So, last night I finally got around to getting mediatomb to transcode FLAC files into WAV and throw that at the media box in the lounge, rather than FLAC which – I thought it could play – but it can’t. This was awesome. I also got it to transcode the video from FLV files into MPEG. Again, the awesome.
Then I tried to coax it into playing MOVs by the same trickery. Unfortunately, as I quit mediatomb, I restarted it. A foolish error, which appears to have done something hideous somewhere inexplicable. I say hideous, and I say inexplicable, because having erased every reference I can find to the bastard software from the linux box. Having uninstalled it, and trawled the disk removing every trace I can find of the database, when I fired up a fresh install it still complained about database permission error. Another attempt, more fiddling and tweaking the permissions of the newly installed version – that led to a ‘creating new database message’ which I’d’ve had more faith in if the disk access was high (‘cos it should be scanning disks). But it wasn’t.
I am now on my final attempt at fixing it before I resort to the nuke-the-site-from-orbit approach. The machine *only* runs Ubuntu and Mediatomb. That is its entire purpose in life. I can, if I have to, take the machine and put a fresh install of Linux on it, because somewhere, hidden somewhere obscure without any obvious filename reference is some sodding mediatomb file that I can’t find and that is causing me grief. Either that, or something odd’s happened to sqlite, equally beyond the level at which I’m functioning, and also the amount of time I’m willing to spend on it. Seriously? I thought an hour or so I’d have this fixed. 3 hours later I’m no further on than I was when I started, really.
ETA: I seem to have managed to beat it into submission without the aforementioned reinstall. It’s currently rebuilding the database. It appears there were several problems. I’d broken the config file (in a nebulous way I’ve not worked out yet), and there was a database problem. My CLI skills haven’t had such a workout in a long time, and are sorely lacking now. I can’t remember half the commands, and vi defeated me :(
