IR MCE remote control help
#1
I've been using Kodi with Linux Mint 17 for a few years and it worked just fine.  Mint 17 is no longer supported so I upgraded to Mint 19.3 and the remote doesn't work correctly.  I asked for help on the important thread at the top of the forum and got no response.  At the risk of  violating board customs, I'm starting a new thread to hopefully increase visibility.  The original post is: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...pid2930460

Since then I have tried any number of things.  The only way I can get irw to register anything is to use the method described here https://twosortoftechguys.wordpress.com/...ntu-18-04/ to use an old version of lirc.  But just because irw works doesn't mean the remote does: playpause and stop are non-functional.  (Incidentally, in Mint 17 I set up lirc as a generic MCE remote and it worked out of the box.  In Mint 19 the only way to get it to work with irw was to set it up as a Linux device event, but even then some important buttons refused to work.)

I used timeshift to restore my system to a time prior to installing any of these tools.  (Using the old version of lirc made my uneasy, but at this point I'm willing to settle for whatever works.  Since it didn't I restored the previous system.)

My remote is found here: http://lirc-remotes.sourceforge.net/remotes-table.html

and a picture is here https://sf.net/p/lirc-remotes/code/ci/ma...remote.jpg

Not expensive, but it always worked.  The lirc configuration guide seemed to be yielding some results, but it seems to have all been illusory.  For some reason Mint 19.3 does not like to acknowledge the remote as a remote.  It will never show as /dev/lirc0 and once you get the event device (which resisted me and it wasn't until method 3 or 4 that I finally got it) ir-keytable still refuses to run.

I have wasted hours on this.  If anybody has any suggestions or needs some output to help diagnose please let me know.  It might take a couple of days to get it but I would love the help.

Thanks.
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#2
That remote maps as a keyboard device I believe.  I used to have one for one of my Pi's but sadly, my kids broke the cable to the receiver so I can't test it now.  dmesg should tell you what it is getting mapped as.
Learning Linux the hard way !!
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#3
(2020-03-19, 09:41)black_eagle Wrote: That remote maps as a keyboard device I believe.  I used to have one for one of my Pi's but sadly, my kids broke the cable to the receiver so I can't test it now.  dmesg should tell you what it is getting mapped as.
Thanks for the reply.  I'm either not understanding something or not communicating something.

ir-keytable gives me:
/sys/class/rc/: No such file or directory
No devices found

dmesg gives me:
[    2.601951] hid-generic 0003:1D57:AD02.0001: input,hiddev0,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [HID 1d57:ad02] on usb-0000:00:12.0-2/input0

ls -l /dev/input/by-id/usb-1d57_ad02-event-kbd gives me:
lrwxrwxrwx 1root root 9 Mar 19 18:07 /dev/input/by-id/usb-1d57_ad02-event-kbd -> ../event2

cat /dev/input/event2 gives me garbage on all the buttons I tried except play/pause and stop - those just turned the cursor from a while rectangle to an outline, which tells me that the system knows SOMETHING is going on, but not what I want.  (The outline is what happens when i move the focus off of the terminal window.  I'm not sure if that's the same phenomenon or not.)

ir-keytable -d /dev/input/event2 gives me:
Can't open device: Permission denied

so I tried sudo ir-keytable -d /dev/input/event2 which gives me:
Name: HID 1d57:ad02 Keyboard
bus: 3, vendor/product: 1d57:ad02, version: 0x0110

Great - that's progress, right?  Not really because ir-keytable -t gives:
/sys/class/rc/: No such file or directory
No devices found

and ir-keytable -t -d /dev/input/event2 gives:
/dev/input/event2: Permission denied

So it's back to sudo ir-keytable -t -d /dev/input/event2 which gives:
Can't open lirc device: No such file or directory

I feel like I'm running in circles - permission is denied when I don't sudo, but when I do sudo there is No such file or directory.  I'm either missing something simple or not communicating the problem.
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#4
You shouldn't need ir-keytable or lirc for this.  Linux sees it as a keyboard.  Have you tried just booting up, starting Kodi and then plugging in the receiver and seeing if it 'just works' ?
Learning Linux the hard way !!
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#5
(2020-03-20, 08:58)black_eagle Wrote: You shouldn't need ir-keytable or lirc for this.  Linux sees it as a keyboard.  Have you tried just booting up, starting Kodi and then plugging in the receiver and seeing if it 'just works' ?

I see a mistake on my end - I thought it was obvious that was the first thing I did.  So let me explicitly give step 0:

I installed Mint 19.3.  I installed Kodi.  The remote didn't work correctly.  That is, the arrow keys worked, enter worked, escape worked.  But play/pause and stop did not.  I can not honestly tell you about the other keys as I either did not try them or considered it immaterial so didn't commit it to memory.

Also, on one of my many attempts I installed the Kodi package to customize controls.  I mean, I'm only going to use the remote with Kodi, so if the play/pause is interpreted as a space, "k", "{" or whatever it doesn't matter one bit to me, as long as it activates Kodi's play/pause.  Nothing was registered when I pressed the button.

My interpretation of this, based on your statement "Linux sees it as a keyboard" is that something in the kernel isn't reading this correctly.  It just worked with a previous version of Mint.  Maybe the fact that I'm using just about the cheapest controller available has something to do with the less than ideal performance.

Once again, thanks for the help and I welcome any other suggestions or thoughts.
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#6
OK.  I tried using xed to see what the system is reading.  I can't really make head nor tails out of this, but here it is:

PCRemote play/pause:
KeymapNotify event, serial 20, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys:  4294967239 0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   
           0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   

PropertyNotify event, serial 20, synthetic NO, window 0x5200001,
    atom 0x13b (_NET_WM_STATE), time 808887, state PropertyNewValue

FocusIn event, serial 20, synthetic NO, window 0x5200001,
    mode NotifyNormal, detail NotifyNonlinear

PCRemote stop:
KeymapNotify event, serial 20, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys:  4294967242 0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   
           0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   

PropertyNotify event, serial 20, synthetic NO, window 0x5200001,
    atom 0x13b (_NET_WM_STATE), time 808887, state PropertyNewValue

PropertyNotify event, serial 20, synthetic NO, window 0x5200001,
    atom 0x13b (_NET_WM_STATE), time 808888, state PropertyNewValue

PropertyNotify event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x5200001,
    atom 0x1a5 (_NET_WM_ICON_GEOMETRY), time 808992, state PropertyNewValue

PropertyNotify event, serial 35, synthetic NO, window 0x5200001,
    atom 0x1a5 (_NET_WM_ICON_GEOMETRY), time 809011, state PropertyNewValue

Wired USB Keyboard spacebar:
KeyPress event, serial 35, synthetic NO, window 0x5200001,
    root 0x26a, subw 0x0, time 810911, (57,166), rootSad928,643),
    state 0x0, keycode 65 (keysym 0x20, space), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (20) " "
    XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (20) " "
    XFilterEvent returns: False

Wireless USB Keyboard:
KeyRelease event, serial 38, synthetic NO, window 0x5200001,
    root 0x26a, subw 0x0, time 810977, (57,166), rootSad928,643),
    state 0x0, keycode 65 (keysym 0x20, space), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (20) " "
    XFilterEvent returns: False

The arrow keys and enter(Return) looked pretty much identical to me, but I could post that info it anybody thinks it might help.  Or suggest a cost-effective (i.e. cheap, preferably under $5) remote control that will work with this without the hassle.

Thanks.
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#7
I used xev, not xed for the previous post.  Typo which I forgot to fix and I can't find an edit tool on here. Sorry about that.
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#8
(2020-03-22, 23:12)chak1990 Wrote: I used xev, not xed for the previous post.  Typo which I forgot to fix and I can't find an edit tool on here. Sorry about that.

I guess I'm going to give up.  Everything I have tried has led directly to a brick wall with a not sufficiently functional remote control.  As much as I like my current remote, the fact that it doesn't work correctly means that I can only see 2 options: purchase a Windows license and hope for the best, or purchase a different remote control.  So, may I please have suggestions for an inexpensive remote that works with Ubuntu 18 or 20, or Mint 19?

Thanks in advance.
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