Messages

1

Installation issues / Re: USB UIRT Problems when adding Streamzap remote - followed the wiki but no lu

« on: January 09, 2009, 05:02:01 am »

Hi Thom,

thanks for your suggestions.

At this point in time I am only evaluating LinuxMCE with a view to using as a media center PC. To be honest, the capabilities of LinuxMCE are far beyond my needs at the moment but I really like the user interface, also I really want to stick with Linux if I can.

For that reason, I am trying to make use of my existing MythTV hardware and don't want to spend any more cash than I have to at this stage. I had to abandon MythTV wen my cable provider started encrypting all the channels that were available 'over-the-air'. I have what I believe to be decent hardware but don't want to spend too much more until I have decided that Linux MCE is the right solution. That is why I started out by trying to make use of the Streamzap which I already had for MythTV.

Since I don't have a PDA, tablet PC or Nokia N810 I am going to look into buying something like what you suggested from tkmedia. However, when I looked for web pads for Linux MCE before they seemed to be in the hundreds of dollars. The cell phone which I have is a very basic 'pay-as-you-go' from Virgin Mobile and I doubt that it is going to work as an Orbiter.

A little off-topic perhaps, but the Streamzap website says that their remote is supported for Linux via the Lirc project. Is there any way that I can use the Steamzap (with original Streamzap IR Receiver) with LinuxMCE?

I know the Streamzap is rather primitive compared to the solutions you are suggesting but it should be adequate for what I need at the moment,

Kevin

2

Installation issues / Re: USB UIRT Problems when adding Streamzap remote - followed the wiki but no luck

« on: January 08, 2009, 09:57:17 pm »

I think I have been stupid here, I think I completely misunderstood about what hardware was required to get my Steamzap remote to work with LMCE.

Up till now I have been plugging in the ORIGINAL Streamzap IR Receiver into the USB port on my computer. I have not gone out and purchased a 'USB-UIRT'. I have been assuming all along that the Streamzap IR receiver had the USB-UIRT device built into it. Everything I read now on the wiki for USB-UIRT (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/USB_UIRT) points to this being a bad assumption on my part. 

I guess it must be written down somewhere and I just missed it.

Can someone please confirm that I need to purchase a USB-UIRT device and ditch my Streamzap IR receiver?

If the Streamzap is not a good choice can someone suggest an alternative (I don't think I can afford the Fire remote), or if it's perhaps worth trying to get my sons Wii remote to work with LMCE (think I might need bluetooth support for this),

Kevin

3

Installation issues / Re: USB UIRT Problems when adding Streamzap remote - followed the wiki but no lu

« on: January 08, 2009, 05:35:53 pm »

After some more digging, I came across this by 'totallymaxed' in another post to the Users forum, titled "lirc remotes - I just don't get it. **success**" ..

When a USBUIRT is attached to a Core or an MD the PnP system will detect it an by default will add the USBUIRT tranceiver and a MCE USBUIRT Remote. So to prove thats working ok I would suggest going into Web Admin -> Wizard -> Devices -> Media Directors and then scroll to the MD that has your USBUIRT attached and delete the current remote (use the 'delete' link next to its name). Now scroll to the bottom of the page and click the 'Update' button to save your changes. Next detach your USBUIRT and wait for the messages in the top left hand corner of the Orbiters screen to stop displaying (the message will tell you that it is uninstalling the USBUIRT... which is exactly our objective... so don't panic!).

However, when I unplug my IR receiver I don't see any message about uninstalling USBUIRT and are beginning to wonder if the PnP system on my system is screwed. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could do to test out this theory?

Failing that, I am probably going to have to do a complete reinstall. This would not normally be a problem except that I had an awful lot of problems getting my Windows shares to work and that was some months ago. I just hope I can remember what I did that time to fix the shares, so I can get them working again with a clean install,

Kevin

4

Installation issues / USB UIRT Problems when adding Streamzap remote - followed the wiki but no luck

« on: January 07, 2009, 06:18:08 pm »

I am having problems getting my Streamzap remote to work in my LMCE 0170 installation. I searched these forums and found many posts about adding a new remote and also the very useful Wiki which describes how to add a new remote and to capture key codes. I don’t know if something is corrupted on my system but following these instructions I have been unable to get it to work. My system is an AMD64, the motherboard is an Asus M2NPV-VM

This is the wiki article I was referring to:

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Add_support_for_new_remote_controls

Since the manufacturer ‘streamzap’ isn’t supported in the original 0170 install, I had to add this manufacturer and set up the template as per the wiki. Note that initially I used the sample USB UIRT key codes from the Wiki and the same configuration strings.

I then tried adding the remote using Wizard/Devices/Media Director and set the ‘Infrared Receivers’ to ‘USB UIRT 003’, then hit the ‘upload’ button. Note that at this point the screen shows two remotes under “Infrared remote controls you will use” ..

  Windows XP MC Remote (USBUIRT)
  PC_Remote (USBUIRT)

(‘PC_Remote’ is the streamzap remote which I just added)

I was not sure if I was supposed to leave the XP MC Remote or delete it at this point.

Anyway, after hitting the upload button, LMCE informed me that it had installed the software and prompted me to reload the router, which I did. I then see the following messages:

  “One moment… Waiting for other devices to finish up
    #55/USB UIRT 0038”

The progress indicator gets stuck at 92% and after about a minute or so I see the following message:

  “There are some devices on this media director that did not start correctly”

Also, when I did the reload of the router I noticed the message (in the window which shows the orbiter/router/device startup messages) ..

  “Not starting Device 57, it is already running”

.. I am not sure if this indicates a problem or not.

I decided to edit the template and deleted the string values for the key codes and use the technique in the Wiki for capturing key codes from my streamzap remote. I did the ‘tail –f’ of the log file but nothing is added to the log when I press keys on my remote.

I did a cat of the log (/var/log/pluto/57_USB_UIRT_0038.log) and saw some worrying messages ..

  “No port specified
    Connect () Failed
    Device died…. Count=50/50 dev=57”

I don’t think that it is a physical connection problem as the IR receiver is definitely plugged into a USB socket on my computer and I do see the red receiver LED flash when I press keys on my remote. Also, previously I have been using this streamzap remote and the IR receiver with a Kmoppmyth MythTV installation.

The only way I seem to be able to get around the problem with starting up the ‘USB UIRT 0038’ is by changing the setting for ‘Infrared Receivers’ to ‘-Please select’. It seems that regardless of whether I have the XP MC Remote or the streamzap remote added, whenever I set the ‘Infrared Receivers’ to ‘USB UIRT 0038’ I see these problems.

Therefore I am beginning to wonder if there is a fundamental problem with enabling the  ‘USB UIRT 0038’ receiver, rather than a problem with me adding the streamzap remote as such.

I don’t know if it will help but I thought I would list here the devices which I have installed on my machine:

1 CORE
2 DCERouter
3 File Grids Plug-in
4 General Info plug-in
5. Climate Plug-in
6. Datagrid Plug-in
7. Infrared Plug-in
8. Lighting plug-in
9. Orbiter Plug-in
10. Media Plug-in
11. Telecom Plug-in
12. Event Plug-in
13. Security Plug-in
14. Plug And Play Plug-in
15. App Server
16. HAL
17. Asterisk
18. Text To Speech
19. The core/hybrid
20. On Screen Orbiter
21. Orbiter Embedded Phone
22. Xine Player
23. Xine Plug-in
24. Photo Screen Saver
25. MPlayer Player
26. HDN Nvidia
27. Disk Drive
28. External Media Identifier
29. MythTV Plug-in
30. MythTV Player
31. Family RM_PC
32. Windows Share-My Music
56. PC_Remote (USB UIRT)
57.USB UIRT 0038
58. USB UIRT Embedded Transmit
59. Windows XP MC Remote (USB UIRT)

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions please let me know. Thanks in advance for your help.

5

Users / Re: 0710 RC2, Windows shares mounting but media not showing up

« on: July 02, 2008, 12:47:29 am »

Thanks for the clarification, I think that I am going to go for 4. for now.

If I refer to the Wiki for ‘Internal LAN setup’ it says that the

“internal” LinuxMCE LAN “will have it’s own (different” IP range, in contrast. For example, if you have used the default setup options, that IP range will be 192.168.80.1 to 192.168.80.254. The Core server will be 192.168.80.1. The rest of the internal LinucMCE LAN connects to the Core through the second NIC card you installed in the core”

So, given the above I think that I would need to connect my Linksys router to the motherboards on-board NIC (as it is currently). However, going by what you told me in your earlier message (included below) it sounds like I need to double check how Kubuntu has detected the two NICs and which one is assigned to eth1 and eth0

“So which NIC is which?! That is the key question - whatever Kubuntu detects as eth0 or the "first" NIC must be connected to the external network. The second NIC it discovers will be eth1 and must be connected to the internal network.”

My question is whether I actually need to fit that NIC card in my core at all? Do I need to have the 2nd NIC installed for LMCE to know that I have an ‘Internal’ and an ‘External’ NIC available? What does it default to if I only have one NIC, is that then forced to be the ‘Internal’ NIC and always provide an IP via the DHCP server in the core?

I guess that it doesn’t really matter if I am forced to use that plug-in Ethernet NIC card. Except that it will be taking up one of the two available Pci slots on my motherboard (I have an ASUS M2NPV). To avoid tying up a Pci slot I could try getting a Pci-E NIC card but I am not sure it if it would run under Linux.

Finally, probably a stupid idea, but I was just thinking if I could use a Wireless bridge in some creative way (I recall seeing a pointer to a Netgear on a Wiki page which runs under Linux).
Would I be able to have this on the ‘Internal’ side, but connect to it from my Windows box by specifying the correct wireless AP? Or would I still have a conflict as I have a DHCP server on the ‘External’ side (i.e. Linksys router) and also one on the ‘Internal’ side (ie LMCE core)? And if this is possible, would it enable my LMCE box to find the media on my Windows share?

Thanks again for your help

6

Users / Re: 0710 RC2, Windows shares mounting but media not showing up

« on: July 01, 2008, 05:30:52 pm »

4. Move all your media onto the Core, and eliminate the internal network completely - this way you can move your other devices (such as the XP machine) to the external network as they will not be interacting with LMCE at all.
5. Buy a NAS device, move all the media onto that on the internal network, and move all the other devices over to the external network.

colinjones,
I was thinking again about your suggestions 4. and 5, but I have some issues with both ..

With 4.  After I have moved my media onto the Core and eliminated the internal network, will the LMCE box still be able to access the internet? I would still like to be able to go to Youtube, play streaming audio from websites, etc.

With 5. If the NAS has to be on the internal network, I think that means that when I want to access the NAS from my Windows boxes I would have to have my LMCE box powered up. Also, if friends and family want to access my NAS to view my pictures remotely, I would also have to keep the LMCE box powered up.

Sorry for the stupid questions, I am still having a hard time figuring out what configuration will work for me.

7

Users / Re: 0710 RC2, Windows shares mounting but media not showing up

« on: July 01, 2008, 05:08:23 am »

4. Move all your media onto the Core, and eliminate the internal network completely - this way you can move your other devices (such as the XP machine) to the external network as they will not be interacting with LMCE at all.

5. Buy a NAS device, move all the media onto that on the internal network, and move all the other devices over to the external network.

4. and 5. are probably my preferred route at the moment. I have lots of photos, audio and HD video for which a backup to some external device is long overdue. A NAS would be a perfect solution if I can afford it. Also I should be able to make it so my family overseas could access my videos, photos, etc so that would be very useful. In the short term however, just copying over the media onto my LinuxMCE box would do.

Can you advise the best way to do this? Could I connect it as I have it now, just for whenever I want to do the copy? I could set up a script then to do use scp to copy over from certain folders on my Windows box as and when required. After doing the copy I would just unplug the cable.

Would I be better to avoid trying to use LinuxMCE to mount the Windows box and just mount it manually, again only for a short time while I copy my media over?

Eventually I will be looking at trying to use my Dlink DWL-122 wireless USB dongle for my network connection to my LinuxMCE box. I have some experience of this when I way playing about with MythTV (using KnoppMyth distribution), again that was another painful experience. For now, if I can just find a reliable way of transferring my media onto my LinuxMCE box using a wired connection I would be happy.

thanks

8

Users / Re: 0710 RC2, Windows shares mounting but media not showing up

« on: July 01, 2008, 03:13:26 am »

bbear - sounds like you have your network screwed up which would certainly confuse the pnp. Setting up the shares manually, as well, probably leaves you in an unpredictable state which can mean it will be difficult to backout and start again. If at all possible, can you rebuild from clean (using 0710RC2 DVD)? ...

thanks for going to the trouble to provide such detailed information, it does (unfortunately) sound like I completely misread that Wiki document on setting up an Internal LAN 

I suppose that I was driven towards connecting up my network such that I would be able to turn off my LinuxMCE box whenever I wanted and my Windows environment and it's connection to the outside world (public internet) would continue to work. From what you describe, I will always have to have my LinuxMCE box powered up. Apart from the concern about energy consumption and saving the planet, etc, I am not at a stage yet that I am ready to hook up my LinuxMCE box and have it running full time. Ultimately I would like it to be my media center and also get MythTV setup (that's if my cable provider gives up on their current habit of encrypting just about everything!). I am a long way off having my LMCE box ready for deployment so whenever I want to work on my LinuxMCE box I will just have to switch the cables over as necessary.

Just to make absolutely sure I am on the right page, my current network setup looks like this ..

XP Box_______________
                                 |_ __ ADSL Router
                                 |
LinuxMCE core (NIC1) __|
       |
       |
    (NIC2)


‘NIC1’ is the Ethernet form the chipset on my motherboard
‘NIC2’ is the Ethernet from the plug-in Ethernet Pci card

Sorry for the crummy diagram, hopefully you can make it out ok.

Thanks again for your help.

9

Users / Re: 0710 RC2, Windows shares mounting but media not showing up

« on: July 01, 2008, 01:23:39 am »

Have you tried adding the username/password of the windows machine to the shared device from the admin page?

In LinuxMCE admin there apears to be two places where I can set username and password, one place is for the 'server' (Device #31) and the 'share' itself (Device #32)

I have tried setting my Windows username/password for both the server and share settings but it has not helped. For the Server (Device #31) I entered my Windows username in the 'Username' field, and my Windows password in the 'Password' field. I selected the boxes for 'Use Automatically' and 'Password Required' and then  clicked 'save'.

For the share (Windows Share-Kevins Media Exp), under the 'Device data' section I entered my Windows username in the 'Username' field and my Windows password in the 'Password' field, then I clicked 'save'.

10

Users / Re: 0710 RC2, Windows shares mounting but media not showing up

« on: July 01, 2008, 01:10:46 am »

Is the machine with the shares by any chance connected to the external network instead of the internal one?

The machine with the shares is my XP Pro machine and is connected to the LAN which is on the motherboard of the machine running LinuxMCE. My assumption was that this was the 'internal' one. I have a Pci NIC card plugged into the motherboard but currently it has nothing hooked up to it.

Note, my XP Pro machine is plugged into the same Linksys WRT54G router as the 'internal' NIC of my LMCE box is plugged into. DHCP is enabled on my Linksys router. DHCP is also enabled on LMCE, but I am assuming that refers to the 'external' NIC, ie my plug-in PCi NIC card.

I found the terminology used in that Wiki article a little confusion so I hope that I haven't messed up here.

11

Users / Re: 0710 RC2, Windows shares mounting but media not showing up

« on: June 30, 2008, 09:40:48 pm »

I had this problem with my RAID array...  But instead of adding it to the database as a media type, I did a few reloads, waited a while and when I checked back later, everything was how it should be. (I actually caught this series of events on video tape) - it sounds 100% exactly like what you are experiencing (except it was a Raid array).

I tried as you suggested, I tried many reloads of the router and have waited for hours, but still it is unable to detect my audio files.

I am going to do yet another reinstall and watch very carefully for error messages. I have already spent weeks sorting out firewall issues wit my XP machine and I naively thought that because my shares were mounting and that I could see their contents from an xterm that I as almost there. 

12

Users / Re: 0710 RC2, Windows shares mounting but media not showing up

« on: June 30, 2008, 05:36:01 pm »

This will bring up a page and a new panel on the left of the screen, In the left panel you will see an option for "other" click this link and the left and right panels will change again, you should see the drive show up as a sub link under "other" now, click it in the left panel, then the right panel should show you what is contained on the drive, after this you should see some drop down boxes next to the file for your tunes. In this drop down box choose "LinuxMCE Audio File" for tunes, and LinuxMCE Video File" for videos, etc,etc.

Hope this helps. The pluto database just needs to know what to do with these files, that's all. After this is done the appropriate media should show up in the orbiter.

Hi Seth, thanks for helping me with this. I do see an option for setting the file type but what I see on the left hand side of the screen is different to what you describe and I wanted to check that I am setting it correctly ..

On the left hand side of the screen I see the following ..

> home
    data
      > audio
      > avwizard-sounds
      > documents
      > pictures
      > samples
      > tts
      > videos

From the above menu, if I select 'audio', I see the following:

Files on disk
  Windows Share-Kevins Media Exp [34]  Type:  - Please select '  Add to database

(sorry, I would include a screen shot but I don't know how to do this from my Linux box. 'Type' has an accompanying pulldown and 'Add to database' appears to be a button which I can 'push'.)

From the pulldown, I selected 'LinuxMCE Audio File' and then I pushed 'Add to database'

A tick appeared by the name 'Windows Share-Kevins Media Exp [34]' but I still don't see any files listed. If I now click on 'Windows Share ...' it brings up another screen, 'Files & Media | Edit Media File' were it looks like I can set Media sub-type and File format if I wish. The 'Location' is set to '/home/public/data/audio' and Type is shown as 'LinuxMCE Audio File' so these appear to be correct.

do you have any suggestions what else I can do to get my media files to be detected and show up under the orbiter, Media/Audio ?

thanks

   

13

Users / 0710 RC2, Windows shares mounting but media not showing up

« on: June 30, 2008, 06:30:32 am »

I have installed 0710 RC2 and are struggling with getting it to detect media on my windows shares.

I have scoured the forum and have found a lot of information about shares not mounting but I don't beleive that to be cause of my problems. The reason I say this is because I am able to see files on /mnt/device/32/public/data/audio and I am able to play .mp3 files from there using Amarok

I don't know if it is relevant or not but my setup includes two NICs, i.e an 'Internal LAN' configuration. I did this because I still wanted the Windows PCs to communicate with each other via my Linux WRT54GS wireless router and get their IP from the DHCP server running on that. I followed the instructions on the wiki page (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Internal_LAN_setup)

One thread which offered a lot of pointers was http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?;topic=4260.0, in particular, the debugging suggestions provided by colinjones on Feb 10, 2008 were very useful. However I was still unable to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

When I first installed LMCE it did not detect my shares automatically, so I had to setup the shares manually, following the instructions on the wiki (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Howto:_Using_Network_Shares). I added the share using the manual method, as soon as I completed the steps to add the shares, LMCE detected it and asked me what file structure I wanted it to use, I selected 'use LMCE file structure'. I chose not reload the router at that point. Instead I switched to KDE desktop and ran the configuration script (Configure_1837.sh) and it was able to mount my share. I checked the messages and for the share that I just added and did not not notice any errors. (For the shares which I told LCE I did not want it to use I could see that it failed to mount these, but I assume that is ok)

Next I went in the orbiter to check if it had detected the media files on my Windows share but no files were showing up. I waited for about 30 minutes but still nothing.

I went to the LinuxMCE admin site and could see my Windows share listed but it did not list any files. I selected the option to 'resync' media, which it ran without any errors. However, when I went back into the orbiter no audio files are were listed. I tried a reload of the orbiter but it didn't help.

Then the last thing I attempted was to delete the server in LMC admin site. Again, LMCE did not detect it automatically so I had to do the manual install of the server. This time when I did the resync thing it printed out many more messages (none of them were errors) but nowhere did it report that it had found any files. Again, in the orbiter I still don't see any media.

At this point I am about out of ideas and wondering if my problems are due to some fundamental limitation when using the Internal LAN setup?

I keep scouring these forums but cannot find anything which applies to the problem which I am seeing. However, I am bit of a noob here and I appologise if I have missed the obvious.

thanks in advance for your help