Failed to lock on channel with MSI digivox mini II V3.0 (realtek chip rtl2832u) / bad signal.

[criticalmess]

lsusb:
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 1d19:1101

dmesg (regarded on stick-plugin):
[ 95.620012] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
[ 95.782039] usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 95.788734] dvb-usb: found a 'DK DVBT DONGLE' in warm state.
[ 95.788738] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.
[ 95.790373] DVB: registering new adapter (DK DVBT DONGLE)
[ 95.790607] DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (Realtek RTL2832 DVB-T)...
[ 95.790629] dvb-usb: DK DVBT DONGLE successfully initialized and connected.
[ 95.792426] dvb-usb: found a 'DK DVBT DONGLE' in warm state.
[ 95.792430] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.
[ 95.794467] DVB: registering new adapter (DK DVBT DONGLE)
[ 95.794684] DVB: registering adapter 1 frontend 0 (Realtek RTL2832 DVB-T)...
[ 95.794707] dvb-usb: DK DVBT DONGLE successfully initialized and connected.

scan /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/de-Nordrhein-Westfalen <-- works following is example:
>>> tune to: 538000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_AUTO:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE
0x0000 0x4015: pmt_pid 0x0150 RTL World -- RTL Television (running)
0x0000 0x4016: pmt_pid 0x0160 RTL World -- RTL2 (running)
0x0000 0x401b: pmt_pid 0x01b0 RTL World -- Super RTL (running)
0x0000 0x4022: pmt_pid 0x0220 RTL World -- VOX (running)

Me-TV cannot find ANY channels (0) when i use internal scan:
example output:

08.11.2009 15:15:43: Tuning to transponder at 538000000 Hz
08.11.2009 15:15:43: Auf Signalsperre warten … (translation: waiting for signal lock)
08.11.2009 15:15:55: Poking screensaver
08.11.2009 15:15:58: Status: 0
08.11.2009 15:15:58: Currently tuned to freq 538000000, symbol rate 0, inner fec 2
08.11.2009 15:15:58: Exception: Sperren des Kanals fehlgeschlagen (translation: failed to lock channel)
08.11.2009 15:15:58: Failed to tune to transponder at 538000000 Hz

So i tried to import the channels.conf-output that i generated with scan.
Me-Tv seems to work, adds all channels, but stucks heavily and cannot show tv properly due to weak signal...

This is impossible, i have a +40db DVB-T-Antenna that already properly delivers a good signal for my region at about 18db and that is properly working with Me-Tv and same stick differend chip (af9015).

So the only suggestion is that Me-Tv inproperly tries to lock the channels.

For whom is interested:

Installation of Realtek rtl2832u-based DVB-T-USB-Sticks:

sudo apt-get install unrar build-essential mercurial
mkdir digivox; cd digivox
hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb
wget http://media.ubuntuusers.de/forum/attachments/2103272/090730_RTL2832U_LINUX_Ver1.1.rar
unrar x -ep 090730_RTL2832U_LINUX_Ver1.1.rar ./v4l-dvb/linux/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb
cd v4l-dvb
for i in `find . -name *.pl`; do chmod +x $i ; done
gedit ./linux/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/Makefile

(Insertion nearly to the end of file:)
dvb-usb-rtl2832u-objs = demod_rtl2832.o dvbt_demod_base.o dvbt_nim_base.o foundation.o math_mpi.o nim_rtl2832_mxl5007t.o nim_rtl2832_fc2580.o nim_rtl2832_mt2266.o rtl2832u.o rtl2832u_fe.o rtl2832u_io.o tuner_mxl5007t.o tuner_fc2580.o tuner_mt2266.o tuner_tua9001.o nim_rtl2832_tua9001.o
obj-$(CONFIG_DVB_USB_RTL2832U) += dvb-usb-rtl2832u.o

gedit ./linux/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/Kconfig

(Insertion to the end of file:)
config DVB_USB_RTL2832U
        tristate "Realtek RTL2832U DVB-T USB2.0 support"
        depends on DVB_USB
        help
          Realtek RTL2832U DVB-T driver

gedit ./linux/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/rtl2832u.c

(1. Remove // of line 12:)
//DVB_DEFINE_MOD_OPT_ADAPTER_NR(adapter_nr);

(2. replace line 61-63 by:)
        if ( ( 0== dvb_usb_device_init(intf,&rtl2832u_1st_properties,THIS_MODULE,NULL,adapter_nr) )||
                ( 0== dvb_usb_device_init(intf,&rtl2832u_2nd_properties,THIS_MODULE,NULL,adapter_nr) ) ||
                ( 0== dvb_usb_device_init(intf,&rtl2832u_3th_properties,THIS_MODULE,NULL,adapter_nr) ))

gedit ./linux/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/tuner_tua9001.c

(search for 19.2 AND 20.48 and replace it by 19_2 AND 20_48:)
#elif defined(CRYSTAL_19.2_MHZ) /* Frequency 19.2 MHz */
#elif defined(CRYSTAL_19_2_MHZ) /* Frequency 19.2 MHz */
#elif defined(CRYSTAL_20.48_MHZ) /* Frequency 20,48 MHz */
#elif defined(CRYSTAL_20_48_MHZ) /* Frequency 20,48 MHz */

make

STRG^C after some secs.

gedit ./v4l/.config

(replace FIREDTV=m by FIREDTV=n:)
CONFIG_DVB_FIREDTV=m
CONFIG_DVB_FIREDTV=n

make clean
make
sudo make install

[Michael Lamothe (lamothe-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Have you got this device working with any other DVB application under Linux? Was "scan" run with the same device?

[criticalmess (criticalmess)]

Yes scan finds channels already on 18db and kaffeine works nicely. Only me-tv sucks with it :(

[criticalmess (criticalmess)]

Here is the output of scan.

[criticalmess (criticalmess)]

Here is the output of me-tv --verbose

:( whats the problem?

[criticalmess (criticalmess)]

Just to make it clear i got twi digivox mini II V3 devices. One is with realtek-chip and the other is with afatech-chip.
This bug is only about the realtek chip, no afatech chips was used.

I succesfully scan channels with "scan" on rtl2832u.
I succesfully scan channels and watch TV with "kaffeine" on rtl2832u.

But me-tv failed to scan channels and fails to lock on channels..... when i import the channels.conf from "scan" and restart me-tv, than after 30secs the default channel shows a picture once and gives sound shortly...

It claims for bad signal...

I have a fine-tuneable 12W active DVB-T antenna that goes up to +40dB, perfectly setup and as I said "kaffeine" works nice at half power with rtl2832u, but even tough it seems to interprete signal strength wrong too, it works flawlessly without artefacts at low-power with exactly the same hardware and driver, so it does not make sense me-tv got 0% signal strength, fails to scan and lock on channels.

Same setup and channel-scan with "scan" right after works nice and finds all 49 (sometimes doubled) channels... thats ridicolous.

Something's deeply bugged in me-tv for new devices on karmic.

[criticalmess (criticalmess)]

For isntalling the driver for the tuner of the chip (tuner-tua9001) i needed to adjust the "tuner_tua9001.c" of the driver:

gedit ./linux/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/tuner_tua9001.c

(search for 19.2 AND 20.48 and replace it by 19_2 AND 20_48:)
#elif defined(CRYSTAL_19.2_MHZ) /* Frequency 19.2 MHz */
#elif defined(CRYSTAL_19_2_MHZ) /* Frequency 19.2 MHz */
#elif defined(CRYSTAL_20.48_MHZ) /* Frequency 20,48 MHz */
#elif defined(CRYSTAL_20_48_MHZ) /* Frequency 20,48 MHz */

Maybe that is the causing thing, because i do not recognise any other v4l-dvb tuner to handle frequencies that way checked various other tuner*.c's.

Maybe Me-Tv does not tell the driver how to lock channels because it hands over frequencies in a different way than then it does before 2.6.31, it may work with kernel-stock-moduled-dvb-t-device-drivers. WHat do you think about that?

[Michael Lamothe (lamothe-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

I don't think that too much has changed in the way Me TV does its tuning, but I could be wrong. If you haven't done already, are you able to either:

1. Install Jaunty with Me TV 1.0.0
2. Change to an older version of Me TV on karmic

This will isolate things that have changed in the kernel.

Another thing that we might need to look at is that kaffeine and scan check the driver capabilities for AUTO settings, if I'm not mistaken. Me TV does not do that, it takes what's in the channels.conf, but if the driver is telling us that the device is capable of setting certain parameters to AUTO then it would be great to use them. If this is the case then this is not a bug but a feature.

You could try setting some of the values in the channels.conf to their AUTO equivalents an see if that helps getting the scan going? If you have success with this then I'll definitely looking into implementing that feature for the next release.

[Michael Lamothe (lamothe-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

No response.

[Manuel Seoane (msr1317)]

Hi, I have tried to install rtl2832u in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 2.6.38-8-generic. But I don't get it
Could you help me, please?

lsusb
Bus 002 Device 006: ID 1f4d:b803 G-Tek Electronics Group Lifeview LV5TDLX DVB-T [RTL2832U]

Thank you

Manuel Seoane
<email address hidden>