Problems with additional tuners

Kevin Bell · 2013-03-04T23:50:32+00:00

Hi, I had TVH and XBMC working just fine when I had a single USB tuner DVB-T (Hauppauge). I then bought a second hand dual DVB-T (Hauppauge) tuner to give...

Kevin Bell

Prof Yaffle - you might be right:

On the TV Adapters tab I get the device path for each of the three tuners as:

1:
Device path:
/dev/dvb/adapter0
Device name:
DiBcom 7000PC
Host connection:
USB (480 Mbit/s)
Frequency range:

174000 kHz - 862000 kHz, in steps of 62 kHz

2:
Device path:
/dev/dvb/adapter1
Device name:
DiBcom 7000PC
Host connection:
USB (480 Mbit/s)
Frequency range:

174000 kHz - 862000 kHz, in steps of 62 kHz

3:
Device path:
Device name:
Host connection:
Frequency range:

kHz - kHz, in steps of kHz

As you can see the third adapter seems to be blank.

Any idea how I go about fixing this?

Cheers.

Kevin Bell

If I delete the contents of the /dev/dvb/ will they automatically be reset up when I reinsert the usb sticks?

ProfYaffle

Yes, stop tvh, trash the adapter, mux and channel config (backup first), and restart tvh. Should correct everything.

The problem you'll get is if they move again, either because of different initialization timings or even adding a USB mouse or keyboard. There is an oft-quoted article on the myth wiki (IIRC) about changing some config files or using udev to stop them from moving. I'll dig it out when I'm back home later this week if you can't find it first.

Kevin Bell

Thats the best way to resetting everything?

Delete the tvheadend directory from /home/hts/.hts/
?

ProfYaffle

You can delete everything if you wish, that'll achieve the same result but also knock out ACL rules, superuser, PVR config., etc.

Try just deleting the data above first - you can always delete everything later if it doesn't work.

ProfYaffle

PS all the data I mentioned is in the tvheadend directory, not /dev/dvb - but I think you'd spotted that already.

tsoi fun

Prof Yaffle wrote:
> Yes, stop tvh, trash the adapter, mux and channel config (backup first), and restart tvh. Should correct everything.
>
> The problem you'll get is if they move again, either because of different initialization timings or even adding a USB mouse or keyboard. There is an oft-quoted article on the myth wiki (IIRC) about changing some config files or using udev to stop them from moving. I'll dig it out when I'm back home later this week if you can't find it first.
---------------------------------------

You mentioned - (backup first) - are there any real backup addons or alike how to make the backup of TVH's config? Which directories within hts directory should be backed up? Sometimes it is really annoying to add muxes, configs each time when you need to make "fresh" settings...

ProfYaffle

I've just copied the whole .hts/tvheadend directory off to one side, making note of the permissions in case you ever need to copy it back.

If you have a wander around the contents of that directory, the structure makes sense pretty easily - which files hold mux information, for example.

EDIT

The MythTV wiki I mentioned regarding stopping your tuners from wandering is here:

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Device_Filenames_and_udev

ProfYaffle

As it happens, I installed a new USB tuner today, and so had to go through the same rigmarole.

To help, this is what I went through... the .old stuff is a previous backup of specific directories, so you won't have to skip that step (this time... :) ):

xbmc@revo:~$ sudo service tvheadend stop [sudo] password for xbmc: tvheadend stop/waiting xbmc@revo:~$ su hts Password: hts@revo:/home/xbmc$ cd hts@revo:~$ cd .hts hts@revo:~/.hts$ cd tvheadend hts@revo:~/.hts/tvheadend$ ls accesscontrol channeltags dvbmuxes.old dvr timeshift autorec dvbadapters dvbsatconf epgdb.v2 channels dvbadapters.old dvbtransports epggrab channels.old dvbmuxes dvbtransports.old superuser hts@revo:~/.hts/tvheadend$ rm -r *.old hts@revo:~/.hts/tvheadend$ ls accesscontrol channeltags dvbsatconf epgdb.v2 timeshift autorec dvbadapters dvbtransports epggrab channels dvbmuxes dvr superuser hts@revo:~/.hts/tvheadend$ mv dvbadapters dvbadapters.old hts@revo:~/.hts/tvheadend$ mv channels channels.old hts@revo:~/.hts/tvheadend$ mv dvbmuxes dvbmuxes.old hts@revo:~/.hts/tvheadend$ mv dvbtransports dvbtransports.old hts@revo:~/.hts/tvheadend$ mv dvbsatconf dvbsatconf.old hts@revo:~/.hts/tvheadend$ ls accesscontrol channeltags dvbsatconf.old epgdb.v2 timeshift autorec dvbadapters.old dvbtransports.old epggrab channels.old dvbmuxes.old dvr superuser hts@revo:~/.hts/tvheadend$ exit exit xbmc@revo:~$ sudo service tvheadend start tvheadend start/running, process 1864

The main directories are (my simplistic interpretation based on picking things apart, so don't treat this as gospel):

> dvbadapters - contains the adapter information, this obviously changes if USB port or order changes

> channels - channel information - not strictly necessary to trash it, but I wanted to keep it clean

> dvbmuxes - mux information per adapter, so safe to clean it out since you'll end up with "ghosts" otherwise

> dvbtransports - services associated with each mux

> dvbsatconf - as it says, the satellite config for any DVB-S/S2 adapters - I was changing mine, so I removed this as well

When tvheadend restarts, you'll see your adapters and can re-populate the specific satellite and/or DVB muxes based on your location and service provider.

Kevin Bell

Excellent - Thanks for your help Prof Yaffle - I'm going to give it a try at the weekend. I'll post back my results!

Kevin Bell

OK, I'm a bit of a noob to Ubuntu:

I see that the second command is:

su hts

I know that su changes user - but is HTS a user you've set up? Or is it a standard user?

When I type st hts it asks for a password - which I don't know!

Cheers.

EDIT: Ok, managed to get in with SUDO su hts

still unsure what HTS is though...

ProfYaffle

hts is a user account that's set up during the tvheadend installation ("home theatre system", I think). It's the account that owns the tvheadend configuration files.

Kevin Bell

Ok, I reset up the tuners, and they now look to be installed in Tvheadend correctly (thanks for your help on that).

But rather disappointingly, I still seem to have same problem...

I can see the three tuners in TVHeandend, when I set up a MUX it will not find any channels on two of the tuners (which I assume are from the dual card), but when I set up a mux on the third it works (which must be my original DVB-T card which has always worked).

If I set up some channels using the working card, and then copy the MUX to the other tuner, I can click the enable / disable box - and TV works for the single card, but I get the same error in XBMC for the dual tuner ones.

I know the dual card works, as when I plug it into my Window laptop I can watch TV.

Any other ideas of what could be causing the problem...

ProfYaffle

Pass, I'm afraid. I'd suggest that there's something up with the dual-tuner card or the feed(s) into it, except you say that it works fine with Windows (dual-boot, or by moving it to a different place and/or aerial drop?).

Maybe post a full log of the cards initialising and how the DVB system sees them, perhaps someone can spot something awry. But if they're showing in tvheadend then they're probably declared properly by the OS, so there may be nothing untoward in the log at startup.

Kevin Bell

How do I access a log of the card initialising?

Thanks for your help anyway!

ProfYaffle

/var/log/syslog on Ubuntu derivatives. You'll get a lot of noise in there, including tvheadend messages.

You can extract the latter with:

grep tvheadend /var/log/syslog

... that will show you lines such as these from my system:


Mar 18 09:27:16 revo tvheadend: START: initialising
Mar 18 09:27:17 revo tvheadend[25387]: charset: 71 entries loaded
Mar 18 09:27:17 revo tvheadend[25387]: dvb: Found adapter /dev/dvb/adapter0 (NXP TDA10071) via USB (480 Mbit/s)
Mar 18 09:27:17 revo tvheadend[25387]: dvb: Found adapter /dev/dvb/adapter1 (Sony CXD2820R) via USB (480 Mbit/s), Reports valid SNR values
Mar 18 09:27:17 revo tvheadend[25387]: dvb: Adapter /dev/dvb/adapter0 will run in filtered mode
Mar 18 09:27:19 revo tvheadend[25387]: dvb: Adapter /dev/dvb/adapter1 will run in filtered mode

...this is tvheadend detecting my two adapters.

To find the OS initialising them, it's a little less obvious. They're kernel messages, so you can strip them out with grep kernel syslog - but be prepared for a lot of unrelated messages.

Probably the easiest way if you're at all comfortable with the command line is to use vi, and search for the string "dvb". You're looking for code like this:


Mar 14 08:42:48 revo kernel: [    7.294298] em28174 #0: 1 bytes requested from i2c device at 0xa0, but 0 bytes received
Mar 14 08:42:48 revo kernel: [    7.294310] em28174 #0: board has no eeprom
Mar 14 08:42:48 revo kernel: [    7.294320] em28174 #0: Identified as PCTV DVB-S2 Stick (460e) (card=80)
Mar 14 08:42:48 revo kernel: [    7.294331] em28174 #0: v4l2 driver version 0.2.0
Mar 14 08:42:48 revo kernel: [    7.335753] em28174 #0: V4L2 video device registered as video0
Mar 14 08:42:48 revo kernel: [    7.335765] em28174 #0: dvb set to isoc mode.
Mar 14 08:42:48 revo kernel: [    7.343619] em28xx: New device PCTV Systems PCTV 290e @ 480 Mbps (2013:024f, interface 0, class 0)
Mar 14 08:42:48 revo kernel: [    7.343631] em28xx: DVB interface 0 found: isoc

... culminating in something like ...


Mar 14 08:42:49 revo kernel: [    8.307825] usb 1-4: DVB: registering adapter 1 frontend 0 (Sony CXD2820R)...
Mar 14 08:42:49 revo kernel: [    8.308896] em28174 #1: Successfully loaded em28xx-dvb

... which you can see correlates with the adapter message from tvheadend.

If these messages are okay then it suggests that the OS is initialising the card (or thinks it is, anyway), and tvheadend is responding accordingly. I suppose it might be a firmware/driver issue - what OS are you running (uname -a), what kernel?

Kevin Bell

Well in the end I obtained another dual tuner from my Windows machine and tried that - it worked fine.

I think I'll keep that one in Ubuntu and try the one that doesn't work in Windows...

Thanks for your help on this, I've learnt a lot about how TVHeadend works!