[mythtv-users] licrd not working in Xubuntu 20.04

[Stephen Worthington]

On Mon, 11 May 2020 09:27:15 -0400, you wrote:

>I remember a lot of discussion on getting IR remotes like Microsoft MCE
>remotes to work with Mythtv as Ubuntu moved to 18.04. The discussion is
>archived here:
>https://lists.gt.net/mythtv/users/624171?search_string=lircd%20failing;#624171
>
>During the years of 18.04 I was using other remotes that didn't use lirc or
>IR at all. FEs like Shield TV, FireTV, etc.
>
>So now I'm working on putting Mythtv frontend on a Xubuntu 20.04 PC with a
>Microsoft MCE remote  model 1039. lirc fails to install; seems to be
>connected with starting the lircd service core dumping.
>
>So my question is, should I attempt the fixes from the ubuntu 18.04
>discussion above or something else??
>
>Jim A

As installed on a new 20.04 system, the lirc package does not install
an /etc/lirc/lirc_options.conf file.  This makes lircd crash when it
is started as part of the package install.  The workaround is to copy
the package's /etc/lirc/lirc_options.conf.dist file to
/etc/lirc/lirc_options.conf after the install fails, and then remove
and reinstall the lirc package.  Then the install should complete
without crashing.  There is a fix in testing for this, which should
come through as an updated package soon.  However, there may be other
problems with the lirc package - the 18.04 lirc package was also
missing a lib file for lirc-setup so it could not be run, and there
were some other problems.  Unless those have been fixed in the
interim, they could still be there.  I would recommend doing these
commands to make sure the other (unconfigured) services that are
installed by the lirc package are shut down and disabled:

sudo systemctl stop lircmd
sudo systemctl stop lirc-uinput
sudo systemctl stop irexec
sudo systemctl disable lircmd
sudo systemctl disable lirc-uinput
sudo systemctl disable irexec

If you need a working config for an MCE remote, that is what I use on
18.04 and the config in 20.04 does not seem to have changed, so I
could put mine on my web server for you.  In 18.04, lircd itself was
fully functional as installed by the package, and if that is also the
same in 20.04, manually installing a config should make it work.

The fix script I did for 18.04 is not likely to work for 20.04,
unfortunately, as it downloads the lirc source package and compiles
it.  If you wanted to try it, you would have to change all the
references to 18.04 to 20.04, and then it might work.  I have only got
20.04 on a virtual machine at the moment, so it does not have any way
to run an IR remote for me to test with.  I am intending to update my
script as soon as I upgrade my laptop to 20.04, but that will not
happen until 20.04.1 is available (June?) so that I can do an LTS to
LTS upgrade.