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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2009 11:49 am 
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Christ, one more thing you might want to add to your top post. Where it reads:

Quote:
Configure it by executing the following and choose "Driver Configuration" then "USB Devices" then "Soundgraph iMON IR/LCD"


I would change it to

Quote:
Configure it by executing the following and choose "Driver Configuration" then "USB Devices" then "Soundgraph iMON IR/LCD", then "Save configuration and exit".

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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2009 12:00 pm 
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Location: Ottawa, Canada
done and thanks.


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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2009 7:24 pm 
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Christ, well it's good-new and bad-news. The good news is that the Harmony level 2 support person made the tweak necessary so that I can download the RM200 codes into my remote. The bad news is that most keys behave in an unpredictable fashion. Some specifics:

1. DirectionDown works predictability, although its a bit slow.

2. DirectionUp, DirectLeft & DirectionRight, Select & Escape/Back all miss button pushes frequently.

To better understand what was happening I killed the frontend and ran irw to get a capture of the of what LIRC thinks is coming in. Here is what I see:

When I hit DirectionDown the following spits out rapidly:
Code:
0000000001007f00 00 PadKeyDown rm200
0000000001007f00 01 PadKeyDown rm200
0000000001007f00 02 PadKeyDown rm200
0000000001007f00 03 PadKeyDown rm200


When I hit Select the following spits out rapidly:
Code:
000000000200002c 00 Enter rm200
000000000200002c 00 Enter rm200
000000000200002c 00 Enter rm200
000000000200002c 00 Enter rm200


When I hit and hold Escape/Back the following spits out very slowly:
Code:
0000000002000029 00 Esc rm200
0000000002000029 00 Esc rm200
0000000002000029 00 Esc rm200


I assume you aren't having these problems. What do you see when you run IRW and hit those keys? THanks!

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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2009 8:30 pm 
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Location: Ottawa, Canada
in /home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc you should play around with the "repeat" value for those keys to see if that helps.

For example, here is an excerpt from mine for the PadKey values:
Code:
###### CUSTOM MYTHTV ######
begin
        prog = mythtv
        button = PadKeyUp
        repeat = 6
        config = Up
end

begin
        prog = mythtv
        button = PadKeyLeft
        repeat = 9
        config = Left
end

begin
        prog = mythtv
        button = PadKeyDown
        repeat = 6
        config = Down
end

begin
        prog = mythtv
        button = PadKeyRight
        repeat = 9
        config = Right
end

begin
        prog = mythtv
        button = AppExit
        config = Esc
end

The higher the repeat number the more IR repeats it will absorb.

Your version of Harmony may be sending a different rate of codes per key press than mine. But I did have to adjust this to get it to respond sensibly.

BTW, Ch+/CH-/Vol+/Vol- have a repeat of 3 in my set up.

In the Harmony Configuration tool, what remote has it identified as? Is it "SoundGraph RM200 Media Center PC"?

Are you in fact using the one from their database or did you have to do something funkier?


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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2009 10:12 pm 
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Christ, I have already played with the repeat settings -- no improvement. Tried 0, 3 & 8. Repeat settings tend to help when you have multiple actions from a single push -- not sure they help with lost button hits.

The Harmony settings come from their database. The Harmony device I am currently working with is showing as "Antec veris rm200". I have another device I have setup that shows as "SoundGraph RM200", but the tech support folks need to tweak things so it will download properly into my remote. This need for tweaking by level 2 support is caused by a known-bug in their app that effects the 600 series remotes.

I am getting the device labels by hovering my mouse over the device icon in the Harmony app -- is that where you are getting your names from?

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PostPosted: Tue May 26, 2009 6:19 pm 
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marc.aronson wrote:
Repeat settings tend to help when you have multiple actions from a single push -- not sure they help with lost button hits.

I agree with this. When you said a single button press created multiple IR events, I was thinking to use repeat to absorb the extra IR commands.

Quite simply, if irw is not missing events but Myth is then it seems to me the issue is somewhere at the lircrc/mythtv level. As I recall irw connects to lircd which processes your lirc?.conf files.

If you are missing events at irw then I would check with mode2 which comes in before lircd. If it is missing events then it is either the remote or IR receiver.

Quote:
The Harmony settings come from their database. The Harmony device I am currently working with is showing as "Antec veris rm200". I have another device I have setup that shows as "SoundGraph RM200", but the tech support folks need to tweak things so it will download properly into my remote. This need for tweaking by level 2 support is caused by a known-bug in their app that effects the 600 series remotes.

Great :-(. Did they teach you how to tweak it or do they have to do something on their end before your download?

Quote:
I am getting the device labels by hovering my mouse over the device icon in the Harmony app -- is that where you are getting your names from?

I was getting it from the "Devices" tab then "Settings" for the device, then "Select the remote...".

But using your method yields "SoundGraph RM200". For me this works well (aside from adjustments to repeat) and is comprehensive.


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PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 12:34 am 
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Location: California
Quote:
Quite simply, if irw is not missing events but Myth is then it seems to me the issue is somewhere at the lircrc/mythtv level. As I recall irw connects to lircd which processes your lirc?.conf files.

The behavior in mythtv & the output from irw were totally consistent. The output from irw in my previous post indicated inconsistent behavior amongst different keys on the remote.

Quote:
Did they teach you how to tweak it or do they have to do something on their end before your download?


They create a customized device definition and link it into my logitech account so that I can download it into my remote. The provided me an update tonight that is behaving massively better. All but 3 keys are behaving properly. I have sent them back a request to see if they can fix those keys and also address the lag issue that we are both seeing. While this problem has been time consuming and frustrating, I have to give those guys credit -- they really are providing an incredible level of support that I have rarely seen. Once I have a final definition that works I'll post directions here on how to request it in case other Harmony 600 series owners need the information.

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PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 1:33 am 
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Location: California
Another wrinkle that people should be aware of. The power button is a toggle and it will initiate a shutdown of your mythtv box if your system is already powered up. Technically this isn't a surprise, but I have to admit I didn't fully appreciate the implications of this. I configured my harmony to automatically send a power command when the mythtv activity is selected. Some implications:

1. If the machine is already booted, it starts a shutdown -- undesirable if you are in the middle of a recording.

2. If you issue this early enough in the boot process it will simply shut off the machine.

I fixed problem 1 by adding "exit 0" near the top of the script "/etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh". This script is called whenever the powerbutton is hit to shutdown the machine.

I am concerned that there is still a "window of vulnerability" during the boot process, prior to the ACPI process starting up, in which a power-off command could initiate an ungraceful power off, with resultant risk of disk corruption. Once ACPI is running, the poweroff is achieved through a graceful "shutdown -h".

Thoughts?

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PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 6:31 am 
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Location: Ottawa, Canada
marc.aronson wrote:
Another wrinkle that people should be aware of. The power button is a toggle and it will initiate a shutdown of your mythtv box if your system is already powered up.

Thoughts?

The Power switch is usually set with the BIOS and won't suddenly power down by default (in most systems). But your mod won't hurt.

However, what makes things easier is to use the Power button to start the machine (and in lircrc comment it out) and then re-assign an unused key to execute power down. In my lircrc I have:
Code:
## Power Down
begin
        prog = irexec
        button = MouseKeyboard
        config = sudo /sbin/shutdown -h now
end


In this way you can have the Harmony remote automatically power myth down.

In the harmony software, I tell it that this device has two separate commands for power on vs off and assign the commands for each.

I also find it better to not power down devices when switching "Activities" particularly with Myth. This saves all the power up/down cycling if you often switch between activities (as I do).


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PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 9:38 pm 
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Location: California
Quote:
The Power switch is usually set with the BIOS and won't suddenly power down by default (in most systems). But your mod won't hurt.


Chris, the following is the behavior of my R5.5 system:

1. If the power button is hit during the early stages of the boot process the machine will simply shut off.

2. After a certain point in the boot process a power button hit will initiate execution of the script I identified in my previous post. That script initiates a "shutdown -h" -- not good if your system serves as a backend.

3. A hit of the power button can be initiated by either hitting the power switch on the machine or hitting the power button on the remote.

I agree with your points on the remote setup -- that is also what I did.

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Marc

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PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2009 10:44 pm 
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marc.aronson wrote:
2. After a certain point in the boot process a power button hit will initiate execution of the script I identified in my previous post. That script initiates a "shutdown -h" -- not good if your system serves as a backend

Interesting. And this is regardless of the BIOS setting (or perhaps you don't have a setting)?

If recall correctly, in my various systems the BIOS usually gives me an option for the power button (power on only, none, suspend). Or something like that. And it works for me.

However, I'm also aware that the kernel can bypass the BIOS. This may be your situation if BIOS mods are not making a difference.


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 5:56 pm 
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Location: California
A quick update on the Logitech Harmony remote situation. As a brief reminder, the Antec remotes uses an IR encoding that many learning remotes find difficult to "learn". The standard Harmony remote device that Christ has been using to mimic the RM200 exhibits quite a bit of "lag", as did the configuration initially provided to me by Harmony support. It's taken several weeks and numerous experiments, but the Harmony support folks have created a custom device configuration that provides me with all of the RM200 buttons and no lag. The response to the remote is instantaneous. I have to give the Harmony Tech Support team a lot of credit -- they are persistent and they don't stop until the problem is solved!

I have asked the Harmony support folks to make one more tweak and to provide me instructions on how others can access this configuration. Once I have that info, I will update this thread.

Christ -- to answer your previous question, no -- my BIOS does not provide any way to disable the power switch. The only choices are "off" (power button triggers power on/off) and "Suspend" (power button triggers suspend/resume).

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:50 pm 
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Location: Ottawa, Canada
marc.aronson wrote:
I have asked the Harmony support folks to make one more tweak and to provide me instructions on how others can access this configuration. Once I have that info, I will update this thread.

Great! looking forward to it. I don't find it any slower than the MCE RC6 version but it is not as fast as using a keyboard.

Once they make it public, I'll give it a shot.


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 11:44 pm 
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Hey christ,

I have the 0043 veris basic the same as you - so I think your method should work. I've diff version of Harmony but I'm not up to that yet :(

I've followed your howto but on a minimal ubuntu installation - no X.

I have to start each command in the /usr/src with sudo - is it ok to use 'sudo make' and 'sudo make install' because once I do it all, I can use 'lircd -v' and get correct output but I have no /etc/lirc directory at all.

The only other place I can see I could be going wrong is I have no other linux distro up in the house at the moment and so I'm copying ur files down in windows and using dos2unix to correct line-endings - is that ok?

-- Also did u not need to unbind the drivers for it from usbhid?

I've been getting very close to having it working with various methods i've found on the web but not quite there - the best I've got is to where I can use lirc0 buttons but then lirc1 buttons disable all (or the otherway round not sure)


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 7:37 am 
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Renbad wrote:
I've followed your howto but on a minimal ubuntu installation - no X.

I am not familiar with Ubuntu's layout and compile procedures. J-Y Avenard on the Myth-user board seems to have this working on Ubuntu using a similar method. I'm sure he will share or you can google his notes on this subject.

Renbad wrote:
I have to start each command in the /usr/src with sudo - is it ok to use 'sudo make' and 'sudo make install' because once I do it all, I can use 'lircd -v' and get correct output but I have no /etc/lirc directory at all.

I think is where the fun starts with Ubuntu. I'm not sure why you need to sudo all the time. Why can't you log in as root? I find it easier. Also you will need to find out where Ubuntu puts lirc's config files. If you look in /etc/init.d/lirc you should find at least the hardware.conf file's location. It the identifies where all of the other conf files should be.

Renbad wrote:
The only other place I can see I could be going wrong is I have no other linux distro up in the house at the moment and so I'm copying ur files down in windows and using dos2unix to correct line-endings - is that ok?

If you can read the files properly in an editor in linux then it is likely ok. However, here is how you can copy the data over. From your windows machine open up an xterm (using an ssh client such as putty). Open an editor such as "vi" in that xterm for the file you want to create (e.g. "vi lirc0.conf"). Then put the editor in insert mode. Copy the text from the browser window (for the lirc0.conf file) and then right click into the xterm window which should perform a past.

Renbad wrote:
-- Also did u not need to unbind the drivers for it from usbhid?

I did not. But you may have to. You can verify which driver through the following command:
Code:
cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

If lirc_imon is attached then you are good. If usbhid is attached then you need the "quirk" fix. Also if you can see /dev/lirc0 and /dev/lirc1 then I would think lirc did find the devices and initialized them correctly. Verify this. If you see them then the issue is at a higher level. If you did not see them then your issue is likely driver related.

Renbad wrote:
I've been getting very close to having it working with various methods i've found on the web but not quite there - the best I've got is to where I can use lirc0 buttons but then lirc1 buttons disable all (or the otherway round not sure)

That is significant. If /dev/lirc1 also exists then you were successful with the driver! If you got lirc0 working but lirc1 is dead then it may be that you have not made the mods needed in /etc/init.d/lirc to combine lirc0 and lirc1 into one stream for mythtv.


If you feel you want to try another path, Jarod Wilson has just released a beta version of the latest imon driver which is supposed to eliminate the need for both lirc0 and lirc1 which should simplify things.


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