[mythtv-users] reinitialize TV cards without rebooting?

[Harry Orenstein]

On Saturday 04 October 2008 05:28:17 pm Marc Chamberlin wrote:
> Thanks Geoff for your suggestions...  I am not entirely sure I
> understood your instructions but I will report what I have so far
> done/found. Keep in mind I am NOT a linux guru so some of this was a bit
> confusing to me...
>
> Anywise I only have 3 PCI slots on my motherboard, currently occupied by
> a Creative Labs sound card, a Hauppauge PVR 350 and an ATI TV-Wonder
> card. So there are only so many different combinations I could try..
> None of the different combinations made any difference, although SuSE
> would sometimes get a bit confused and would require me to reboot it a
> couple of times before it was happy again with a new configuration of
> the cards.
>
> Your suggestion to "remmod" and "insmod" the ivtv driver sounds
> interesting but I need more help to accomplish that. SuSE10.3 does not
> come with these particular commands and there was nothing in any man
> page about them. I did a bit of research and think I should be using the
> command "modprobe" instead? That seems to have something to do with
> inserting and removing modules in the kernel.. Again I am not a Linux
> guru so all this is guesswork...
>
> The man page on modprobe said I could list out all the modules with the
> -l optional parameter i.e.
>
> modprobe -l
>
> so I did the following -
>
> modprobe -l | grep ivtv
>
> and I got -
>
> /lib/modules/2/6/22/18-0.2-default/updates/ivtv-fb.ko
> /lib/modules/2/6/22/18-0.2-default/updates/ivtv.ko
>
> Now not knowing/fully understanding what I am doing, and the man pages
> didn't help me, I got cold feet and didn't go any further. Do I do a
>
> modprobe -r  ???
>
> on both of these modules? Do I just give the module name itself or the
> full path name? And once removed how do I add them back in? It appears
> that I want to use the command
>
> modprobe -a ???
>
> but if I have removed the modules will they still be in this same
> directory so I can add them back? Do I use the full path name or just
> the module name. Since I am not sure what I am doing with this modprobe
> command to remove/add modules I don't want to be doing something that
> could do damage or harm to my system. Should I back these files up
> somewhere where I can find them later if something goes wrong?
>
> Thanks again for your help, or anyone else who can get me fixed up...
> Marc..
>
> R. G. Newbury wrote:
> > Marc Chamberlin wrote:
> >> Hello -  I am running a Myth TV system with 2 TV cards, an Hauppauge
> >> PVR 350 and an ATI TV-Wonder. Often, when I boot up my system only
> >> one of the two cards seems to get initialized right so that Myth TV
> >> recognizes it. (Most of the time both cards are recognized) I am
> >> wondering, is there any easy way to reinitialize the card that
> >> failed, without having to reboot the system? It is rather annoying
> >> sometimes to have to wait through 1 or 2 or 3 reboot cycles in order
> >> to get the card to come back...
> >>
> >> Am running this on a SuSE 11.0 system.  I have tried  restarting the
> >> backend but that did not work....
> >
> > It *sounds* like the card needs some time to stabilize.
> >
> > You could try using a script (called from /etc/rc.local ) which will
> > remmod the  ivtv driver, and then insmod it back. That should trigger
> > the udev subsystem.
> > (Althernatively, there is a script which re-triggers udev, which
> > should then recognize the cards.
> >
> > Have you tested putting these 2 cards into different slots? Or just in
> > the other slot?
> > Have you tested with just one of them installed? And then the other?
> > In both slots?
> >
> >
> > There could be some sort of interrupt contention going on which a
> > slot-swop would fix, obviating any software work-arounds.
> >
> > Geoff
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >          Please let me know if anything I say offends you.
> >          I may wish to offend you again in the future.
> >
> >          Tux says: "Be regular. Eat cron flakes."
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

I never saw a message saying which card needed to be reloaded.  If it's the 
HDTV Wonder (like mine), try:

#!/bin/sh
#
# unload hdtv wonder modules
#
/sbin/modprobe -r tuner
/sbin/modprobe -r cx8800
/sbin/modprobe -r cx88_dvb
/sbin/modprobe -r tuner_simple
/sbin/modprobe -r tuner_types
#/sbin/modprobe -r nxt200x
/usr/bin/pkill pulseaudio
/sbin/modprobe -r cx88_alsa
#
# reload hdtv wonder modules
#
/sbin/modprobe cx88_dvb
/sbin/modprobe cx8800
/sbin/modprobe cx88_alsa
/sbin/modprobe tuner


-- Harry O.