[mythtv-users] Lirc Problems and one other question

Aleaxander alex at carbonated.com
Tue Nov 18 22:32:11 EST 2003


I've installed MythTV using Jarod's guide, and everything is working 
great except my remote, which is the apparently lame Hauppauge black 
remote.  Happily, after three weeks of spending all my free time 
learning Linux, getting Samba setup (I have a Windows network) and 
trying to setup MythTV for the first time, I finally showed my wife, 
along with her sister and best friend visiting from Japan what I have 
been hold up in "Fort Computer Parts" doing and they were all really 
impressed, even though I had to navigate using a Keyboard.  These are 
fairly tech-savvy young Japanese women, from Tokyo, where high tech 
devices are part of their everyday lives (you should see their cell 
phones; smaller than ours but they capture full video and sound), and 
they thought it (Myth Gallery, Myth Movie Player (with IMDB database 
info), Myth TV, Myth Music, etc.) was the coolest thing ever, and I knew 
they were serious because they immediately asked if I could build one 
for them.  It was very happy with thiner reactions because I wasn't sure 
if I would be the only one that thought this project was so completely cool.

Anyway, first problem first.  The remote Hauppauge black remote doesn't 
work, and I think it may be a problem with Lirc.

When I run:
$ /usr/bin/irw
I get the following error:
connect: Connection refused
I imagine this is because I've already set it to run on startup?

I've redone all the steps in the guide (twice), but it still doesn't 
work.  So, I tried running:
# /sbin/service lircd stop
and it gives this error:
Stopping infrared remote control daemon:  [FAILED]

Then if I run:
# /sbin/service lircd start
I get:
Starting infrared remote control daemon:  [OK]

However, then when I run:
$ /usr/bin/irw
Nothing happens.  It just gives me a new prompt [mythtv at mythtv mythtv]$. 
  No chance to check if the system is getting signals from the remote.

Running irw again, gives me the "connect: Connection refused" error 
again.  Drat!  I tried looking in /var/log/lircd but there is no folder 
called lircd there.  So, I think I'm stuck.  Anyone have any idea what 
is wrong?  Live TV works, from within Myth frontend, so I think it is 
probably installed correctly, just no remote.

Second question (sorry for the long e-mail!):
The black remote is definitely not going to work for everything that I 
want to do (but I figure if I can't get it to work, the second problem 
is null).  I have a couple of other remotes that I'd like to eventually 
try, and I'm hoping I can find someone else that has one of them to help 
me set any one of them up (like getting a lircd.conf and .lircrc file 
from them, or just pointing out any obvious bone-head mistakes I make):

StreamZap USB Remote - Looks like there are drivers available at 
sourceforge, but it is not clear how to install them (I'm a newbie, so 
if anyone has managed to get this remote working, I'd love to hear from 
them; perhaps a discussion on setting up this remote would help other 
newbie Mythtv-users that search the mailing list, as I did, and did not 
find much help).  The download is a .diff file, with no documentation, 
so I'm not sure how to use it.

Phillips Tivo Remote - My wife is most familiar with this remote, so 
again, if anyone has experience setting this up (does not appear to work 
with the Hauppage pvr-250 receiver that I have, but maybe with the 
SnapStream USB one?) I would really appreciate hearing from them.  I 
imagine that I may get recommendations to buy a different IR receiver first.

Marantz RC-18SR Learning Remote Control - not sure how to program it 
(entering hexidecimal codes into it on a per button basis?) without 
having an original remote to work with, but if I can get either of the 
remotes above to work, I will just program it so that we can have Mythtv 
running in two rooms.

Many, many thanks for all the support on this list.

-Aleaxander





More information about the mythtv-users mailing list