TBS driver incompatbility with LIRC and solution

[Mavik]

Wanted to post this is case it is useful to others:

After installing the TBS6922 v120515 driver on Mythbuntu 10.04 (Linux mythbuntu 2.6.32-40-generic #87-Ubuntu SMP Tue Mar 6 00:56:56 UTC 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux), some of the buttons on my MCE remote control stopped working (Skip forward, Skip backwards, OK, Channel Up, Channel Down, TV Record, EPG, Watch TV, Disc, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, #, *, Teletext, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue), although the tuner card was otherwise working fine. The TBS driver installed new kernel modules for my MCE remote, which were incompatible with my version of LIRC (0.8.7) and meant that the remote control was treated like a normal input device. This meant that LIRC stopped receiving button presses from the remote, which with the new kernel modules is treated like a normal input device. Unfortunately not all the keys are mapped, otherwise I probably wouldn't have noticed the problem.

To fix the issue I downloaded LRIC 0.9.0 from the LIRC website and installed is without selecting any devices (dev input is what I required for the MCE remote and this is included by default). I then had to modify /etc/lirc/hardware.conf to use the default remote driver and /etc/init.c/lirc because the new lirc was in /usr/local/sbin instead of /usr/sbin. After rebooting I was getting the following types of error messages in dmesg:

[ 8.118136] lirc_mceusb: disagrees about version of symbol lirc_get_pdata
[ 8.118142] lirc_mceusb: Unknown symbol lirc_get_pdata
[ 8.118560] lirc_mceusb: disagrees about version of symbol lirc_register_driver
...
[ 12.168965] ir_lirc_codec: disagrees about version of symbol lirc_dev_fop_ioctl
[ 12.168967] ir_lirc_codec: Unknown symbol lirc_dev_fop_ioctl

According to TBS support, all LIRC/remote modules should be in
/lib/modules/<kernel_version>/kernel/drivers/media/

Using modinfo on the modules that were causing the messages, I found a number in:
/lib/modules/2.6.32-40-generic/kernel/ubuntu/lirc and /lib/modules/2.6.32-40-generic/misc

I renamed the modules and then re-installed the TBS driver to update the module dependencies.

After this change, LIRC was working correctly again, however applications were receiving double button presses from the remote because the button press was being received through both LIRC and also as a normal input device. I disabled the normal input device functionality be adding:

echo none +lirc > /sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols

at end of loading modules function in /etc/init.d/lirc. I had read forum posts suggesting that it could be added to rc.local but that didn't work for me as I suspect that it was running too early, before the LIRC modules were loaded (Make sure rc* is correct if you have multiple remote controls).

So it seems to me that the TBS drivers are not compatible with pre 0.9.0 versions of LIRC. It is a pity that the installer doesn't handle or at least detect and report this issue.

[steven]

Hi Mavik

First many thanks for your share of this solution.
and would you mind having a test with our latest driver which released yesterday,
here is the linker:
http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/tbs-linux-drivers_v120604.zip

Kind Regards

steven

[Mavik]

I had a look at the release notes for the v120604 driver. Nothing seemed relevant to my configuration. What in particular did you want to have tested? Does it handle LIRC differently somehow?

Regards
Mavik

[steven]

Hi Mavik

Maybe this version have not added this.Would you mind send this information to our
euro_support@tbsdtv.com, next version maybe we can add this.

Thanks for you help.

Kind Regards

steven