[mythtv-users] USB -> serial ir blaster troubleshooting

[Mike Holden]

After following various guides, and plenty of Googling, everything with my
system now seems to be set up correctly, but I'm not getting any IR
signals sent out of the blaster, and was wondering if anybody could point
me to where I may have gone wrong. I'm really hoping that the issue isn't
the USB to Serial converter!

First off, the hardware. I have a Hauppauge 350 with IR in, and this works
fine, so I know that lirc in general is working correctly. The IR blaster
is one from irblaster.info, so should be pretty standard. I don't have a
serial port on the mobo, so I got a USB-serial adapter. I know there are
issues with some of these, but this seems to be a supported one.

lsusb reports:

Bus 002 Device 003: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port

and the vendor and device ID match those reported to be ok.

I then run the following commands in /etc/rc.local, and the module gets
loaded successfully and lircd starts a new daemon on /dev/lircd2

setserial /dev/ttyS0 uart none
modprobe -v lirc_serial
/usr/sbin/lircd --driver=default --device=/dev/lirc2 --output=/dev/lircd2
--pidfile=/var/run/lircd2.pid

The following lirc-related devices exist in /dev:
[root at puzzle ~]# ls -l /dev/*lirc*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     5 2009-02-06 09:23 /dev/lirc -> lirc0
crw-rw---- 1 root lirc 61, 0 2009-02-06 09:23 /dev/lirc0
crw-rw---- 1 root lirc 61, 1 2009-02-06 09:23 /dev/lirc1
crw-rw---- 1 root lirc 61, 2 2009-02-06 14:16 /dev/lirc2
srw-rw-rw- 1 root root     0 2009-02-06 14:38 /dev/lircd
srw-rw-rw- 1 root root     0 2009-02-06 14:27 /dev/lircd2

I have an unused imon IR receiver (lirc0) in the case (although the VFD is
used), and I also have the 350 IR receiver (lirc1).

I have configured /etc/lircd.conf with a config file for the set-top box
(Samsung SMT2100C - Virgin/NTL cable box, UK) before restarting all the
lircd daemons. irsend with the LIST option correctly reports the codes it
expects to be able to use for the blaster, so it looks like the config
file is correct.

I've tried moving the IR emitter around at different distances and angles
and directions while using the irsend commands (irsend
--device=/dev/lircd2 SEND_ONCE NTL_DI4001N 1).

Bottom line, I'm getting no codes sent. I've done the digital camera trick
and can't see any IR flashes, but it correctly sees IR from other remotes,
although I appreciate this isn't definitive proof of not working!

Any other ideas of what I could try, other than getting a mobo with a
serial port?

One thing I think I am still possibly confused about is the device files
in all this. The setserial above uses /dev/ttyS0 (found by Googling, but
loading the lirc_serial driver didn't work until this was done), but dmesg
reports that the USB->serial is on /dev/ttyUSB0 - these 2 devices seem to
be unrelated, so maybe I have a missing option or step somewhere in
setting this all up? Do I need to tell modprobe to use the ttyUSB0 device,
or tell setserial or lircd to use a different device than they are
currently using? I don't see /dev/ttyS0 getting referenced anywhere other
than in the setserial, so I'm not sure what is happening there.

[root at puzzle ~]# ls -l /dev/ttyUSB0 /dev/ttyS0
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp   4, 64 2009-02-06 09:23 /dev/ttyS0
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 188,  0 2009-02-06 09:23 /dev/ttyUSB0

Thanks.
-- 
Mike Holden

http://www.by-ang.com - the place to shop for all manner of hand crafted
items, including Jewellery, Greetings Cards and Gifts