Linux Hauppauge adapter not visible anymore after reinstall
#1
Hello everyone,
I have been a very satisfied xbmc user for several months now. I have been running beta 3 I believe and using the pvr function with success. Two days ago I installed the new stable xbmc 12 release and surprise! no more adapter in my tvheadend configuration page! I have tried everything I could think of :
- restarting tvheadend
- stopping tvheadend, unplugging the adapter and starting tvheadend
- switching usb port
- lsusb shows the adapter properly
- dmesg as well
- when I start tvheadend manually in a shell it seems to discover the adapter properly, although there's the classic message "Device lacks MPEG encoder, device skipped"
So... I don't know what to do next. I don't remember if the MPEG encoder message appeared before reinstalling though, but why would it suddenly appear if nothing has changed in my physical configuration?
Oh, one thing to add, the adapter is indeed visible in /dev/dvb/ as adapter0 and I tried to set permissions to rw on video0 as well
I run XBMC 12 on a Zotac ID80 and my adapter is the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950Q.
Thanks for your help!!!
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#2
Please please someone Blush
Maybe some cues on what to look for? Right now I don't know what to do anymore.
Thanks in advance Smile
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#3
How are you starting tvheadend? Have you installed it from the official PPA, or have you built it yourself?

I can't imagine that changing XBMC version would interfere at all with tvheadend, so something's amiss...
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#4
Hey Prof,
Thanks for answering Smile
In fact I should have specified that I use XBMCBuntu, my mistake! So tvheadend is started as part of the boot process I guess.
I think I may have a hint on what is going on though. I was playing around with it the other night and I downloaded dvb-apps and tried "scan -c" a couple times to see what comes up. Nothing interesting came out, but when I came back to tvheadend, miracle! the adapter was visible!
So my guess is that when I reinstall from scratch as I did the other day, the adapter is not visible until I have used/initialised it once (by calling it with scan in this case).
Makes sense?
It works right now but I would rather understand what I did to make it work so next time I have to reinstall I know what to do hehe.
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#5
Yeah, I thought you were looking lonely all here on your own :-)

Very strange that tvheadend is picking it up only after some external application has done something. I'm no expert in the inner workings, but I thought that tvh grabbed the adapters it could as it starts, which is why you need to restart it if you plug a new one in while it's running (for example). Similarly, if you have a boot timing issue, in which tvh starts before the adapter is initialised, tvh doesn't subsequently find it - it needs to be restarted.

Sooo... I wonder if the restarting (as I see it) is actually just getting an application (tvh in this case, or scan in your example) to talk to the adapter. After that, it's there and available for all.


Sooooooo... are you certain that simply leaving the system warm up, and then issuing a sudo service tvheadend restart doesn't kick it into life? If it is just that something needs to talk to your adapter and get it initialised, that shoudl work as well as scan. And, if this is the case, then changing the order of the upstart jobs (or switching to tvheadend master, which has a delay flag built into the configuration file) should fix the issue.
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#6
Could it be that what you are describing (which I experienced before my reinstall) and what I "discovered" might be two different issues?
I'm wondering if when you install xbmcbuntu from scratch the adapter drivers are there and available and the adapter is recognized but tvheadend won't see the adapter until it has been "triggered" a single time but another application such as scan?
Hoping I make some sense...
I am working overtime at work these days so I don't have time to test anything right now unfortunately. When I have some free time I want to try and resinstall xbmcbuntu again from scratch and see if scanning solves the issue.
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#7
I think we'll need to see some logs to really make sense of this. Switch debugging on in tvheadend: edit /etc/default/tvheadend, and change the line TVH_DEBUG=0 to TVH_DEBUG=1. Restart everything, and then we can take a look at /var/log/syslog.

To be clear, you can log into the web interface fine, it's just that this adapter is missing, correct? I just want to be 100% certain that we're talking about the same thing (i.e. it's not an XBMC addon problem).

You also did a clean install of XBMCbuntu from what I gather, so it wasn't just an upgrade of XBMC - everything got recreated if that's the case, so it's open season for where the issue lies.

Check back in here when you've got some time and we'll do some digging.
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#8
Will do as soon as I can, might take be a couple days unfortunately though.
Thanks again for your help!
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#9
Hey Prof,
Finally had some time today to do some digging.
Good news, I managed to make tvheadend find my adapter. I reinstalled everything and then had to "scan -c" the system to make my adapter appear. Strange, but at least it works.
Not I have a new problem! Once my adapter was found, I added the "US ATSC center frequencies" as usual (I am in Montreal, Canada, using an antenna), and it could not find any services. It's strange since all this story started I never had any problem scanning my channels. I plugged my cable to my tv directly and it works fine, and I plugged my tvtuner to my wife's laptop and it works as well, so it's not a physical problem with the signal.
I get that kind of messages when scanning for services :

Feb 24 23:33:36 dvb: "623,028 kHz" on adapter "LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend", status changed to No signal
Feb 24 23:33:38 dvb: "623,028 kHz" on adapter "LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend", status changed to Faint signal
Feb 24 23:33:39 dvb: "623,028 kHz" on adapter "LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend", status changed to No signal
Feb 24 23:33:42 dvb: "623,028 kHz" on adapter "LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend", status changed to Faint signal
Feb 24 23:33:43 dvb: "623,028 kHz" on adapter "LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend", status changed to No signal
Feb 24 23:33:46 dvb: "623,028 kHz" on adapter "LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend", status changed to Faint signal
Feb 24 23:33:47 dvb: "623,028 kHz" on adapter "LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend", status changed to No signal
Feb 24 23:33:50 dvb: "623,028 kHz" on adapter "LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend", status changed to Faint signal
Feb 24 23:33:51 dvb: "623,028 kHz" on adapter "LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend", status changed to No signal
Feb 24 23:33:51 dvb: "/dev/dvb/adapter0" tuning to "659,028 kHz" (Initial autoscan)
Feb 24 23:33:52 dvb: "659,028 kHz" on adapter "LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend", status changed to OK
Feb 24 23:33:53 dvb: "659,028 kHz" on adapter "LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend", status changed to Bursty FEC
Feb 24 23:34:02 dvb: LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend: FE_READ_UNCORRECTED_BLOCKS returns delta updates (delta=-12935)
Feb 24 23:34:04 dvb: "659,028 kHz" on adapter "LG Electronics LGDT3305 VSB/QAM Frontend", status changed to Constant FEC

Any idea what might be going wrong?
Thanks!
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#10
Pass, I'm afraid. I'd suggest that this is one dodgy mux on 623MHz by the no/faint signal - do any other muxes work (659MHz seems to be having other issues from the log extract above), or are they all having a bad hair day? Try a different USB port, especially if you've got many of them on the same daughtboard, eliminate any hub.extension cables, try staring at it particularly hard in an attempt to psych it out?

If it continues, you might get more luck if you post over in the lonelycoder forum as well. Apologies, I can't really be much use on this one.
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#11
Nope, I scanned 68 muxes, no luck. Again, pretty strange as it worked flawleslly before the whole xbmc reinstall.
I found this http://www.totalsat.qc.ca/Files_pdf/ATSC_Frequency.pdf, I'll see if I can manually add them.
I'll try to sacrifice a chicken next to the machine as well.

Thanks again for your help, it was really appreciated! I'll keep you posted on the progress, might be helping someone else in the future.
Have a good day!
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#12
Hey Prof,
Wanted to let you know that I found the culprit!
I believe that tvheadend v3.2.34, which comes with xbmcbuntu 12 stable, has some kind of bug or incompatibility with my system. I reinstalled everything again, removing any unnecessary cable, taking care of doing everything properly, and it still was not working. So out of frustration I reinstalled xbmcbuntu 12 beta 1, which comes with tvheadend v3.2.18 and magically everything worked right out of the box!
I still a question or two if you don't mind. Do you think it would be better to keep xbmcbuntu beta1 and then manually update xbmc to v12 stable, or install xbmcbuntu 12 stable and manually downgrade tvheadend to v3.2.18? Is there such a thing as "uninstalling" a software in Linux? Or do I simply install 3.2.18 over 3.2.34?
Thanks again, if you have the time Smile
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#13
I think the honest answer is that you could try any of those routes. There's always the risk of *something* shooting itself if you're mixing-and-matching, but most things will play nicely together - and, if they don't, it's not the end of the world to just start again if you keep backups of anything sensitive.

Upgrading/downgrading is the same process, you just need to know where the candidate application is coming from so you can request a specific version. The default is always to upgrade, though, so any future apt-get upgrades will try to bring you up to date.

If I had to do what you're talking about, I'd probably go with the release XBMCbuntu and downgrade tvheadend, since XBMCbuntu has been designed around XBMC, not tvheadend, after all. However, I'd probably home in on *why* 3.2.34 didn't work for you, and what the options are. If you upgrade now, does it break again? Is there anything on the lonelycoder forums that's pertinent? Could you compile the current git code and see if that works? It would help make tvheadend better for others if there is a latent bug, or you might find that it's already been resolved in the current pre-release code.
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#14
Time to experiment! I'll try out some options, play with it, and eventually I'll have a smooth running machine. If I am brave enough (or find enough time) I might even build my own version.
Thanks again (again) for the help, have a good one!
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#15
And you. PM me if you get stuck, and I'll see if I can help. If nothing else, I can grab a shovel as well and dig alongside you :-)

EDIT

For what it's worth, either of these familiar in any way?

https://www.lonelycoder.com/redmine/boar...opics/7546

https://www.lonelycoder.com/redmine/boar...opics/7423

Compiling from git is actually easy. Alternatively, if you're comfortable with PPAs, there's also a beta tvheadend I found here: https://launchpad.net/~adamsutton/+archi...adend-beta - that has a version compiled from last week that you could give a try.
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