[mythtv-users] Need Help: HD-PVR IRBlaster

[Jarod Wilson]

On Dec 20, 2010, at 3:02 PM, Martin Lynch wrote:

> >Do you have a patched hdpvr driver that enables the IR part? That's
> >a requirement for lirc_zilog to be able to bind to the hardware. You
> >mention you "downloaded the HD-PVR driver", but I don't know exactly
> >what that means. What sort of output do you see in dmesg just after
> >driver load? (even better, after 'modprobe lirc_zilog debug=1'). You
> >appear to have *something* creating /dev/lirc0, but it doesn't seem
> >to be lirc_zilog.
> 
> Many thanks for responding, Jarod!
> 
> Here's what dmesg contains:
> 
> [   14.401646] lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, major 251
> [   14.404336] lirc_zilog: Zilog/Hauppauge IR driver initializing
> [   14.408669] lirc_zilog: ivtv i2c driver #0: no devices found
> [   14.408673] lirc_zilog: no device found
> [   14.414267] lirc_zilog: chip found with RX and TX
> [   14.414295] lirc_dev: lirc_register_driver: sample_rate: 0
> [   14.414352] Zilog/Hauppauge i2c IR 3-0071: firmware: requesting haup-ir-blaster.bin
> 
> martin at HTPC:~$ sudo modprobe lirc_zilog debug=1
> [sudo] password for martin:
> martin at HTPC:~$
> 
> I downloaded the HD-PVR driver from http://www.themainlan.com/mythtv/hdpvr-blaster-drivers.tar.gz following the instructions at http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Hauppauge_HD-PVR.
> 
> Thanks for clarifying that I need to restart lircd after changes. Is it correct to start lircd via the command line with $sudo lircd?

No.

> The command line arguments I posted previously are what are shown under System Monitor for lircd, however I simply typed "sudo lircd" - the rest of the arguments ("--output=/var/run/lirc/lircd --device=/dev/lirc")I take it came from lircd.conf?

No. I'm sure exactly where those came from, but definitely not
from lircd.conf.

> Actually, now that I look at it, the arguments point to /dev/lirc, which does't exist - only lirc0 and lircd (pointer to /var/run/lirc/lircd) exist.

Yeah, that's probably why its saying hardware doesn't support sending,
there's not actually any hardware backing /dev/lirc.

> Tried stopping lircd and restarting with --device=/dev/lirc0 and doesn't make a difference. When restarting lircd, do I need to unload and reload lirc_zilog and/or lirc_dev?

No. And you didn't restart lircd if you used the method you
described earlier.

> I'm happy to start the whole process from scratch, if that's cleaner, if you can tell me how to get back to my original, pre-attempts state (ie, would I just stop lircd, modprobe -r lirc_zilog, remove lirc_zilog, restore the old lirc_dev, delete haup-ir-blaster.bin, delete /etc/lirc/  and perhaps reboot or re-log-in?).

Nah, you just need to use the correct config file and daemon starting
methods. You either have to start it by hand with all args provided,
or you use your distro's initscript, which sucks in the various device
options from its config file. Looks like you're running Ubuntu, so
you edit /etc/lirc/hardware.conf and then run /etc/init.d/lirc stop and
start (or restart) to pull in new values from hardware.conf. (That file
is NOT part of upstream lirc, lircd knows nothing about it, it only
knows about your lircd.conf if its at /etc/lircd.conf or at
/etc/lirc/lircd.conf).


> I see you devote an awful lot of time to the community regarding IRBlaster issues, Jarod - thanks, sincerely, for your help, and my apologies if it seems I'm being obtuse - trying to get this working reminds me of day 1 with Linux, 5 years ago - like learning a new language, and not one of those easy latin-based ones either!

Not the most stable time in IR land either right now with all the
improvements we're trying to make... :)


-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com