[mythtv-users] Problems after upgrading frontend from Mythbuntu 12.04 to 14.04

[Stephen Worthington]

On Wed, 2 Dec 2015 22:53:44 +1100, you wrote:

>I've just upgraded my Mythbuntu 12.04 frontend to 14.04. I wish I hadn't.
>I'm having a couple of problems:
>
>
>   1. The infra-red remote that always worked flawlessly now works to start
>   with, but after a while the frontend just stops responding to it.
>
>   2. From time to time when not being used the frontend just goes to a
>   blank sky-blue screen and won't respond to the remote or keyboard presses.
>   I'm not sure if this is just after being idle for a while, or if the HDMI
>   input is changed to another device and then changed back to the frontend.
>   THe only way I've found of "fixing" it is to reboot.
>
>
>Has anyone else had these problems and know a fix?

1. You probably are running up against the change of the IR drivers
into kernel drivers instead of user mode drivers inside lirc.  In
which case, the best option is to use the kernel drivers (devinput),
but that means a significant reconfiguration of your IR setup.  So
what remote are you using?  Do all the keys work at startup, or only
the arrow keys?

For working Mythbuntu 14.04 IR config using devinput, see my setup
which is available for download from my web server:

  http://www.jsw.gen.nz/mythtv/mythbuntu-devinput-lirc.bz2

2. There have been a number of reports of problems in 14.04 with the
video drivers becoming misconfigured when X sees a device change or a
device that is off and not responding when asked for EDID data.  There
are a number of ways of fixing this, but the easiest one I have seen
is to stop the bit of software that detects device changes from
running at startup.  Unfortunately, I can not remember its name, but
if you scan the list archives you should find it.  Another option is
to read the device's EDID data into a file and set up X to always get
the EDID data from that file instead of from the device.  Again,
details are available in the list archives.

It is likely that you do not really need to reboot to fix this
problem, just restart X with the correct video device plugged in and
turned on.  To restart X, log in to your frontend remotely using SSH,
or use CTRL-ALT-F1 to switch to a text mode console, and run the
command "restart lightdm" (sudo needed if not root).