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

[Stephen Worthington]

On Thu, 3 Dec 2015 16:56:45 +1100, you wrote:

>>
>> Hi Stephen, thanks for this info. When I ran  "sudo ir-keytable --test
>> --device=/dev/input/event4 | tee key_presses.log" I found that all the
>> buttons on the Harmony 600 remote were working. The only slight mismatch
>> was that the Menu button on the remote was logged as KEY_DVD but that
>> doesn't matter (I don't think).
>>
>> So I presume that means things are looking good for me and I can use the
>> existing /lib/udev/rc_keymaps/rc6_mce without having to make any changes.
>> But what do I do now to get it all working? What file needs to go where?
>> What daemons need to be turned on or off? How do I stop lirc from trying to
>> do it "the old way"? I presume I need to do something with /etc/rc_maps.cfg
>> but I don't know what. Am I supposed to run "sudo ir-keytable -s rc1 -a
>> /etc/rc_maps.cfg"? When I tried this I got an error:
>>
>> $ sudo ir-keytable -s rc1 -a /etc/rc_maps.cfg
>> Protocol RC6_MCE invalid
>> Invalid parameter on line 1 of /lib/udev/rc_keymaps/rc6_mce
>> Can't load rc6_mce table from /etc/rc_keymaps or /lib/udev/rc_keymaps
>>
>> Sorry for all the questions, but I don't understand the end to end process
>> of getting this to work, and what I found online wasn't very helpful.
>>
>
>I _think_ I've made some progress:
>
>1) I can see button presses when I run irw,
>2) I can see button presses when I run sudo ir-keytable -t -s rc0, but only
>if I'm not running lirc daemon. Is that expected?

Yes, you need to shut down lirc to run ir-keytable -t, otherwise lirc
takes the keystrokes.

>3) I can't see any button presses when I run ircat mythtv.

Right, so now you need to set up lirc to use the devinput driver, as
in my setup.  Look at the files that go in /etc/lirc (hardware.conf,
lircd.conf).  The key thing is to set the REMOTE_DRIVER="devinput"
option in hardware.conf, but there are other options in those files
that you also need, so just copy them (keeping copies of your original
ones) and tweak the things that are different in your setup, like the
lirc device name (REMOTE_DEVICE).  That might be the only setting you
need to adjust.

>4) When I start mythfrontend I get no response to button presses on the
>remote.

You also need to look in my README for the later configurations that
need doing, in the lircrc files (/home/<mythfrontenduser>/.lirc/mythtv
and any others such as mplayer if you use that).  And beyond that, the
config of the hotkeys in mythfrontend needs to match what is in the
lircrc file.  If you use your existing mythtv file as a starting
point, you may not need to change any of the mythfrontend hotkey
settings.

>So it looks like I may have some basic building blocks in place, but I
>haven't glued them together properly yet. Can anyone please advise what I
>need to do to get this working from here? One thing I'm very confused about
>is why I need to run lirc if we're using devinput. Would this be easier to
>get working if I removed lirc, or at least didn't run the daemon on startup?

The reasons for running lirc vary - some people do not, and just
directly use the keyboard input created by the IR drivers.  However,
that requires that all programs that will be used with the IR remote
are configurable internally for what keystroke does what.  So if you
have even one program that can not be configured internally and needs
the IR remote, then you need run lirc.  Also, lirc allows
configuration of the autorepeat (off/on/speed) for each keystroke,
which I find very useful.  So there are enough reasons that I always
recommend running lirc on top of the kernel IR drivers.

If you use the keyboard input directly, then you will need to do a lot
of reconfiguring of the hotkey settings in mythfrontend, which is a
lot more difficult than using lirc and your old mappings that you
already have from your old lirc setup with a few tweaks for the new
keystroke inputs.  Editing the lircrc files is much easier than using
the hotkey setup tool in mythfrontend.