[mythtv-users] firewire to DCH-3200 STB not working, without VIA fw (myth 0.21)

Wed Jun 11 15:48:01 UTC 2008

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 09:22:54AM -0500, jimmy james wrote:
> is your stb jumping nodes on you?  some moto boxes in particular will
> initialize on node 1, but jump to node 0 on bus reset.  it looks like that
> is what is happening to you, which could confuse things.

That was a good suggestion, however, plugreport shows that it remains on
HA1/Node 1 GUID 0x001e46fffe6c0d04
(update, actually it doesn't. It seems to switch under non deterministic conditions).
Also, see my reply to Steven below, it looks like my problem was that myth was setup
to talk to the STB as P2P and not broadcast.

> the best way to check it is on a fresh boot.  first, stop the mythtv backend
> server, as it monitors firewire and gets in the way of testing.  next, check
> the node the stb is on with plugreport, then reset the firewire bus:
> 
> $ firewire_tester -R

I did that. Reset definitely broke things.
plugreport showed it was still HA1/Node 1 GUID 0x001e46fffe6c0d04
but I was not able to make it work after that

myth:~# plugreport 
(...)
Host Adapter 1
==============
(...)

Node 1 GUID 0x001e46fffe6c0d04
------------------------------
oMPR n_plugs=1, data_rate=2, bcast_channel=63
oPCR[0] online=1, bcast_connection=0, n_p2p_connections=0
        channel=16, data_rate=2, overhead_id=0, payload=376
iMPR n_plugs=0, data_rate=2

myth:~#  firewire_tester -R     
Action: Resetting the firewire bus
Bus reset succeeded
myth:~# plugreport 
Host Adapter 0
==============
(...)
Node 1 GUID 0x001e46fffe6c0d04
------------------------------
oMPR n_plugs=1, data_rate=2, bcast_channel=63
oPCR[0] online=1, bcast_connection=0, n_p2p_connections=0
        channel=16, data_rate=2, overhead_id=0, payload=376
iMPR n_plugs=0, data_rate=2

myth:~# firewire_tester -P 1 -b -n 1 -r 5
Action: Test broadcast 5 times, node 1, channel 62
Broadcast: Testing...Failed
Broadcast: Testing...Failed
Broadcast: Testing...Failed
Broadcast: Testing...Failed
Broadcast: Testing...Failed
myth:~# mythprime 
0 devices detected.  checking avc subtypes...
1 devices detected.  checking avc subtypes...

Priming errors encountered, trying again...
0 devices detected.  checking avc subtypes...
1 devices detected.  checking avc subtypes...

Priming errors encountered, trying again...
Priming Errors encountered: 0 stbs primed, 0 stbs failed to prime, 0 non-stbs ignored and 0 ghost nodes skipped on 2 ports in 3 runs.

That said, after resetting the STB...

> and check the node with plugreport again to see if it has jumped to node 0.

it did indeed jump to node 0.

So, reset does seem to break my connection until the device is reset, but 
it also node jumps.

> then, try priming the firewire connection.  once it is primed, i suggest
> setting the starting channel for the firewire tuner in backend setup setup
> step 4. to the *same* channel you just primed with, as it is a known clear
> channel.  then restart the backend server, try watching livetv and see how
> things go.
> 
> you might look into mythprime- a firewire primer based on firewire_tester.
> a link to the current beta version with instructions is here:
> 
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV_Firewire#head-354bd119b272d0ad32bcd2454a042b16100b86b0

I have mythtv 0.21 on ubuntu hardy. It ships with
myth:~# mythprime -V       
mythprime version .55b beta
and the primer is done from the init script before you start the backend

> a final, more robust version, including a channel changing option to prime
> on a known good channel, should be available this weekend along with a new
> beta version of the firewire channel scanner.

Cool, I'll upgrade to that when it comes out, thanks for the tip.

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 08:50:00AM -0400, Steven Adeff wrote:
> > Seeing that the DCH-3200 is an explicit choice of firewire STB in
> > mythtv-setup, it has to work for some.
> > Any idea what's going on then?
> 
> Make sure Myth is setup to use Broadcast with the box,
> > 2008-06-10 22:52:37.030 LFireDev(001E46FFFE6C0D04): HandleBusReset: Reconnecting P2P connection
> makes me think its set to P2P...
> and make sure the channel its changing the box to does in fact work
> over firewire.

Broadcast was the problem, I indeed missed that when I reset my device
config when I was trying to make it work.

Marc
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