cx88-blackbird driver hangs when used

[Jean-Louis Dupond]

When the cx88-blackbird driver is loaded, it locks the system.

This seems to be caused by a missing change in the kernel.

[Jean-Louis Dupond (dupondje)]

Upstream in kernel:
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31962

[Jean-Louis Dupond (dupondje)]

I compiled kernel with the patch in https://bugzilla.kernel.org/attachment.cgi?id=53722, and it works now. No more soft lockups.

[Toshe Bukov (tedbukov)]

Will this patch be incorporated in the next natty kernel bugfix release?

[Jean-Louis Dupond (dupondje)]

Lets hope so .. I patched the kernel to fix it now ... If interested I can post you a amd64 deb ..

[Toshe Bukov (tedbukov)]

Thanks Jean-Louis. I'll wait until the patched kernel is issued by Ubuntu release team as an official update.

Meanwhile I've blacklisted the troubling modules by creating "blacklist-cx8800.conf" file in "/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist" and listed all cx88 related modules (file attached).
After blacklisting the modules, the issue does not appear any more.

[Jean-Louis Dupond (dupondje)]

The maintainer will push the patch in kernel today .. So it should be in Natty asap :)

[Jean-Louis Dupond (dupondje)]

Its fixed in proposed (2.6.38-10.44) now :)

[astro (bernard-godard)]

It is not fixed for me.

See attached dmesg output
======================================================================
$uname -a
Linux saturn 2.6.38-10-generic #44-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 2 21:32:22 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ls -lrt /dev/video*
crw-rw----+ 1 root video 81, 0 2011-06-27 20:12 /dev/video0
crw------- 1 root root 81, 3 2011-06-27 20:12 /dev/video1
======================================================================
(I don't know why second device is not in group video)

I have HVR1300 card: DVB-T + analog (with tuner)

When I launch tvtime (analog TV), the window opens but application hangs immediately after. Cannot be killed with kill -9 or Ctrl-C or stopped with Ctrl-Z in the terminal. The application is in uninterruptible sleep (see below, here two instances of tvtime were launched but this also happens when only one instance is launched)
======================================================================
astro 1987 0.0 0.1 70160 3932 ? D 20:18 0:00 tvtime
astro 2082 0.1 0.0 4464 788 pts/1 S+ 20:19 0:00 strace tvtime
astro 2083 0.0 0.1 70160 3928 pts/1 D+ 20:19 0:00 tvtime
astro 2154 0.0 0.0 9136 1036 pts/2 S+ 20:20 0:00 grep --color=auto tvtime
======================================================================
From strace (see attachment), it is also possible to see that the problem occurs when tvtime tries opening /dev/video0

Also from a root console (just after unity has started so before running any process trying to access /dev/video*), just doing touch /dev/video0 or touch /dev/video1, the touch process enters uninterruptible sleep state and hangs.

[astro (bernard-godard)]

Can someone consider reopening the bug?

[astro (bernard-godard)]

also the task v4l_id from udev is in uninterruptible sleep (this is causing the error message in dmesg even when I do not launch tvtime).

[astro (bernard-godard)]

It is now fixed in Fedora 15 32bits but not in Ubuntu 32 and Ubuntu 64 (2.6.38-10.46). All 3 are running on the same PC.

Also tvtime is not causing the problem. tvtime uses the v4l device video0. It seems tvtime runs fine as long as no application attempts to open the CX88 mpeg device /dev/video1. However normally the v4_id process attempts to open it during the boot sequence. All process trying to open /dev/video1 hang immediately and after that has happened processes trying to open /dev/video0 also hang.

If v4_id is not run during the boot sequence (this happens sometimes on Ubuntu 32 boot, I don't know why), it is possible to run tvtime or touch /dev/video0 safely. But if one try then to opens /dev/video1 with "touch /dev/video1", then after that running tvtime or touch /dev/video0, the process hangs.

[Jean-Louis Dupond (dupondje)]

The newest kernel upload seems to fix it.

[astro (bernard-godard)]

Yes, proposed kernel 2.6.38.11-47 fixes it.

Thank you.

[Julian Wiedmann (jwiedmann)]

Jean-Louis, astro:
2.6.38.11-48 has been copied from -proposed to -updates (and includes several locking fixes for cx88). Essentially it's -11.47, with a single unrelated patch reverted.
If this specific issue is fixed with the new kernel, please change the Natty status to 'Fix released'. Thank you.

[Julian Wiedmann (jwiedmann)]

This release has reached end-of-life [0].

[0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases