package lirc 0.9.0-0ubuntu3 failed to fully install, stop, uninstall or anything else

[irotsoma]

I've been having lots of trouble with lirc since upgrading to 13.04. When the system boots, lirc seems to freeze and also blocks other daemons like LCDd and a few other from running. When I try to remove lirc it freezes the process. I found that trying to stop the lirc service also causes a freeze. I found a workaround where I could remove the stop command from the /var/lib/dpkg/info/lirc.prerm; purge lirc; reboot; reinstall lirc and everything worked fine unless I tried to stop lirc by any means, including reboot. If I tried to reboot, it would freeze. However, I'm not unable to use this workaround as I can no longer get lirc to install properly at all. When it starts the service just after popping up the config screen on install, it freezes. I've had do kill dpkg which has caused some other issues that I should be able to fix. But no matter how many times I try to purge lirc, reboot and reinstall, I can't get it to install anymore. I use this PC as an HTPC and need lirc support or I'm going to need to learn a new distro, which I don't look forward to. Please help!

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
Package: lirc 0.9.0-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-25.37-generic 3.8.13
Uname: Linux 3.8.0-25-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.9.2-0ubuntu8.1
AptOrdering: lirc: Configure
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Jun 30 20:26:38 2013
ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script was killed by signal (Killed)
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-12-14 (198 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Release amd64 (20121017.5)
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: lirc
Title: package lirc 0.9.0-0ubuntu3 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script was killed by signal (Killed)
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to raring on 2013-05-18 (43 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Josh Rosenberg (7-launchpad-desh-info)]

I suspect the patch at http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-960130-start-0.html#7313702 may help, but I don't know enough about compiling kernel modules to test this myself.

[peekachew (m8r-c3ef2u)]

I identified that this was blocking in the lirc init scripts on my system because of the file writes to /sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols file.

I don't know enough to troubleshoot further what it is that is causing this file write to hang. I also couldn't find any documentation with a brief google as to what this file actually does or why it is needed for lirc.

Changing the /etc/init.d/lirc script as follows stopped this behaviour.

#DISABLE_KERNEL_SUPPORT=true
DISABLE_KERNEL_SUPPORT=false

This caused no issues on my system, which is using both a USB DViCO IR receiver as well as an IR blaster. Ugly hack and would be interested to get more information on how to troubleshoot further to identify the root cause of the hang.

Re #3 above, this patch is already applied to the lirc drivers in the kernel so not required.

[Gianfranco Costamagna (costamagnagianfranco)]

please try again with the latest lirc from zesty, and set the status back to "new" in case you still experience such issue

[Alec Leamas (leamas-alec)]

You can test using the ppa at https://launchpad.net/~leamas-alec/+archive/ubuntu/lirc-0.9.4. Don't forget the message if you upgrade, the update requires configuration changes.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for lirc (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]