After several segfaults, and some other strange behavior (like recording half one program over the second half of another and calling it the second) I decided that it must have been some legacy cruft left over in the database from my first try. I had originally installed myth 0.19 from packages I built myself from the source. But when it turned out that the MediaMVP could not speak that protocol very well, I decided to backrev to myth 0.18. I thought I had done the database thing fine, but I guess I left some artifacts that were messing it up. Ever since I did the database purge and reinstall, it has been working like a champ.

Now the only complaints from the Domestic Tranquility Department are about me spending too much time tinkering with this blasted website.