[vdr] VDR not starting properly with softdevice on boot

[Marko Mäkelä]

On Tue, Jan 16, 2007 at 09:53:21PM +0200, Kartsa wrote:
> >Have you tried OProfile or strace -p <pid of vdr>, or attaching gdb to
> >the running vdr process?
> >  
> Hmm, what's OProfile? I am not quite sure if I am starting matroxfb in 
> the right place.

OProfile is a continuous profiler for processors that contain
performance counters, such as CPU_CLK_UNHALTED (which is incremented on
every clock cycle when the processor is unhalted).  Similar tools
include DCPI on Digital UNIX and Intel VTune on Windows.

> For some reason I can not get it to load automatically 
> with udev settings. There is a

There is a what?

You could add matroxfb to /etc/modules.

> >I'm using a statically compiled matroxfb.  I've used vdr+softdevice for
> >almost 2 years now, and I haven't had any problems for about a year.
> >(I reported quite a few issues that were fixed.)
> >  
> I selected vdr+softdevice with matrox because I've read so many good 
> things about it. Like small cpu resource needs since I've got only PII 
> 550.

I have a Celeron running at 900 MHz, and the CPU load is around 60%.
The VGA output of the Matrox saves some 10% or 20% of CPU, because
the colour space transformation can be avoided.  But I'm using the
TV output with a self-built Matrox to SCART cable.

> What should I do to get debugging info since there is nothing in the 
> syslog.

Attach strace to the vdr process to see the system calls.  Redirect the
output to a file, and kill vdr after a couple of seconds.

Or start OProfile with opcontrol for a few seconds during the CPU
diversion.  After opcontrol --stop, you can view the statistics with
something like opreport -l /path/to/vdr|less

I don't know if the Pentium II implements any performance counters.
I've only run OProfile on Celeron and later processors from Intel and AMD.

> Log shows that vdr seems to have started normally and I can get 
> a picture which ofcource is a slideshow of still pictures because of the 
> cpu load. Normally changing to a radiostation drops cpu load to some 5% 
> but even that dont have any effect. Only restarting vdr helps.
> 
> Can poor antenna signal cause something like this? Normally I have cable 
> at home and I and constructing a "new" vdr to be taken to my summer home 
> where we have aerial. At home my dvb-t signal if avfully poor.

Poor antenna signal used to crash softdevice, but I'm not sure about the
CPU load.  I usually have very good reception, so I cannot say.  Does it
make any difference if you suspend the output of softdevice?

	Marko