Automatically restart Myth Frontend (Mythbuntu; Patch)

[Pieter Hoekstra]

Binary package hint: mythtv-frontend

Every once in a while, mythfrontend crashes. This is often in MythMusic using a visualization or when using corrupt media files, etc.

Because not having a keyboard on my Mythbuntu mediacenter, there is often no other option than poweroff and reboot the machine. (unless I'm at home ofcource...)

I have changed the existing /usr/bin/mythfrontend script to be a "watchdog" to automatically restart mythfrontend.real (see attached patch)

The script only restarts with a exit code other than 0 or 1 and only in "--service" mode. This prevents restarting mythfrontend while the user uses the Exit option, or when X stops, or machine reboots or when starting myth from the command-line.

While restarting, it displays a "Restarting Frontend" message. Test it using: pkill -9 -f mythfrontend.real
The display-messages requires "notify-send" in package libnotify-bin. I used this, so you don't have to click it away.

I'm using this with Myth 0.23 and Myth 0.24 for a few months now. Since checking for exit-codes, I do not have any issues.

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

Hi Pieter:

This looks good for the most part, but as it doesn't actually add a dependency on libnotify-bin, could you do the following:

1) Make this relative to the bzr branch at lp:~mythbuntu/mythtv/mythtv-fixes
2) Make libnotify-bin a Recommends in debian/control.in and debian/control
3) Test if notify-send is in PATH, and if not, just log it to that log file.

[Pieter Hoekstra (pieter-hoekstra)]

Ok, I did 1 and 3

I don't know how to do 2... :-)

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

Sorry for the delays, I just got this tested. It looks good, i've committed it to autobuilds (and made the change for <2>). It will be in the next set of autobuilds and included by default in Natty.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package mythtv - 2:0.24.0+fixes.20110208.6318d52-0ubuntu1

---------------
mythtv (2:0.24.0+fixes.20110208.6318d52-0ubuntu1) natty; urgency=low

  [ Pieter Hoekstra ]
  * Automatically restart the frontend if it crashes. Also notify the user
    using libnotify. (LP: #692697)

  [ Mario Limonciello ]
  * debian/control:
    - Depends on libnotify-bin.
  * New upstream checkout (6318d52)
  * >>Upstream changes since last upload (6dd5e4b):
  * [6318d52] Replace 'xml' version check with one that checks Python
    version, for Python 2.7 compatibility. (LP: #711762)
 -- Mario Limonciello <email address hidden> Tue, 08 Feb 2011 11:59:28 -0600