OK, I think that has cleaned everything up a bit, thanks for the replies. I will post the Connection Wiz diagram shortly so others can see my connections. I was going to delete the TV Template and all embedded devices but I couldn't find a command on webadmin to do that so I ended up doing it all in the pluto_main database. Since I was in at that level, instead of deleting the TV, I just deleted the embedded devices I didn't need (all the inputs other than the tuner) along with their pipes/connections/controlled_via entries and so on. When it is all working I'll sync the template in case some other cheapskate wants to use the same TV.

I then re-ran the media player setup wiz (Sarah) and answered her questions about the connections with the result that now my MD connects both audio and video directly to the HDMI1 input and my STB connects both audio and video directly to the AV1 input.

It also meant I didn't get all those unnecessary scenarios that were auto generated last time.

I have to say, when you get things right, the Sarah "wizard" is BRILLIANT.

Sadly, it does not appear to have resolved my USBUIRT transmitting problem but I'll continue bugging you gurus on that thread.

When you say you did an initial install of mce version 8.10 - was this from the DVD (iso image burned to DVD)?

I think  you are possibly misunderstanding how it works. LinuxMCE at present only runs on Kubuntu 8.10 or 10.04 and comes "bundled" with that particular distribution. You can't install Kubuntu 12.4 and then MCE on top of that, I'm afraid.

If you're wanting to use Kubuntu 12.4 for other things (other than LinuxMCE) then my personal suggestion is to do it on a separate machine. Others have had quite a bit of success with virtual machines as well (create a VM on your 12.4 machine and install LinuxMCE onto that) which I guess is also an option if your machine is pretty resource-blessed.

But your LinuxMCE server is going to be a 24x7 dedicated machine which potentially controls all your automation, media, telecoms etc. It doesn't need massive processing power but it also doesn't want a bunch of other things messing about with the I/O and network which are the important parts of it.

I hope that helps for a bit of background. If you aren't wanting to go quite that far LinuxMCE may be overkill for your needs and you might be happier with something like agocontrol which may run on 12.4 (?)

Let us know what you're trying to achieve and I'm sure the smart guys can give some pointers.

To answer your question, though, from what you say I would imagine that you have replaced your 12.4 installation with an 8.10 installation so, yes, your updates are gone :-(

Posde, yes, I did but I had to do the TV template first and I think that is where I messed up and ended up with an embedded device for every input on my TV whereas, as I now understand it, you only need embedded devices for the tuner(s) - the other inputs are just, well, inputs. Then, when Sarah asks about connectivity, she provides a list of devices which include the TV itself as well as all the embedded devices so I'm essentially making the connectivity call at that point.

So I think I'm going to correct or trash my TV template and reset it up properly with only the tuner as embedded device. I don't even use the tuner but for others' sake I should have it there. Then the connections should be directly to the inputs on the TV and no embedded devices to confuse the issue. I hope.

Hi Techstyle

Thanks for the response and some clarification on Embedded.... so I probably misread the wiki- I thought there would be an embedded device for every "input".... and in actual fact there would only be one for every "tuner". I think it might be time to redo that template!

I have a question regarding how the pipes should be set up between my AV devices. I'm thinking that this (among other things) might be the cause of some of my woes regarding USBUIRT IR code transmission problems.

I have a media director (zotac zbox AD04) which connects to a Hisense 40" LCD TV via HDMI (video and audio over HDMI). However, I also have a settop box (DSTV Satellite decoder) which feeds into the same TV via the AV1 input (composite video, L, R audio).

So the connections are pretty simple. However, when I set up the TV template, it generates an "embedded" device for every one of the 12 inputs on the TV. This, according to the wiki, is normal and correct behaviour.

However, how do I connect up the pipes to represent this situation. I want to use AV switching to switch between the STB (settop box) input and LinuxMCE input. There would be, I imagine, two media scenarios:

Scenario 1(default) - The TV is being used as the display for the media director. In this scenario I would like all the commands from my remote control to go the media director (play, pause, right left, ok etc) but preferably the volume+, volume- commands to be blasted through to the TV via the USBUIRT.

Scenario 2(dstv) - The TV to switch inputs to AV1, all the commands from the remote control to go through to the STB via the USBUIRT with the exception of - volume+ and volume- which should go to the TV and, I guess, some sort of custom button on my remote to "exit" this scenario and drop me back to default (which should switch the input on the TV back to HDMI and the Scenario back to default).

When I set things up in the Media Wizard, the Audio and Video pipes of the MD go directly to the HDMI input on the TV, not to the HDMI1 "embedded device" whose outputs also go to the HDMI input on the TV. Is that correct? I haven't added the STB yet, but when I do, should I connect that directly to the AV1 inputs on the TV or should I connect it to the AV1 "embedded device"? If directly to the TV, what is the point of the embedded devices? Do I need them? They're cluttering things up a bit ;-)

Another strange thing that may be related, as described in the other thread, is that after boot of the MD, the first time I press a button on my remote, I'm suspecting that the "power on" command is being sent to the TV. I suspect this because occasionally the TV turns off (toggle mode). So I'm guessing that, knowing that my TV is the display for the media director, the MD, when first being used, is trying to switch on the display. Of course, the display is already on so it ends up switching it off. Is that the default behaviour? Does LMCE track the state of AV devices ito on and off? Obviously with IR control it can't know if the device is switched on or off outside LMCE but I was just wondering....

Any hints, suggestions, tips welcome. This is the first time I'm working through these things.

I've requested the discrete codes for the TV if they're available but at the moment it is Chinese New Year so that's going to take some time ;-)

For starters, go for 10.04 release version. It rocks and is far mor likely to be able to handle your video and any other newer hardware.

Oh, I see, sorry. Got it.

No, if you look at the parameter value, Set Screen Type is set to 0, which is the default screen type. This is defined by the first entry in the RemoteMapping table. The command is sent from the on-screen orbiter to the USB UIRT, so that the driver knows which RemoteMapping to use.

-Thom

Yes, but isn't RemoteMapping only relevant for IR receiving? What I'm trying to track down here is why the UIRT isn't transmitting. Am I missing something?

Nope, that hasn't improved things.

I have established the following-

The first time I start the media director, absolutely before I do anything with it, the UIRT appears to be transmitting - in other words, if I click the "Test Code" button from the web admin / av DEVICES / AV properties IR codes section of my TV (controlled by UIRT) then I see a "flash" on the transmitter.

That works up until the moment I "play media" on the MD. So I can open a media grid (ie go to media->Audio), browse to a track. Up to that point, UIRT still transmits when I "test code". Then, as soon as I hit play and the media starts playing, the transmitter stops transmitting and won't do it again until (I think) the MD is rebooted. Note that I'm doing all this (controlling the MD) from a weborbiter rather than the IR remote in order not to confuse things by using the UIRT as a receiver.

So I have "clipped" the DCErouter log and the UIRT log from the appropriate MD and shown the entries from the moment I start playing the media. In other words, from the moment the UIRT stops working. Here they are:

dcerouter
usbuirt

So... the usbuirt is the simplest - apart from a bunch of "Cannot find anything for IR 170000F201CA" which is usually associated with IR signals received from an unknown remote/source, the only entry that could be of interest is "#### Pre-Process Queue = 1"
Does that mean anything to anyone?

And then on the dcerouter side, apart from all the subsequent messages showing what music I was listening to, possibly of interest -
"Received Message from 50 (HTC Web Orbiter / ) to 10 (Media Plug-in / Server Closet), type 1 id 43 Command:MH Play Media, retry none, parameters: <0x7bfb4b70>" <- the play media command to the plugin?

Then later " Received Message from 78 (OnScreen Orbiter / TV Room) to USB UIRT 0038(139), type 1 id  687 Command:Set Screen Type, retry none, parameters: <0x777abb70>
08      02/07/13 6:26:22.292              Parameter 48(Value): 0 <0x777abb70>" <- set screen type to USB UIRT?

Then later "Media_Plugin::CheckForAlternatePipes no destination for EA 3 TV Room <0x917dfb70>" <- ??

Shew.... not much to go on at this stage.

Sure, here it is on the accelerometer machine (hp6710b):

Code:

root@moon34:~# udevadm info --query property --name /dev/input/js0
UDEV_LOG=3
DEVPATH=/devices/platform/lis3lv02d/input/input7/js0
MAJOR=13
MINOR=0
DEVNAME=/dev/input/js0
SUBSYSTEM=input
ID_INPUT=1
ID_PATH=platform-lis3lv02d
DEVLINKS=/dev/char/13:0

Thanks, I think one mistake I may have made was to connect the output from my media director directly to the TV HDMI input, instead of connecting it to the "subdevice" HDMI input which, in turn, connects to the TV. I think I've corrected that, although I've made a massive spaghetti mess of the wizard version. Does anyone else struggle to move the devices around on that screen? Pity, because it's a pretty cool wizard.

Anyway, will see if this improves things and scan the logs as well as Thom suggested.  Pain is every time I reload it stops working so each change that requires this essentially requires a reboot as well. Starting to feel like windows. 

Yes, that seems to be it - as soon as I start to use the media director in a normal way - ie play music or whatever, thereafter the transmitter stops working. In fact, it fires something just when I start doing that so presumably it is something to do with my connections - what controls what and / or pipes?

Ohhhh, I spoke too soon.

It is transmitting but... it's rare. Currently, it does so under the following circumstance:
1. When MD has just started up
2. From the AV properties (IR commands) of the TV device screen - Test Command.
It will not do it from the "Test Command" on my media scenario.

In addition, the USBUIRT stops working after a "quick reload". It joins the ranks of "Some devices failed to correctly start..." and even the receiving part no longer works despite the littel LED desperately flashing. Arrrggghh. As you can imagine, this is pretty frustrating because I'm trying to set up commands, scenarios etc and reload/regen needs to happen quite often. Now they have to be replace with a reboot.

Questions-
My age-old question - When some devices "fails to start correctly" and you get that polite little message in the top left... how do I track down the problem? It doesn't tell me which devices... and how do I know which?

2nd question- how do I track down what is causing the USBUIRT to enter the above group of devices on quick reload?

3rd question - why does the unco-operative little begger stop performing (ie transmitting)? I thought it was even after the IR codes are "received" for the first time because shortly after I push the "right" button on my remote to get to the menu, transmit stops working. However, an odd thing happens in between - my TV switches off. It's almost as if the MD is sending the "toggle power" to the TV because I've never had conflict between my MD remote and the TV before. Maybe as soon as I start to "use" my MD it tries to power on the TV because the TV is connected to the MD? But since the TV is already on, that results in a power off? And maybe the entering of that state (scenario, whatever) is correlated to the transmit stopping.

Sorry, all very confusing at this moment.

Most people put a little extension IR diode onto the USB UIRT.

I plan to do that but it seems a bit like having to cut your own hole in a toilet seat 

Thanks for the reply, but no need! It's started working. Maybe the "reinstall" worked after all.

I checked last night and when I did the "test code" the visible LED flashed. Not only that, but I was even able to learn pronto codes from my TV remote. Yahoo!!

Thanks for all the help. I'll mark as resolved and also put one or two things in the wiki about the UIRT that would have clarified for me.

Regarding the logs - I had a close look at the logs before I realised things were working and it seems quite clear that the child device (transmitter) should not and does not - as you confirmed, have its own log. There are references in (I think) the parent device XX_USBUIRT.log log when the system starts up that shows the child device "starting" along with any children it has - AV equip controlled by it. Each one remarks that there are no event handlers but that appears to be OK for these types of devices.

Great stuff.

One last practical question - the UIRT has a receiver and apparently 2 transmitters on the same physical side of the device. This has always struck me as odd because the receiver needs to receive codes from the remote in my hand -> therefore needs to be facing me... whereas the transmitter needs to send codes to my AV devices.. so it needs to face 180 deg away from the reciever? What's the point of it sending IR back at me? How do you handle that?