[mythtv-users] HELP: ir-keytable stopped working

[Tom Dexter]

I've been using ir-keytables for quite some time now with a homebrew
IR receiver and Phillips TIVO remotes. That uses the serial_ir in the
kernel and uses the NEC protocol. I have a feeling that my physical
receiver may have died, but I'm not sure how to tell.

I had the hard drive go on my frontend and had to restore to a new
drive from clonezilla backups, which all went fine, and actually just
before all that the remote seems to have been acting up. My key table
is loading correctly and things seem to look normal, but "ir-keytable
-t" gets nothing from the remote, and I don't seem to get anything
from the raw device either. Here are some outputs:

dmesg|grep serial
[    1.476623] serial_ir serial_ir.0: auto-detected active low receiver
[    1.476724] rc rc0: Serial IR type home-brew as
/devices/platform/serial_ir.0/rc/rc0
[    1.477129] input: Serial IR type home-brew as
/devices/platform/serial_ir.0/rc/rc0/input1
[  500.166062] serial_ir serial_ir.0: dcd unexpected: 1 1
500186132759ns 465013181260ns

Note that I have this compiled into the kernel. It seems like
everything is good there.

ir-keytable -v
Found device /sys/class/rc/rc0/
Input sysfs node is /sys/class/rc/rc0/input1/
Event sysfs node is /sys/class/rc/rc0/input1/event0/
Parsing uevent /sys/class/rc/rc0/input1/event0/uevent
/sys/class/rc/rc0/input1/event0/uevent uevent MAJOR=13
/sys/class/rc/rc0/input1/event0/uevent uevent MINOR=64
/sys/class/rc/rc0/input1/event0/uevent uevent DEVNAME=input/event0
Parsing uevent /sys/class/rc/rc0/uevent
/sys/class/rc/rc0/uevent uevent NAME=rc-empty
/sys/class/rc/rc0/uevent uevent DRV_NAME=serial_ir
input device is /dev/input/event0
/sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols protocol rc-5 (disabled)
/sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols protocol nec (enabled)
/sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols protocol rc-6 (disabled)
/sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols protocol jvc (disabled)
/sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols protocol sony (disabled)
/sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols protocol rc-5-sz (disabled)
/sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols protocol sanyo (disabled)
/sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols protocol sharp (disabled)
/sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols protocol mce_kbd (disabled)
/sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols protocol xmp (disabled)
Found /sys/class/rc/rc0/ (/dev/input/event0) with:
        Driver serial_ir, table rc-empty
        Supported protocols: NEC RC-5 RC-6 JVC SONY SANYO RC-5-SZ
SHARP XMP other
        Enabled protocols: NEC
        Name: Serial IR type home-brew
        bus: 25, vendor/product: 0001:0001, version: 0x0100
        Repeat delay = 1000 ms, repeat period = 1000 ms

I think that looks OK. The NEC protocol is enabled which is correct.

Based on the above I believe this it correct:

cat /sys/class/input/event0/device/name
Serial IR type home-brew

In addition to "ir-keytable -t" getting nothing, I get nothing from
this when using the remote:

od -x /dev/input/event0

Any suggestions on what else to check?

Assuming the receiver is dead, I bought that like 10 years ago. Does
anyone even sell them any more? If I had to switch to USB I have no
ideas there. I tried an MCE USB receiver and it was HORRIBLY
unreliable with with the Phillips TIVO...unusable...and I really want
to keep using. I've had some suggestions on the iguanaIR. Not sure on
that. For one thing it's supposed to be supported in the kernel and I
can't find what that is in the kernel.

Thanks!
Tom