lirc pinsys driver, stopped working after upgrade

[Gustavo Carneiro]

Binary package hint: lirc

A couple of days ago I dist-upgraded my feisty installation and lirc just stopped working. No error is given; simply it doesn't receive any events from the remote.

lirc version: 0.8.1+cvs20070310-0ubuntu1
Linux 2.6.20-10-generic #2 SMP Mon Mar 12 00:02:49 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

[Gustavo Carneiro (gjc)]

After downgrading to the edgy version:
[...]
Preparing to replace liblircclient0 0.8.1+cvs20070310-0ubuntu1 (using liblircclient0_0.8.0-5ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
[...]
Preparing to replace lirc 0.8.1+cvs20070310-0ubuntu1 (using lirc_0.8.0-5ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
[...]

Now LIRC works fine on my box.

[Emilio Scalise (emisca)]

It stopped working also for me. I use a pinnacle serial ir sensor, using pinsys driver.
Once I downgraded lirc packages it restarted working.

The new version don't give any error, it simply doesn't work. irw shows no ir codes, running as user and as root.

This is a log of what happens:

emi@camera: $ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Lettura della lista dei pacchetti in corso... Fatto
Generazione dell'albero delle dipendenze in corso
Reading state information... Fatto
Calcolo dell'aggiornamento in corso... Fatto
I seguenti pacchetti saranno aggiornati:
  lirc lirc-modules-source lirc-x
3 aggiornati, 0 installati, 0 da rimuovere e 0 non aggiornati.
È necessario prendere 0B/629kB di archivi.
Dopo l'estrazione, verranno occupati 176kB di spazio su disco.
Continuare [S/n]? s
Preconfigurazione dei pacchetti in corso
(Lettura del database ... 271692 file e directory attualmente installati.)
Mi preparo a sostituire lirc-x 0.8.0-5ubuntu1 (con .../lirc-x_0.8.1+cvs20070310-0ubuntu1~edgy1_i386.deb) ...
Spacchetto il sostituto di lirc-x ...
Mi preparo a sostituire lirc 0.8.0-5ubuntu1 (con .../lirc_0.8.1+cvs20070310-0ubuntu1~edgy1_i386.deb) ...
Stopping lirc daemon: lircmd lircd.
Spacchetto il sostituto di lirc ...
Mi preparo a sostituire lirc-modules-source 0.8.0-5ubuntu1 (con .../lirc-modules-source_0.8.1+cvs20070310-0ubuntu1~edgy1_all.deb) ...
Spacchetto il sostituto di lirc-modules-source ...
Configuro lirc (0.8.1+cvs20070310-0ubuntu1~edgy1) ...
Installo la nuova versione del file di configurazione /etc/logcheck/ignore.d.paranoid/lirc ...
Installo la nuova versione del file di configurazione /etc/logcheck/ignore.d.server/lirc ...
Installo la nuova versione del file di configurazione /etc/logcheck/ignore.d.workstation/lirc ...
Starting lirc daemon: lircd lircmd.

Configuro lirc-x (0.8.1+cvs20070310-0ubuntu1~edgy1) ...
Configuro lirc-modules-source (0.8.1+cvs20070310-0ubuntu1~edgy1) ...

emi@camera: $ sudo /etc/init.d/lirc start
Starting lirc daemon: lircd lircmd.
~
emi@camera: $ sudo lsof /dev/lirc

~
emi@camera: $ sudo lsof /dev/ttyS0
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME
lircd 12812 root 8u CHR 4,64 3766 /dev/ttyS0
~
emi@camera: $ sudo irw

# no ir codes

~
emi@camera: $ sudo apt-get install lirc/edgy lirc-x/edgy lirc-modules-source/edgy
Lettura della lista dei pacchetti in corso... Fatto
Generazione dell'albero delle dipendenze in corso
Reading state information... Fatto
Versione selezionata 0.8.0-5ubuntu1 (Ubuntu:6.10/edgy) per lirc
Versione selezionata 0.8.0-5ubuntu1 (Ubuntu:6.10/edgy) per lirc-x
Versione selezionata 0.8.0-5ubuntu1 (Ubuntu:6.10/edgy) per lirc-modules-source
I seguenti pacchetti sono stati installati automaticamente in precedenza e ora non sono più necessari:
  libchewing3-data openoffice.org-writer scim-modules-table
  openoffice.org-impress openoffice.org-draw libsoundtouch1c2 libots0
  scim-chewing libtagc0 system-config-printer libaiksaurusgtk-1.2-0c2a
  abiword-common scim-tables-zh abiword python-pymad python-all python2.5-dev
  python2.5 libsnack2 libchewing3 tcllib openoffice.org-math libgdome2-0
  python-pysqlite2 libxalan2-java python2.5-minimal libgdome...

[Gustavo Carneiro (gjc)]

That is consistent with my problem; I also have a pinnacle systems tvcard with a serial remote sensor.

[Emilio Scalise (emisca)]

I've changed description according to our issue.. If anyone has similar problems with other hardware, please change the description of this bug and post a report...

[Kees Cook (kees)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. After the feisty upgrade, did you rebuild the lirc modules for the new feisty kernel? This can be done with:
  sudo m-a -v -t prepare
  sudo m-a -v -t build lirc-modules
  sudo m-a -v -t install lirc-modules
Then try stopping the lirc daemon, unloading the lirc modules, and restarting the lirc daemon.

[Emilio Scalise (emisca)]

Many lirc drivers don't need a kernel module. Pinsys is one of these.
See http://www.lirc.org/html/table.html for more info.

Bye

[Gustavo Carneiro (gjc)]

1. I have no m-a module;
2. Why should I need to rebuild any kernel modules at all? The pinnacle system lirc driver is completely userspace and it only relies on the standard 'serial' kernel module.

Also it should be noted that the problem is completely userspace; with the normal feisty kernel, lirc works, you only have to downgrade the lirc pacakges.

[Emilio Scalise (emisca)]

I'm speaking about the official edgy-backports package, while Gustavo is speaking about the feisty package. They have the same behaviour (same source...!).
Kernel no matters in this bug.
Perhaps the final lirc 0.8.1 (that's not packaged) works?
Do the ubuntu lirc package maintainer could try final 0.8.1 version or send us the updated (source) package?

[Kees Cook (kees)]

Thanks for the clarifications! I don't have one of these devices, so I'm not able to test with it. The feisty version of lirc is 0.8.1 plus additional updates from the upstream CVS. Perhaps this change is what broke it:
http://lirc.cvs.sourceforge.net/lirc/lirc/daemons/hw_pinsys.c?r1=5.8&r2=5.9

If I build packages with this backend out, would either of you be able to test the results?

Thanks!

[Kees Cook (kees)]

I have uploaded packages here:
http://people.ubuntu.com/~kees/feisty/

Let me know if those help or not. If so, I will make an official release with the upstream changes to pinsys backed out.

[Emilio Scalise (emisca)]

I've recompiled with pbuilder the package on my edgy reverting that commit about hw_pinsys.c. It works now.
Perhaps, in the source package I noticed that there are 11 patches in debian/patch, but why only those from 01 to 04 are enabled in 00_series? Is this wanted, or it's a bug?

I've attached the patch I used. Perhaps could you send this bug report (about pinsys) upstream?

Bye and thanks for the support,
Emilio

[Kees Cook (kees)]

That's great news! I will release my build for feisty. Yes, the "missing" patches are intentional (they were included upstream). I will remove them as well, just to avoid confusion. Thanks for testing!

[Kees Cook (kees)]

From upstream, supposedly the pinsys config changed as well. With the current feisty package of lirc, can you use the updated pinsys config found here[1], and let me know if this fixes the problem with the feisty package? Thanks!

[1] http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/pinnacle_systems/lircd.conf.pctv

[Emilio Scalise (emisca)]

I've re-installed the unpatched 0.8.1 edgy-backports version and replaced lircd.conf with the new one..
It works...
So you should revert that patch and document well this change, maybe setting a debconf alert on installation.....

/etc/lirc
root@camera: # cp /usr/share/lirc/remotes/pinnacle_systems/lircd.conf.pctv ./lircd.conf
/etc/lirc
root@camera: # sudo /etc/init.d/li
linux-restricted-modules-common lirc
/etc/lirc
root@camera: # sudo /etc/init.d/li
linux-restricted-modules-common lirc
/etc/lirc
root@camera: # sudo /etc/init.d/lirc stop
Stopping lirc daemon: lircmd lircd.
/etc/lirc
root@camera: # sudo /etc/init.d/lirc start
Starting lirc daemon: lircd lircmd.
/etc/lirc
root@camera: # irw
0000000000fe590f 00 vol- PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fe9f31 00 1 PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fe9f31 00 1 PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fe9f31 00 1 PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fe9f31 00 1 PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fe3d32 00 2 PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fe3d32 00 2 PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fe2d2f 00 Power PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fe631f 00 L PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fe203a 00 0/AV PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fe5e2d 00 Fullscreen PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fe0a37 00 7 PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fea834 00 4 PinnacleSysPCTVRemote
0000000000fe9f31 00 1 PinnacleSysPCTVRemote

[Gustavo Carneiro (gjc)]

I disagree; I don't see any good reason why we should require that the user does that manually, with or without warning.

IMHO the new daemon should just keep working with the old configuration file. It's stupid that it doesn't.

[Oliver Gerlich (ogerlich)]

I have a similar problem as described by the OP; as the bug state says "Fix released", I'd like to ask which package version contains the fix, and where can I get it?