[ExtractStream] Re: TiVo freeze with mfs_export

[Grant Stockly]

> > Pull-the-plug.
>
>Mmmmm... ouch.
>
> > Could it be related to some scheduled event on the TiVo,
> > like say, a recording starting, channel change, etc?
>
>Yes it could... Like I said, it doesn't take much to overtax that
>CPU--- if you're extracting while you're recording that's a *lot* of
>
>Or... it could be a hardware-type issue - right after the lock &
>reboot, have you checked the temperature of your Tivo? You can find


I don't know how much experience all you out there have with linux, but 
when a linux system crashes...it makes me worry. The ONLY time I've had 
even my development box crash is when testing kernel modules that write to 
memory. This leads me to beleive that its a power delivery problem (even a 
short spike) or software error.

Hardware is unlikely (not including power) the problem since the tivo UI 
uses the same resources as our mpeg ripping tools. Unmodified consumer 
tivo units rarely crash, but throw extractstream into the pot and 
everything changes.

My guess is that TiVo has written some user space device drivers. A user 
space device driver could cause the system to fail if it weren't expecting 
access to/in a certain location. A kernel driver by default has to be 
written to allow for instances other than concurrent access. User space 
drivers can do whatever they want. some famous user space driver would be 
old X11 environments.

Another thing to think about is seek time, especially on a 5400 RPM 
drive. While extracting if the tivo tries to record something, chances are 
that the head on that drive is going to be crazy doing butterfly 
accesses. The tivo may see this inability to keep up with the mpeg record 
stream as an error and try to reboot to solve the error. The instance of 
strange programs could cause some type of 'killall' to fail?

Grant