[arkay]

When you day "freezes" is it really dead. i..e can you ssh into it from another machine?

If it's kernel panicing and crashing outright (which is pretty rare these days), then there are things you can do to find out why. Like connecting a serial cable between it and another box, getting the console up on that serial link, and watching the syslogs. When it crashes you should get a dump on the console that will give you an idea of what crashed. You can then look at that driver/component and take it out of the equation.

It does sound awefully wierd though.

You could also pull out all hardware but the essentials and run some stress tests on it. Maybe it's a dodgy card or it's overheating or something?

If it has dual sticks of ram then pull one and run it without, then swap etc to test that, or swap them out with different machine etc. Anything you can do to change the current hardware config. But.. Only change one thing at a time and systematically try and figure out what the bad component is. Even if you do find a piece of hardware responsible it could be it's driver, not the hardware, that is at fault. So don't throw anything out till you're 100% sure.

This sort of thing is hard to diagnose unfortunately.

Cheers,

Arkay.

[rileyp]

Easiest thing to try woud be to to swap the ram with another machine or if it has 2 stick pull 1 and then the other and see if the problem goes away.

Leaking/Bulging capacitors on the motherboard used to be a common cause of ramdom freezing of a pc. This was mainly around the p3 p4 and athlon single core era when they were 3 years and older. It doesnt seem to happen anymore as they use better caps.

A dodgey power supply or one that is struggling with its load can do the same thing. A swap is a the best way to eliminate a bad psu.

Probably a year or so ago I would get random freezes on my back end server and it was doing my head in.
Dmesg had a heap ata read errors in it. Initially I thought my o/s hdd was shot. It turned out to be a bad power connection where the sata power adpator plugs into the molex connector and one of the pins in the molex plug had fallen back and was connecting most of the time but not all the time. I picked it by noticing the hard drive making no noise.

Go find a stethoscope or screwdriver and pop it on your ear like when listening for a noisy bearing and and ensure your hdd is spinning next time it freezes.

I hope this helps
cheers rileyp

[birdie101]

Hi All,

Thanks for the advice, and I'm sorry its taken so long to post back my progress (or lack thereof).

I had no luck whatsoever diagnosing a cause of the random lockups, and the moving USB device (rc0 up to rc3 sometimes) eventually did my head in. I actually had a Windows install with XBMC working for a couple of weeks, but the freezing was still evident, although less frequent in my opinion.

What I did on Anzac day was go out and replace the AMD A8 CPU, relevant motherboard and 4GB stick of RAM with and Intel Core i5, motherboard and 2 x 2GB sticks of ram. Things seem to be running better, and by god am I getting quick at getting a working install of Arch going!

As always, I have one remaining issue. Wake from sleep. I honestly can't understand this. I have been working on the machine in my office. Works flawlessly. Move the machine to the lounge, and wake from sleep stops working. I have checked that I am using the same USB for the received for the remote, but no luck. I have even moved the machine from office to lounge without unplugging the receiver so that I know its in the same port and still no luck. Worked perfectly in the office, and is fubar'd when I get to the lounge.

I have tried testing with the plasma TV off, in case there was any interference from the TV, but no difference. I honestly am completely stumped.

If I didn't love XBMC so much, I would seriously consider scrapping my whole HTPC setup and buy some xxxxty media player that just works. Maybe when they jailbreak the AppleTV3 I might head that way...

Well, if nothing else, I feel much better for the rant. Thanks for reading (if anyone made it down this far!)

Cheers,
Luke

For reference, the only reason I touched my flawless Arch/XBMC setup has been failing hardware.

EDIT:-

Whilst eliminating the variables between the office and the lounge, I moved the monitor into the lounge and tried using that instead of the plasma (which I had on in the background showing the football). The plasma is connected via DVI-HDMI and the monitor was DVI-DVI. Wake from sleep worked fine with the monitor, but not the plasma. I even tried HDMI-HDMI on the plasma to no avail. I then tried moving the powerpoint that the plasma was plugged in to over to the same point as the monitor. But nothing was successful.

So at this stage, I have a working setup, just not when connected to my plasma.

1 slab of crownies to anyone that can make sense of this for me :angry:

Cheers,
Luke

This post has been edited by birdie101: 28 April 2012 - 06:57 AM

[Lester_Burnham]

Hi,

So, does the PC actually turn on with the TV blank when connected via HDMI or the PC does not even try to power up?

Lester

This post has been edited by Lester_Burnham: 28 April 2012 - 04:28 PM

[birdie101]

Lester_Burnham, on 28 April 2012 - 04:28 PM, said:

Hi,

So, does the PC actually turn on with the TV blank when connected via HDMI or the PC does not even try to power up?

Lester

Hi Lester,

I'm sorry, I think my frustration last night stopped me from describing the situation properly...

On first boot (attached to the plasma), everything works perfectly. Screen is on, sound works, it boots into XBMC directly etc. When I press the power button on the remote, the machine goes to sleep (thanks to Arkay's shutdown script). The problem is that the remote can't power on the machine. A keyboard does immediately.

Change the setup by removing the plasma from the equation and hook up a monitor and the machine will wake from sleep using the remote (and everything else works). Both the plasma and monitor are tested using DVI out from the PC.

I'm completely lost!

Cheers,
Luke

[rileyp]

So it sounds like the wiring connection to the tv is removing your abilty to wake from sleep via remote as it works using the same dvi port and a pc monitor instead of the beloved tv.
1 I like this solution the best ....Tip petrol inside it set it on fire and claim it on house insurance.
2 You could try a hdmi cec adpator where your tv remote is used to power on your pc ... http://www.pulse-eig...ec-adapter.aspx
3 Test usb voltages when in suspend with pc monitor and compare to tv and you should see that the tv is actually lowering the supply voltage of the usb. This will only prove its not in your head its not a solution.
Does the the red/green light on the USB reciever light up when it doesn't work (if it has one)?
4 You say you changed cpu and mobo and ram Did you change psu? Is it big enough?
You could another psu and see if fixes issues. (hint borrow one from another desktop for a short period of time while they are sleeping....)
5 Try another usb IR receiver if you one.
I hope this helps
cheers rileyp

This post has been edited by rileyp: 29 April 2012 - 06:53 AM

[Lester_Burnham]

birdie101, on 28 April 2012 - 05:57 PM, said:

Hi Lester,

I'm sorry, I think my frustration last night stopped me from describing the situation properly...

On first boot (attached to the plasma), everything works perfectly. Screen is on, sound works, it boots into XBMC directly etc. When I press the power button on the remote, the machine goes to sleep (thanks to Arkay's shutdown script). The problem is that the remote can't power on the machine. A keyboard does immediately.

Change the setup by removing the plasma from the equation and hook up a monitor and the machine will wake from sleep using the remote (and everything else works). Both the plasma and monitor are tested using DVI out from the PC.

I'm completely lost!

Cheers,
Luke

Hi,

I've been thinking about this and the only thing I can think of is the the port the remote is connected to, has a new device ID when the plasma is connected?
You could try checking the device ID when booted connected to the plasma, then editing rc.local and enabling more ports.
Or move the remote to each port and reboot and test.

Lester

This post has been edited by Lester_Burnham: 30 April 2012 - 05:25 AM

[birdie101]

Lester_Burnham, on 30 April 2012 - 05:24 AM, said:

Hi,

I've been thinking about this and the only thing I can think of is the the port the remote is connected to, has a new device ID when the plasma is connected?
You could try checking the device ID when booted connected to the plasma, then editing rc.local and enabling more ports.
Or move the remote to each port and reboot and test.

Lester

Hi Lester and Riley,

I've been working on this issue both last night and tonight and have made some progress. I did come very close to Riley's petroleum based solution...

I swapped out the Antec Earthwatts 430W power supply (new) in the machine with an older Antec Neo He power supply from my original rig (circa 2006 and broken hand!). I have been able to get it to wake from sleep repeatedly after doing so, which whilst is a brilliant outcome, seems very odd.

The next problem to present itself is that XBMC thinks that files from the library no longer exist. Its as if the network hasn't "loaded" when it goes into XBMC and therefore it thinks that everything in the library on my samba shares no longer exists. Internet connectivity works. I haven't tested using XBMC in file mode, but will in a minute. The other thing I am thinking of trying is adding a delay in my rc.local to give the network more time to be online before XBMC starts.

A wise man (Arkay) once told me it was a lot easier to work on these things if they aren't in full production. That was my intention when I bought the parts in November for this replacement machine. I didn't think that my old machine would die in the meantime and push up the priority on this one! My 2 year old doesn't understand why he can't watch Lightning McQueen whenever he wants at the moment, and I have 10 weeks until child number 2 arrives and everything turns into a sleepless trance...

Cheers,
Luke

[rileyp]

Good to hear the psu swap resolved the problem!
Lucky you didnt follow my fuel based solution. How gut wrenching would of have been to plug in another tv and for it to do the same thing!
Putting a delay in rc.local wont help with a wake from sleep.. I use one on my frontends as networking on ubuntu starts up slower than mythtv everytime without fail so I ditched the startup>programs auto start of mythtv and created a script which waits 12? seconds then starts mythtv as my user which is called from /etc/pm/sleep.d/99myth.sh after a resume. Seeing its not networking perhaps its samba is a bit slower to start up?
I ditched samba as soon as worked out how to share with nfs.

This post has been edited by rileyp: 30 April 2012 - 09:11 PM

[birdie101]

Well, the PSU thing didn't end up fixing it. I did a reboot tonight after adding a delay in rc.local and trying to do some thorough testing and it now refuses to wake from sleep via the remote again.

I also did an update to Arch in case there was anything out of kilter and now xbmc either fails to load, or upon waking from sleep (via the keyboard) I get a black screen and no response from anything.

In order to avoid one of my famous Angry Bird episodes, I'm now going to bed.

6 months ago I ditched my buggy android phone and tablet and went iphone and ipad cos they just work. If I knew an alternative that would "just work" I'd be all over it like a fat kid on a cupcake.

Cheers,
Luke

[arkay]

Luke,

It did "just work". Before you had hardware issues. Just a matter of getting it back to "just working" condition.

Doing an Arch upgrade is equivalent to the petroleum based solution above in terms of whether everything will work afterwards or not. There are always things that need to be fixed.

Given you are having major issues getting the balance of everything right the -Syu wouldn't have been recommended.

Now I know you would have followed the tried and recommended approach to upgrading Arch yes? Backing up first to an external drive, then cloning your current partition so you can work on the issues on the clone with a running system in the meantime?

This is what I've heard so far:

1. Dead hardware caused you to replace some hardware.
2. Months worth of fixing software problems never resulted in fixing the hardware problem you still had.
3. After fixing the secondary hardware problem to find the software was ok you then upgraded all software only to break it again. :D

No offence mate. But after it was working properly wasn't a good time to go and do an update when completely new versions of myth and xbmc are out and still in the "ironing out the bugs" phases.

If you can, go back to a clone where it was all working and wait till you're in a better frame of mind and have more time to do the proper upgrade/test routine.

With the XBMC network thing after a wake from sleep if you're using my 06mythtv wakeup script, it shouldn't even start XBMC until the network is fully awake, as confirmed by a ping to the server in the script.

If it doesn't wake from the remote it isn't the end of the world. i.e. It can still be used. Sounds like you put yourself under pressure to have it all 100% before No 2 arrives and instead of working methodically, one problem at a time, until resolved, you dove in in a panicked rush of frustration and stuffed it good and proper ;)

So slow down. Bit at a time, post up the problems, and it'll get back to be 100% perfect and never needing to be touched until the hardware dies again.

Cheers,

Arkay.

P.S. I'm not around a lot at the moment due to another project I'm working on but if I can help you with anything PM me (and I'll see the email fairly quickly), and I'll come check out the issue ;)

[birdie101]

Some fair points there Arkay.

I didn't follow the documented backup/upgrade path as the install was only a few days old and honestly didn't think much was going to have changed. Anyway, I'm pretty adept at starting over from scratch now that it doesn't bother me.

What I have been able to do is replace the MB, CPU and RAM of the original HTPC with some parts from a desktop upgrade. Using the original HTPC hard drive, it boots into Arch and things appear to be working. I understand that this might not be the best approach but hey, beggars cxan't be choosers :D

Now my understanding of how to ensure that the remote will work from sleep comes from Lester's post here.

When I run grep 0815 /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/idProduct, I get the following:

/sys/bus/usb/devices/4-2/idProduct:0815

so I have therefore modified by rc.local to be the following:

#/bin/bash

#

# rc.local

#

# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.

# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other

# value on error.

#

# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution

# bits.

#

# By default this script does nothing.



#set wake via remote



echo none +lirc > /sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols



for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 7

        do

        enabled=`cat /proc/acpi/wakeup | grep "USB$i" | awk {'print $3}'`

        echo "$enabled"

        if [ "$enabled" = "disabled" ] || [ "$enabled" = "*disabled" ]

        then

        echo "USB$i" > /proc/acpi/wakeup

        fi

done



echo enabled > /sys/bus/usb/devices/4-2/power/wakeup

exit 0

So, when I then try to cat /sys/bus/usb/devices/4-2/power/wakeup, I get the following:

[plasma@plasmapc ~]$ cat /sys/bus/usb/devices/4-2/power/wakeup

enabled

[plasma@plasmapc ~]$ 

...which I thought meant that there was power to that particular USB port.

For reference, lsusb returns:

[plasma@plasmapc ~]$ lsusb

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0471:0815 Philips (or NXP) eHome Infrared Receiver

Bus 007 Device 002: ID 046d:c52e Logitech, Inc. 

This process was able to get things working in the office on the 'replacement' HTPC, but presently with the reinvigorated original, there is absolutely no power to the receiver. No red lights at all on the receiver, but the PC wakes from sleep at the touch of a button on the usb keyboard.

My current plan is to move this machine into the lounge and ssh into it from the office if I want to work on the remote. If I reconfigure my Harmony One to leave the PC on at all times, then I will avoid any issues and it will be available to my wife and son.

I can then start over with the "new" machine again, get it working in the office and then attempt another move to the lounge. On the network issue I was having with the new machine earlier, my original 06mythtv script had the ping command removed as I don't use wake on lan.

The 'replacement' machine is 100% XBMC, as we no have Foxtel and don't use mythtv at all (the only livetv I watch is AFL anyway.

Thats where thigns are at now anyway. I really do appreciate any help offered.

Arkay, I have always totally appreciated your help, right from the first time we met when I busted my hand. Please don't take my frustration at the situation as being directed in any way at yourself. I hope the project you're working on is good, and that you're not taking calls from the CEO at 8:30pm like I have been...

Cheers,
Luke

This post has been edited by birdie101: 03 May 2012 - 06:05 AM

[arkay]

Luke,

Nah. It's all good with me ;) I just would rather you had a working system and all those "processes" are designed to help make it easier is all. Doesn't worry me if you rebuilt it 4 times a week :)

The other project I'm doing is the pinball machine build. Dunno if you saw the thread I posted, but it's taking up a bit of time and 100% of my interest at the moment. I'm sure I'll come back to the media center and my love of Linux sooner of later but the pinball is winning my attention at the moment, and it only runs on Windows!!! Yuk!

So I'll be about when I am and not more ;) When the machine is finished I'll post up some pics etc.

Good luck with it though! and best of luck and congrats on number 2 too!

Cheers,

Arkay