[mythtv-users] Can't start mythfrontend with TV off since moving to Intel graphics

[Paul Gardiner]

On 28/10/2020 12:02, David Hampton wrote:
> On Tue, 2020-10-27 at 19:40 +0000, Paul Gardiner wrote:
>> I've recently moved from nvidia to Intel graphics for my frontend.
>> With nvidia, I could specify CustomEDID and ConnectedMonitor
>> options in my xorg.conf so that mythfrontend would start up before
>> the TV was turned on, but Intel graphics doesn't support the
>> ConnectedMonitor option and I so far can't find an alternative.
>>
>> When mythfrontend starts it reports failure to find a screen and
>> attempts to set a mode with 0fps, although xrandr correctly reports
>> the modes specified via CustomEDID.
> 
> I think my Intel NUC frontend still boots properly without a screen
> connected, but its been a while since I spent time fighting it. Last
> time I worked on this stuff I had installed an HDMI pass-though audio
> extractor and was trying to make surround sound work again.
> 
> Here are the steps I took:
> 
> 1) Connect the receiver directly to the frontend.
> 
> 2) Boot and copy the receiver EDID with monitor-get-edid (I think).
> 
> 3) Install the EDID file into /lib/firmware/edid/sony-receiver.edid
> 
> 4) Tell dracut to include the EDID file in the initramfs by putting the
> following into /etc/dracut.conf.d/load-edid.conf:
> 
>    install_items=/lib/firmware/edid/sony-receiver.edid
> 
> 5) Rebuild initramfs with 'dracut -f'
> 
> 6) Update the kernel command line arguments to read the EDID file:
> 
>    grubby \
>      --args="drm.edid_firmware=edid/sony-receiver.edid" \
>      --update-kernel `grubby --default-kernel`
> 
> 7) Put the following into /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-xorg-tweaks-
> intel.conf:
> 
>    Section "Device"
>      Identifier "Default Device"
>      Driver     "intel"
>      Option     "Monitor-DP1"  "DP1 Monitor"
>      Option     "TearFree"     "true"
>    EndSection
> 
>    Section "Monitor"
>      Identifier "DP1 Monitor"
>      Option     "Primary"        "true"
>      Option     "HotPlug"        "false"
>    EndSection
> 
> 8) Reconnect the HDMI audio extractor.
> 
> 9) Reboot.
> 
> This is several hours of trial and error (and swearing) summarized into
> bullet points. I think I got everything in there. The "Hotplug"
> xorg.conf option might be the specific solution to your problem.
> 
> I hope this helps.

Interesting. There are two steps there I haven't tried. I neglected to 
tell dracut about the EDID file. And I didn't try the HotPlug option. 
Both worth a go, although dmesg didn't report a failure to find the the 
edid file.