[SOLVED] Hard Drive Goes Crazy & Doesn't Stop After Uninstalling Mythtv.

[0x00FE]

In the past few days I came across LinuxMCE. I got impressed & decided to look more. Found Elisa & Mythtv.

I've installed both of them but none worked.
I'm just not in the mood for troubleshooting as they are not essential programs at the moment.

I've uninstalled Mythtv & it started uninstalling the MySQL database that it installed earlier for it's own database library.

After that moment the hard drive never got idle!
I've rebooted the machine but still, the activity never stops even @ the login screen, the hard drive is grinding it's self to the death, the same way you'd see it on a Windows machine where it just keeps rotating there forever & for no obvious reason.

I logged in & was searching for a solution on the internet for more than 15 minutes but the activity never stopped.
I booted the live CD

sudo fsck /dev/sdb2 -p -f
sudo fsck /dev/sdb5 -p -f

For both the "system" & "home" partitions, rebooted & still the same.

The LED on the HDD is blinking all time & the sound just drove me crazy that I've shutdown the machine & working on my laptop @ the moment.

Bright ideas anyone?

[flarson]

Re: Hard Drive Goes Crazy & Doesn't Stop After Uninstalling Mythtv.

Look in /var/log/syslog. It will probably contain errors about "drive not ready" or something.

Then get a new disk.

[Pepse]

Re: Hard Drive Goes Crazy & Doesn't Stop After Uninstalling Mythtv.

Are you positive mythtv is completely removed? I had that issue a couple times with mythtv and I remember the last time I uninstalled it it still had some parts in it that caused the hard drive to continuously run. I know I ran " htop " and it showed a part of that mythtv that was still there.

I just looked around other Forums for that problem and the last time I dealt with it was in Mandriva 2008.1. I discovered that these 2 items were still in there: mythtv-backend-0.21-16564.2plf2008.1
mythtv-themes-base-0.21-16564.2plf2008.1 . So, even tho we are in Kubuntu my guess is that Mythtv-backend and maybe mythtv-themes-base are possibly in your system. And I am not sure how to remove them in *Buntu. Hopefully someone else can guide you through that.

Later. Pepse.

[0x00FE]

Re: Hard Drive Goes Crazy & Doesn't Stop After Uninstalling Mythtv.

Thanks for your reply

xirex@xirex-desktop-linux:~$ ps -e
 PID TTY     TIME CMD
  1 ?    00:00:00 init
  2 ?    00:00:00 kthreadd
  3 ?    00:00:00 migration/0
  4 ?    00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0
  5 ?    00:00:00 watchdog/0
  6 ?    00:00:00 migration/1
  7 ?    00:00:00 ksoftirqd/1
  8 ?    00:00:00 watchdog/1
  9 ?    00:00:00 events/0
 10 ?    00:00:00 events/1
 11 ?    00:00:00 khelper
 46 ?    00:00:00 kblockd/0
 47 ?    00:00:00 kblockd/1
 50 ?    00:00:00 kacpid
 51 ?    00:00:00 kacpi_notify
 137 ?    00:00:00 kseriod
 179 ?    00:00:00 pdflush
 180 ?    00:00:00 pdflush
 181 ?    00:00:00 kswapd0
 222 ?    00:00:00 aio/0
 223 ?    00:00:00 aio/1
 1522 ?    00:00:00 ksuspend_usbd
 1524 ?    00:00:00 khubd
 1592 ?    00:00:00 khpsbpkt
 1599 ?    00:00:00 ata/0
 1600 ?    00:00:00 ata/1
 1601 ?    00:00:00 ata_aux
 2344 ?    00:00:00 scsi_eh_0
 2346 ?    00:00:00 scsi_eh_1
 2377 ?    00:00:00 knodemgrd_0
 2378 ?    00:00:00 scsi_eh_2
 2381 ?    00:00:00 scsi_eh_3
 2398 ?    00:00:00 scsi_eh_4
 2399 ?    00:00:00 scsi_eh_5
 2655 ?    00:00:14 kjournald
 2873 ?    00:00:00 udevd
 3390 ?    00:00:00 kpsmoused
 3581 ?    00:00:00 btaddconn
 3583 ?    00:00:00 btdelconn
 4536 ?    00:00:00 kjournald
 4696 ?    00:00:00 portmap
 4715 ?    00:00:00 rpc.statd
 4721 ?    00:00:00 rpciod/0
 4722 ?    00:00:00 rpciod/1
 4741 ?    00:00:00 rpc.idmapd
 4868 tty4  00:00:00 getty
 4869 tty5  00:00:00 getty
 4871 tty2  00:00:00 getty
 4873 tty3  00:00:00 getty
 4875 tty6  00:00:00 getty
 5055 ?    00:00:00 acpid
 5101 ?    00:00:00 kondemand/0
 5102 ?    00:00:00 kondemand/1
 5176 ?    00:00:00 syslogd
 5229 ?    00:00:00 dd
 5231 ?    00:00:00 klogd
 5253 ?    00:00:00 dbus-daemon
 5269 ?    00:00:00 NetworkManager
 5283 ?    00:00:00 NetworkManagerD
 5322 ?    00:00:00 kdm
 5329 tty7  00:00:23 Xorg
 5375 ?    00:00:00 avahi-daemon
 5376 ?    00:00:00 avahi-daemon
 5381 ?    00:00:00 kdm
 5430 ?    00:00:00 mysqld_safe
 5472 ?    00:00:00 mysqld
 5473 ?    00:00:00 logger
 5565 ?    00:00:00 boinc
 5610 ?    00:00:00 cupsd
 5684 ?    00:00:00 lockd
 5685 ?    00:00:00 nfsd4
 5686 ?    00:00:00 nfsd
 5687 ?    00:00:00 nfsd
 5688 ?    00:00:00 nfsd
 5689 ?    00:00:00 nfsd
 5690 ?    00:00:00 nfsd
 5691 ?    00:00:00 nfsd
 5692 ?    00:00:00 nfsd
 5693 ?    00:00:00 nfsd
 5698 ?    00:00:00 rpc.mountd
 5731 ?    00:00:00 nmbd
 5733 ?    00:00:00 smbd
 5750 ?    00:00:00 winbindd
 5794 ?    00:00:00 winbindd
 5832 ?    00:00:00 dhcdbd
 5851 ?    00:00:00 hald
 5854 ?    00:00:00 console-kit-dae
 5855 ?    00:00:00 hald-runner
 5939 ?    00:00:00 hald-addon-inpu
 5941 ?    00:00:00 hald-addon-cpuf
 5942 ?    00:00:00 hald-addon-acpi
 5970 ?    00:00:00 winbindd
 5973 ?    00:00:00 hald-addon-stor
 5974 ?    00:00:00 winbindd
 6014 ?    00:00:00 smbd
 6024 ?    00:00:04 mythbackend
 6047 ?    00:00:00 dhclient
 6048 ?    00:00:00 hcid
 6061 ?    00:00:00 bluetoothd-serv
 6062 ?    00:00:00 bluetoothd-serv
 6068 ?    00:00:00 krfcommd
 6103 ?    00:00:00 atd
 6117 ?    00:00:00 cron
 6237 tty1  00:00:00 getty
 6362 ?    00:00:00 ntpd
 6368 ?    00:00:00 startkde
 6450 ?    00:00:00 ssh-agent
 6481 ?    00:00:00 start_kdeinit
 6482 ?    00:00:00 kdeinit
 6485 ?    00:00:00 dcopserver
 6488 ?    00:00:00 klauncher
 6490 ?    00:00:00 kded
 6495 ?    00:00:00 kwrapper
 6497 ?    00:00:00 ksmserver
 6498 ?    00:00:01 kwin
 6500 ?    00:00:00 kdesktop
 6502 ?    00:00:03 kicker
 6507 ?    00:00:00 kweatherservice
 6508 ?    00:00:00 kio_file
 6512 ?    00:00:00 kio_uiserver
 6535 ?    00:00:00 kxkb
 6541 ?    00:00:05 artsd
 6553 ?    00:00:00 katapult
 6558 ?    00:00:00 konqueror
 6575 ?    00:00:04 qps
 6579 ?    00:00:00 aspell
 6580 ?    00:00:00 kmix
 6581 ?    00:00:00 kde-window-deco
 6594 ?    00:00:39 firefox
 6609 ?    00:00:00 konqueror
 6617 ?    00:00:00 knotify
 6618 ?    00:00:00 python
 6619 ?    00:00:00 kblueplugd
 6621 ?    00:00:00 klipper
 6623 ?    00:00:00 knetworkmanager
 6627 ?    00:00:00 konqueror
 6629 ?    00:00:00 gconfd-2
 6631 ?    00:00:01 adept_notifier
 6637 ?    00:00:00 kbluetooth
 6660 ?    00:00:00 systemsettings
 6697 ?    00:06:54 einstein_S5R5_1
 6700 ?    00:06:44 astropulse_5.03
 6717 ?    00:00:25 kfind
 6718 ?    00:00:00 kio_file
 6719 ?    00:00:00 kio_file
 6720 ?    00:00:01 kio_file
 6721 ?    00:00:00 kio_file
 6722 ?    00:00:01 kio_file
 6724 ?    00:00:09 ksysguard
 6725 ?    00:00:00 sh
 6726 ?    00:00:03 ksysguardd
 6728 ?    00:00:00 ksysguardd <defunct>
 6731 ?    00:00:00 ksysguardd <defunct>
 6734 ?    00:00:12 ksysguard
 6735 ?    00:00:00 sh
 6736 ?    00:00:02 ksysguardd
 6737 ?    00:00:01 konsole
 6738 pts/0  00:00:00 bash
 6765 ?    00:00:00 kate
 6805 pts/0  00:00:00 ps
xirex@xirex-desktop-linux:~$ kill -9 6024
bash: kill: (6024) - Operation not permitted
xirex@xirex-desktop-linux:~$ sudo kill -9 6024
[sudo] password for xirex:
xirex@xirex-desktop-linux:~$

It was "mythbackend"
Killing it resulted in instant suspension to the hard drive activity.

I did uninstall the program but many of the files still exists!

The files & folder of the program & all over the place as if nothing is removed.

Actually while writing this I found out that the program is still in the menu & it runs! :S ...

Anyways, I've located it in the services
Menu ---> System Settings --> Advanced (tab) --> System Services
located "mythbackend" & disabled the service , so it won't wake on startup.

Restarted & everything is ok .. except that everything is still there .. thought it's supposed to be removed.

Any idea how to remove those?

P.S: BTW I edit the title to [SOLVED] because the main problem of the hard drive is resolved, but removing the files is another issue, so this is still open if someone knows the solution. Thnx

[flarson]

Re: [SOLVED] Hard Drive Goes Crazy & Doesn't Stop After Uninstalling Mythtv.

This is strange. I have never heard of a Debian package leaving a mess behind when uninstalled. I see the Kubuntu JJ includes mythtv-backend and mythtv-backend-master. Master seems to be a package to do some configuration after the other is installed. If so it may have created files that are not in the dpkg database, and those will be a mess. Here are some ideas to start finding what it put on your system.

"sudo dpkg -l | grep myth" will show all packages with myth in the name that are installed or have only their config files left.

For installed packages "dpkg -L package" will list the files installed by that package. The directory /var/lib/dpkg/info contains the prerm, postinst and other scripts. mythtv-backend-master may have used one of these to create files that are not in the list. This is the only way I can see dpkg leaving files behind. If you still have a mess you may have to figure out what the postinst script did.

If "sudo apt-get purge package1 package2 .." takes them out you will be far ahead. If some of the lines from dpkg -l start with rc you can remove those with "sudo dpkg -P -a" which will purge the configuration files for removed packages which have left their configuration files behind. That might be very important for the mythtv-backend-master, after you run that you will not have the postinst script to look at.

If the packages are removed, according to dpkg, but files are still around you could find what files were installed by a package by running "dpkg -c some.deb". It should not be that a file remains on the system that was installed by dpkg and dpkg thinks it has been removed.

Hope this helps.