The mythtv package is thoroughly useless due to rampant segmentation faults. For mythfrontend, they usually occur when starting a media stream, usually livetv or a recording - but not for the first time. It occurs when opening for the second time.

A similar problem occurs with mythbackend. When doing db manipulations, the backend will sometimes segfault as well.

I think that myth is crashing when db connections aren't being closed and reopened on time, and it might be causing a race condition - hence the slight randomness of the problem.

Also, this is not an issue using the stock Slackware packages, so that may be a point of reference... a comparison of mysql packages perhaps. Also, I am not the only user that experiences this, and it has been a consistent problem ever since Arch went mysql 4.1.x.

I did an strace of the frontend as it died, and here it is:

open("/etc/localtime", O_RDONLY) = 15
fstat64(15, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=1267, ...}) = 0
close(15) = 0
gettimeofday({1112979219, 696566}, NULL) = 0
write(11, "481 QUERY_CHECKFILE[]:[]Good"..., 489) = 489
select(12, [11], NULL, NULL, {0, 0}) = 0 (Timeout)
ioctl(11, FIONREAD, [0]) = 0
gettimeofday({1112979219, 697874}, NULL) = 0
select(12, [11], NULL, NULL, {0, 5000}) = 0 (Timeout)
ioctl(11, FIONREAD, [0]) = 0
gettimeofday({1112979219, 703723}, NULL) = 0
nanosleep({0, 500000}, NULL) = 0
select(12, [11], NULL, NULL, {0, 5000}) = 1 (in [11], left {0, 4000})
ioctl(11, FIONREAD, [9]) = 0
read(11, "1 ", 8) = 8
gettimeofday({1112979219, 708327}, NULL) = 0
read(11, "1", 1) = 1
access("/root/.kde/lib/kde3/plugins/sqldrivers/.", F_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
access("/opt/kde/lib/kde3/plugins/sqldrivers/.", F_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
access("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers/.", F_OK) = 0
open("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers", O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK|O_LARGEFILE|O_DIRECTORY) = 15
fstat64(15, {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=144, ...}) = 0
fcntl64(15, F_SETFD, FD_CLOEXEC) = 0
getdents64(15, /* 5 entries */, 131072) = 168
lstat64("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlite.so", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_size=397788, ...}) = 0
lstat64("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlmysql.so", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_size=41764, ...}) = 0
lstat64("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlpsql.so", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_size=60732, ...}) = 0
getdents64(15, /* 0 entries */, 131072) = 0
close(15) = 0
access("/usr/bin/sqldrivers/.", F_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
access("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlmysql.so", F_OK) = 0
access("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlmysql.so", F_OK) = 0
lstat64("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlmysql.so", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_size=41764, ...}) = 0
access("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlmysql.so", F_OK) = 0
access("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlmysql.so", F_OK) = 0
access("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlmysql.so", F_OK) = 0
access("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlmysql.so", F_OK) = 0
access("/opt/qt/plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlmysql.so", F_OK) = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGPIPE, {SIG_IGN}, {SIG_IGN}, 8) = 0
socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_IP) = 15
fcntl64(15, F_GETFL) = 0x2 (flags O_RDWR)
connect(15, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(3306), sin_addr=inet_addr("192.168.1.8")}, 16) = 0
setsockopt(15, SOL_IP, IP_TOS, [8], 4) = 0
setsockopt(15, SOL_TCP, TCP_NODELAY, [1], 4) = 0
setsockopt(15, SOL_SOCKET, SO_KEEPALIVE, [1], 4) = 0
read(15, "4\0\0\0", 4) = 4
read(15, "\n4.1.11\0\25\0\0\0J$o&loi?\0,\2420\2\0\0\0\0\0\0\0"..., 52) = 52
--- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) @ 0 (0) ---
+++ killed by SIGSEGV +++