var/lib
mkdir xkb

If I wanted to spend this much time troubleshooting a PVR, I would have gone with MythTV (and not had to pay for the privilege!).

[harrijay]

I did get it working, xdm unforturnately does not have the capability of autologin What I ended up doing is emerge gdm and then modifiy the custom.conf file to get autologin to work. Another headache is that the root account which everything is running under does not have rights to autologin so I had to create an account. I will post my gdm files and user info tonight when I get done with work. I don't think the reason why no one else has seen it is becuase they are not using ssh or lirc I think it is because they are not running this script that Sage provides but installing it by hand.

Sorry for the Delay but here is a copy of my /etc/group file in which I created a user named sage which actually runs as root and my custom.conf which does the autologin with the new sage account

[ataren]

I've just head from Sage support that the developers have changed the sagetv installation to fix the problems discussed in this thread. I did a diff on the Gentoo installprofile.xml and on sagesetup.sh. There are no changes to the Gentoo install. To update your installation, you only need to change the following:

1) Edit /etc/conf.d/xdm to set XSTATICVT="no"

2) New Sagetv server init script:
wget http://download.sagetv.com/linuxweb/sagetv
chmod +x sagetv
mv -f sagetv /etc/init.d
rc-update add sagetv default

3) If you haven't already added "xset":
emerge x11-apps/xset

4)Edit /etc/X11/Sessions/sage to REMOVE "/opt/sagetv/server/startsage" (should be the top line)

That's it. I've done this and it now boots, the server and miniclient start up, my Streamzap remote, Samba and ssh all work.

They've also added the download of new NVidia drivers (install script) to the portage distfiles folder, but I don't see it is being run anywhere (sh Linux-x86/1.0-8762/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-8762-pkg1.run) and they're still emerging nvidia-glx. I'm using an Nvidia card and it is working fine, so I have not tried it. If you try it and see any benefits, please post.

Here are the commands, if you're interested:
wget http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/L...-8762-pkg1.run
mv -f NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-8762-pkg1.run /usr/portage/distfiles/

[_Demo_]

Let me know if you have any problems with the new setup script.

The nvidia download is used by the next emerge line. It was a workaround because the default link was having problems. Usually emerge will download it itself.

_Demo_