Some errors get filtered by the init scripts, makeing troubleshooting difficult. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. install mythbacked (for example, the problem is not just with this package) 2. change /etc/conf.d/mythbackend to run the mythbackend process as a user other than root. 3. /etc/init.d/mythbackend start Actual Results: * Starting MythTV Backend ... [!!] Expected Results: The problem with mythtv is that /var/log/mythtv is owned by root. If you change the owner of the mythbackend process, you also need to change the permissions on /var/log/mythtv. The init script, however gives no indication of what the problem is, just that a problem exists. Nothing is sent to the system log, and the mythbackend.log is useless sunce the process never starts. Somewhere during the execution of the /etc/init.d/mythbackend script the error "/var/log/mythtv: Permission denied" is generated. It's inexcusable that this error is never relayed to the user. I'd like to stress that this is not a mythtv problem, I have the same problem with hplip init script, but I couldn't write up a description since I still have not found the problem.
The init script is designed to handle this. It is not "inexcusable". Make the change properly in /etc/conf.d/mythbackend and the error won't happen. However, the possibility of this problem will go away in the next ~ARCH version since you won't have the ability to change the user anymore.