So I ran the pacman update lastnight. Well it seems to have updated my streamzap lircrc and added some stuff for another remote too. Well I had neglected to backup the lircrc and it doesn't backup on it's own. So looks like I'll be trying to remember what all I put in there.

What's the best way to avoid this in the future? I guess I'll add lircrc to my backup.list? Can I just not update lircrc in the future?

I think you can add the location of your custom lircrc file in the NoUpdate section of pacman.conf to avoid having it overwritten by pacman.

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BE: R8.4, HVR2250, MCE media center remote, GigaByte GA-EP43-UD3L, 2gb ram

FE: Linhes 8.4, Mythbuntu, Linux Mint DE

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Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

Hmm, my understanding is that pacman will not replace edited config files. In that situation the new version from the package should instead be saved with a .pacnew extension, without overwriting the old one. The logic is spelled out at near the bottom of the pacman man page.

Did you give the f option when you did the full update? If so I believe that disables the config file detection logic and just installs the new files, so it should be avoided.

Meanwhile, I think always backing up your config files is a good idea anyhow. Makes for a much faster restoration if something goes wrong...

If you have a custom lircrc, you should put it somewhere in mythtv's home directory. That way, the file will be saved during a backup. To get the system to use it, just edit /etc/lircrc so that the include directive includes your custom file instead of the default one in system-templates. That way, the system-templates package can update itself all it wants and it wont affect your setup.

Of course if your lircrc updates are of a general nature, a better way would be to submit them for inclusion in LinHES.

Thanks for the input. For the moment, I've added the lircrc to my backup.list and restore.list files. I believe I did use the f option, whatever is in the frontpage here.

Ah I see that now. That's unfortunate... Well, just for future reference, f in pacman means "force" and while it may have been required to upgrade from one of the betas it should not be used as part of any regular practise. Only use it when absolutely needed, i.e. if something doesn't work without it and you know why.

just updated via pacman -Syu. Again it has overwritten my custom lircrc file!

What happens if you set the remote to "tinker" in the LinHES service menu? In theory that option means don't mess with the remote options.

Does this only apply to updates done from the LinHES update menu item? It is not obvious to me that a direct use of pacman would know about this option.

Yes, tinker would work. If you are using remote X, I wouldn't recommend making modifications to the default files. Use tinker or copy the dir for the remote you have and select that remote.

I don't know about the 'tinker' option. If I select 'tinker' from the list of recievers, I won't have a problem with my streamzap? This will fix the customizations being overwritten? (It's better then having to restore a backup everytime...)

EDIT
'Tinker' doesn't play well with streamzap. Skipping every other menu item and such.

RE-EDIT
OK, 'Tinker' is working. For some reason /etc/lircrc was looking at the new lircrc file and the .BAK backup I had made. IDK how this happened, but it's fixed now.

Update: Tinker didn't work. Still overwrote my lircrc file with the last update. Didn't -f Force, used the Tinker, still deleted my custom file...

The files in /usr/MythVantage/templates/remotes/... are part of the lirc-utils package. If lirc-utils is updated, they will be too. If you want your own customisations you should
a) submit them for inclusion in lirc-utils if they are of a general nature; or
b) put your customised files somewhere else.
That is why I suggested that you put the files in ~mythtv/.
Tinker should leave /etc/lircrc and /etc/lircd.conf alone, but if they just "include" files from /usr/MythVantage/templates/remotes/... it is not going to help you.

To use Tinker effectively you need to tinker with /etc/lirc* so they include you customisations or point to custom files of your own. Dont leave them pointing to the official LinHES lirc config files in /usr/MythVantage/templates/remotes

Yeah, this makes more sense now. It's been a trial and error and error for me on this topic. Is there a wiki page or tut somewhere that might shed further light? I'll do some more searching.

My tweaks are not mainstream enough to include (ie buttons for switching to xbmc, restarting FE, odd jump points, etc. WAF stuff.)

The easiest way for right now to fix this is to make your own remote.
Just make a dir in /usr/MythVantage/templates/$This_is_my_remote and copy in the lircrc and lircd and preview file.

After thats done it will be available as an option in the configuration menus, and it WILL NOT be overwritten by any system updates.