[mythtv-users] Lirc ignoring input when computer is busy

[Michael T. Dean]

On 03/27/2007 10:38 AM, Mark Covington wrote:
> So I've got a fast box (AMD 3800+ X2) and the load will occasionally 
> get up around 2.00 or so when I'm recording a show, watching a show, 
> and there's a commercial skip job running in the background.  When I 
> send a command via the remote the box ignores it.  The command doesn't 
> show up on irw either.  Its as though the signal was just dropped.  
> I'm certain its not the remotes fault b/c everything starts working 
> fine when the load drops.
> Sometimes I have to hold the button down as though only 1 in every 5 
> or 6 repeated signals is being received.  This of course leads to 
> frustration as it will then occasionally read two in a row and jump 
> past where I wanted.
>
> Its a serial port reciever and the interrupt isn't shared with 
> anything else.  What should I be looking at to solve this problem?

Remote signal decoding is a very time-sensitive process.  Under load, 
LIRC isn't getting enough contiguous time to process the signal, so it 
doesn't recognize the signal appropriately.

If you can't fix your Myth box (are you using CPU frequency scaling?), 
you can get a "hardware" IR decoder (i.e. like those that come with the 
Hauppauge PVR-x50's) that just sends the decoded signal to LIRC.

Mike