[mythtv-users] HDPVR intermittent failure

[Will Dormann]

On 7/22/20 7:04 PM, John Hoyt wrote:
>     I decided to try this with my current Myth setup, and it looks like
>     you don't have a version for Ubuntu 16.04. 
> 
> 
> Correct - sorry about that.  Unfortunately launchpad blocks the upload
> for no longer supported versions of Ubuntu.  I used to have a Xenial
> build posted, but dropped it when I ran out of space in launchpad.


I think I'll add myself to the list of HD-PVR 1212 owners where the
device has slowly gotten less and less reliable over time.  And my power
is coming from the computer's PSU, so it can't be the supplied wall wart
that's the problem.

The latest failure sequence was just yesterday:
1) Noticed recording that was choppy
2) Power cycled HD-PVR
3) Rather than being recognized by the computer, it showed up in dmesg as:
usb 1-6: new full-speed USB device number 10 using xhci_hcd
usb 1-6: Device not responding to setup address.
usb 1-6: Device not responding to setup address.
usb 1-6: device not accepting address 10, error -71

Where the device number would increment with each power cycle.   This
happened once before perhaps a year ago and I did some number of actions
including opening the case, switching USB ports on the computer, and
switching USB cables, and eventually it worked.

This time around I ended up giving up on it, only to realize that just
after leaving it sit there for a while the device was picked up, and I
confirmed that it is functional to record.


Anyway, long story short, I want a contingency plan for when my device
fully kicks the bucket, and this HD-PVR 2 stuff has piqued my interest.
 But I'm a little curious:

1) Ubuntu 16.04 reaches EOL on April 2021, which hasn't arrived yet.  So
it seems odd that the upload to support 16.04 wouldn't be allowed for
that reason.
2) It looks like the project page https://github.com/jpoet/HauppaugeUSB
indicates that fixes/31 is required.   Is this required to support
external recorders in general?


Based on track record, I've found that updating a system without a
specific worthwhile reason will usually end up in one of two scenarios:
1) After some indefinite amount of time/effort spent, the system may
work as well as it did before.
2) After some indefinite amount of time/effort spent, the system isn't
working as it did before.

As such, I'm a happy owner of a MythTV 29.1 on Ubuntu 16.04 system (ever
since 14.04 went EOL, lather, rinse, repeat...)

If I happen to go the HD-PVR2 route, or if April 2021 rolls around
before I know it, I'm curious if there are any guides to help avoid any
"gotchas" with updating to a newer version of Ubuntu.  I seem to recall
seeing chatter here about lirc being problematic starting with Ubuntu
18.04?  And I'm an old school lircd user with a homemade receiver wired
into a serial port.  I'd hate to go down an upgrade path that results in
a no-longer-working remote control, for example.


Thanks for any tips/info!
-WD