[mythtv-users] [SOLVED] Mythtv Mythbuntu DVB firmware problem with dvb-fe-tda10046.fw

[Kingsley Turner]

I spent a while debugging this, so figured I'd store this to the mailing 
list for others' reference.

If you have one of these devices:  (there are various revisions)

     01:05.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7146 (rev 01)
     01:06.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7146 (rev 01)


If you initially have a corrupt, outdated or broken dvb-fe-tda10046.fw 
firmware file, you will see messages like this in the syslog, or dmesg -

     please rename the firmware file to dvb-fe-tda10046.fw
     found firmware revision 0 -- invalid
     no firmware upload (timeout or file not found?)

The fix is to first fetch the correct firmware.
This remains a problem since the get_dvb_firmware can no longer access the 
original page to download the firmware file TT_PCI_2.19h_28_11_2006.zip.  At 
the time of writing (2012-06-25) this file is available from a few other 
places - google it.  Then place this file in the same directory as the 
get_dvb_firmware script.

If you're running Ubuntu or Mythbuntu, you can also:

     apt-get install linux-firmware-nonfree

To get a good firmware.  It needs to be copied into /lib/firmware

You will then *NEED* to cold boot.

Until you reboot each load of the firmware will result in the above 
mentioned errors, and channel scanning, tuning, live tv, etc. will fail.  
After a reboot it all works perfectly.

The above problems could also have been caused because I also have a another 
different revision of the card which wants dvb-fe-tda10045.fw too.  So I 
needed both firmwares, one for each card.