Intermittent TBS6981 device recognition

[billbofagends]

Hi, I have a TB 6981 PCI-e card in an Ubuntu 11.10 x64 PC:

uname -a

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Linux mythbox 3.0.0-12-generic #20-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 7 14:56:25 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

The problem I am having is that card drivers (from linux-tbs-drivers_111118.zip - v0.0.3) do not always load and I have to perform several reboots before I get my dev files (/dev/dvb/adapter3 and /dev/dvb/adapter 4). The machine this card is in also has a Hauppauge Nova-T DVB-T tuner in too. At the moment, the TBS6981 card isn't being recognised and the only dvb dev file I have is for my Nova-T.

ls -l /dev/dvb

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drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 120 2012-02-20 23:58 adapter5

Attached is output from dmesg, lspci -v and modinfo cx23885.

dmesg_lspci_modinfo.zip

dmesg, lspci -v and modinfo cx23885 output

(19.24 KiB) Downloaded 253 times

I have created a tuner.conf in /etc/modprobe.d to specify the adpater_nr parameter for my tuners so that my Nova-T and TBS6981 always get the same dev files:

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# TurboSight TBS 6981 - use /dev/dvb/adapter[3,4]
options cx23885 adapter_nr=3,4

# Hauppauge Nova-T PCI - use /dev/dvb/adapter5
options cx88_dvb_core adapter_nr=5


If I try to manually force the module in using "modprobe cx23885", the command just hangs and does not complete. There is no output in dmesg either when trying this.

Any help would be appreciated. I am going to reboot the machine a few times until I get my devices then I will post the output of dmesg/lspci etc again.

Cheers

Sam

[billbofagends]

Attached is output from dmesg and lspci -v with the card working and dev files present. I tried a couple of reboots which didn't work, then I did a poweroff, fired it back up and the dev files were there.

dmesg_lspci_working.zip

dmesg and lspci -v output with device files presnet.

(17.3 KiB) Downloaded 249 times

ls -l /dev/dvb

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drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 120 2012-02-21 00:49 adapter3
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 120 2012-02-21 00:49 adapter4
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 120 2012-02-21 00:49 adapter5


[billbofagends]

Doing a compare of my 2 dmesg outputs, I spot in the first:

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[   19.760950] TurboSight TBS 6981 Frontend 0 Attaching...
[   19.780393] BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 00000000000000b0
[   19.780398] IP: [<ffffffffa0d2e04d>] tbsfe_attach+0xd/0xfc0 [tbsfe]
[   19.780404] PGD 0
[   19.780406] Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP
[   19.780409] CPU 0
[   19.780410] Modules linked in: tbsfe tbs6981fe(P) snd_emu10k1 snd_ac97_codec ac97_bus snd_pcm snd_page_alloc snd_util_mem nvidia(P) dvb_pll cx22702 cx88_dvb_core cx88_vp3054_i2c ir_lirc_codec lirc_dev ir_mce_kbd_decoder ir_sony_decoder ir_jvc_decoder rc_hauppauge cx25840 ir_rc6_decoder ir_rc5_decoder snd_hwdep snd_seq_midi snd_rawmidi snd_seq_midi_event joydev snd_seq snd_timer snd_seq_device cx8800 snd asus_atk0110 amd64_edac_mod(+) edac_core cx8802 cx88xx k8temp(+) edac_mce_amd soundcore i2c_algo_bit i2c_viapro(+) shpchp(+) ir_nec_decoder cx23885(+) rc_core cx2341x videobuf_dma_sg videobuf_dvb dvb_core videobuf_core v4l2_common videodev media v4l2_compat_ioctl32 btcx_risc tveeprom lp parport hid_microsoft firewire_ohci firewire_core usbhid hid crc_itu_t floppy atl1 sata_via pata_via

It looks like it falls over trying to load the driver.

[cody]

hi Sam,

as far as i understand some time it works properly, but some time it doesn't and when that happens then you get the driver load crash as it can be seen on your log. so, if that's the case it means there is something wrong with hardware of your 6981 board and that's why sometimes the driver fails to initialize it. please, contact us via support emails to arrange replacement - if you already done that, we will reply to your email.

regards,
cody

[infiltrator]

Funny enough, I had the same problem. When I initially set up my HTPC, it stood upright and I had problems with it. When I put the machine flat (the tbs card is now upright - Mobo is level with desktop and not vertical!) I don't seem to have problems anymore. Very strange - but then I looked at the connectors on the PCIe and seems some are shorter. Not sure if this is the culprit but that seems to have fixed it. It also seems a lot more stable now. I would get the OS hanging at some points and when I rebooted it - it would have no /dev/dvb. I haven't had this problem for about a week now after laying the box flat!

Regards,

infy