MythTV Frontend does not work with Nvidia

[Cnidus.Eudoxus]

After an upgrade to Jaunty, mythfrontend fails to start on a combo BE/FE machine. The symptoms sound like Bug #341898 in that the mythtv background comes up without the menu appearing. Two differences though. First, I am using the restricted Nvidia drivers. The open drivers that I am aware of are not options because I need the S-video TV-Out capability. And I am limited to the 173 restricted drivers because my card an FX5200. The newer drivers do not support FX5200s. And second, the frontend does not respond to the keyboard or the remote. Instead of the fonts missing from the menu, it is as if the menu never comes up.

mythtv-frontend:
  Installed: 0.21.0+fixes19961-0ubuntu8
  Candidate: 0.21.0+fixes19961-0ubuntu8
  Version table:
 *** 0.21.0+fixes19961-0ubuntu8 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/multiverse Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

nvidia-glx-173:
  Installed: 173.14.16-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 173.14.16-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 173.14.16-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/restricted Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

I do not know if it matters, but I have the 7.4-0ubuntu3 mesa packages installed.
libgl1-mesa-glx:
  Installed: 7.4-0ubuntu3
  Candidate: 7.4-0ubuntu3
  Version table:
 *** 7.4-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

No errors appear in the mythbackend.log. Indeed, the backend seems stable and records according to schedule. The system is reachable via http and ssh.

No errors appear in the mythfrontend.log using the `-v most` flag

The syslog shows these errors upon restarting gdm:
May 1 21:08:54 mythbox gdm[305]: GLib-CRITICAL: g_key_file_get_locale_string: assertion `key_file != NULL' failed
May 1 21:08:54 mythbox gdm[305]: GLib-CRITICAL: g_key_file_get_value: assertion `key_file != NULL' failed
May 1 21:08:54 mythbox gdm[305]: GLib-CRITICAL: g_key_file_get_locale_string: assertion `key_file != NULL' failed
May 1 21:08:54 mythbox gdm[305]: GLib-CRITICAL: g_key_file_get_value: assertion `key_file != NULL' failed
May 1 21:08:54 mythbox last message repeated 135 times
May 1 21:08:54 mythbox gdm[305]: GLib-CRITICAL: g_key_file_get_keys: assertion `key_file != NULL' failed
May 1 21:08:54 mythbox gdm[305]: GLib-CRITICAL: g_key_file_get_value: assertion `key_file != NULL' failed

What else is needed to help diagnose? I have attached a mythfrontend.log.

[Nicola Ferralis (feranick)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. I have classified this bug as a bug in mythtv.

When reporting bugs in the future please use apport, either via the appropriate application's "Help -> Report a Problem" menu or using 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more about this functionality at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

[MarcRandolph (mrand)]

The only idea for menus not showing up is to try this:

export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1 and/or export LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1

Please report back if either of those items helped, or if perhaps, you found another solution to this problem.

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

Thank you for helping to improve Mythbuntu by opening this ticket. The work required to resolve this ticket is too much considering the complexity of the issue / rarity of the problem / man power of the Mythbuntu team. With that being said,
if someone else could write a patch, we will do our best to see that upstream adopts a fix.

Particularly this appears to be a conflict with very old NVIDIA drivers that we can't attempt to support.