Messages

1

Users / Re: New Media Tagging System

« on: December 13, 2008, 10:18:33 pm »

I think that was a bug I corrected in the most recent version (still unreleased). Basically I wasn't escaping my mysql queries correctly...

Although, I'm pretty sure I fixed that in one of the updates posted in this thread.

Anyway, either way, that is definately corrected in my current development version. I will have it released very shortly.

2

Users / Re: New Media Tagging System

« on: December 08, 2008, 12:28:19 am »

Just a quick update. I am adding some more features to this one, I am testing them out now (And still trying to bugfix the one) before I release it. But here is what's in the update:

- Ability to apply only certain types of tags recursively (eg: only images, or only short attributes)
- Recursive tagging now skips over FLAC files (due to flakyness in the flac tagging with lmce right now)
- Recursive tagging also carries over the media subtype and format (this is bugged due to a problem in updatemedia, looking into it now)
- Currently working on (but not finished): pull season number from the parent folder name for tv episodes

In addition to a couple minor fixes and tweaks.

I hope to have this released shortly. I will release a new full single file install for it, and update the original post with it when I release the new version.

Zaerc, what is the proper method for me to submit this stuff to you for SVN? should I just keep dropping it into trac?

Thanks!

3

Users / Re: CM11A Problems... Setup works, LMCE just can't talk to it.

« on: December 08, 2008, 12:21:37 am »

Ok it works beautifully now...

Of all bloody things, I hadn't actually fully rebooted the Media Director that had the CM11 attached to it...

I had to reboot it for something else, and after the reboot, it just magically works... No delays, no errors, everything works perfectly...

So yeah, thanks for your help everyone, don't know what that reboot did, but apparently it did the trick!

4

Users / Re: CM11A Problems... Setup works, LMCE just can't talk to it.

« on: December 06, 2008, 05:15:33 pm »

Just tried send command via the device tree as well. Sent it an On command, and it didn't seem to recieve it yet (although I haven't waited the full 5 min yet).

It almost looks like a communications problem between LMCE and the CM11A, but the wierd thing is if I remove the device from the tree, quick reload the router, change permissions on the port, and talk to it directly with heyu, it works fine, responds instantly, and all is good.

Any thoughts on why this could be?

5

Users / Re: CM11A Problems... Setup works, LMCE just can't talk to it.

« on: December 05, 2008, 09:14:42 pm »

Ok so after some fiddling, I have found a few things...

If I turn it on or off via the web admin... It takes anywhere from 30 seconds, to 5-10 minutes... But it works (sometimes). Sometimes it doesn't seem to do anything at all.

I have now successfully turned on and off the light 3-4 times, but it only works about 30% of the time, and there is always a significant delay when it does.

That and I noticed in the log it spits out many of these:

Code: [Select]

01      12/05/08 15:05:21.697           No response from CM11A device. <0xb68f7b90>
Spaced out mostly, (sometimes it spits out 2 or 3 of them, 30 seconds apart, then it suddenly works...

On the ones where it doesn't work, it spits out 0 or more (sometimes none, sometimes as many as 2) of the above errors, plus a final one of these:

Code: [Select]

01      12/05/08 14:58:21.844           Failed sending address. <0xb68f7b90>OR one of these:

Code: [Select]

01      12/05/08 15:00:39.780           Failed sending function. <0xb68f7b90>
Not sure what the deal is there... If I keep spamming the buttons it eventually works.

Via Heyu it works beautifully, nice and fast, no lag (half second or so) and works reliably...

But the fact that it works sometimes in lmce, means it is at least communicating... so what would make it work halfass like that?

EDIT:
I just managed to get a successful "Off" signal without anything logging at all (none of the failed errors, and none of the no response errors) It took about 30 seconds to respond and turn the light off...

Oh and freymann, I doublechecked against your config screenshots, mine are configured identically in web admin.

The only thing I am doing that I don't know if you did, is I am using the instructions from the wiki in the X10 page about setting up the CM11. (It tells you to modify the template of the CM11 first so it is a "generic" device not just "lighting" so it can work with more devices... I did that change.)

6

Users / Re: CM11A Problems... Setup works, LMCE just can't talk to it.

« on: December 05, 2008, 08:28:45 pm »

Ok just checked the permissions. I rebooted the MD that the CM11 is connected to, and confirmed the permissions are all default on all ttySX ports. (specifically ttyS0)

Then I went to the web admin and added the CM11 interface, and added one light with "Light Switch on/off".

Then did quick reload of router, checked logs, they still have that notice about the no custom handler.

Then I sent an "on" command to the light, and checked my security camera (which has view of the light) to see if it turned on (I am at work right now). The light didn't appear to turn on...

Then my wife called me like 5 minutes later and said "did you just play with the lights?"... After I confirmed, apparently it took a full 5 minutes to actually turn the light on...

So then I sent an "off" command (using the on/off buttons in the web admin under "Lights")

Went and checked security camera, no change... Gave it 5 min... No change... So then I called my wife to make sure my camera wasn't just lying to me, she said the light is still on...

Went and checked logs, and I have this now (same as the previous attempts):

Code: [Select]

Fri Dec  5 14:05:23 EST 2008 Restart
========== NEW LOG SECTION ==========
1       12/05/08 14:05:32       72 (spawning-device)    Starting... 1
1       12/05/08 14:05:32       72 (spawning-device)    Found /usr/pluto/bin/CM1
05      12/05/08 14:05:38.742           Creating child 73 <0xb793a6c0>
05      12/05/08 14:05:38.743           Note: Device manager has attached a devi
05      12/05/08 14:05:38.743           Note: Device manager has attached a devi
01      12/05/08 14:09:44.788           No response from CM11A device. <0xb68f7b90>
01      12/05/08 14:09:59.908           No response from CM11A device. <0xb68f7b90>
01      12/05/08 14:10:00.008           Failed sending address. <0xb68f7b90>

So it appears the "On" command went out fine, but then the off command (about 10 min later) failed... What the hell?

7

Users / Re: CM11A Problems... Setup works, LMCE just can't talk to it.

« on: December 05, 2008, 03:28:12 pm »

Ok to answer your questions:

I did install heyu, and I make sure heyu is not running and is fully stopped before touching linuxmce again. But it is possible that Heyu changed permissions on the port during install... I will confirm permissions are ok and see if that helps.

Also there are no batteries in the CM11 and I have not uploaded schedules with heyu (I only used it to turn a light on and off to confirm the CM11 was in fact working).

Also Koelbl: Your problem is likely related to 2 phase power in your home. I have the same problem, certain rooms are on one phase, the rest on the other phase. Without an X10 phase coupler the CM11 can only talk to devices on the same phase as it is. I know that's an issue, (and will be getting a phase coupler installed shortly) but until then I don't really have a problem because the CM11 and the devices it is controlling are all on the same phase right now.

Thanks for your responses so far. I hope the permissions ends up being the issue. I will post back here once I confirm.

8

Users / Re: Help with how media is displayed.

« on: December 03, 2008, 07:27:40 pm »

To follow up to Thom's comments, I have added some updates to the media files sync page in the web admin. It helps in tagging media faster.

(and it has features specifically designed for tagging tv episodes quickly)

Check out my thread here: http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=6571.0

Hopefully this will help you get the media tagged correctly. And he's right, tagging your media correctly is totally the correct answer to this (I fought it for a while in the beginning too, mostly out of laziness, but in the end it has made my media experience much better).

Plus there is talk amongst the devs about some updates in the near future to help with browsing tv episodes (right now filtering tv episodes is a little cumbersome, but it still works very well if it is tagged properly)

Hope this helps!

9

Users / CM11A Problems... Setup works, LMCE just can't talk to it.

« on: December 03, 2008, 04:30:40 pm »

Hey, I'm having a bit of trouble with my CM11A... I have the setup working, can control lights via my remote, and I have tested using heyu from the media director (where the CM11A is connected) and it works fine talking to /dev/ttyS0... (I can turn on and off lights using heyu)

When I add the CM11A using the instructions from the CM11 page in the wiki, then add a generic lightswitch on/off light... Set it to A1 address, controlled by CM11A, and set it's room...

(Currently I have lights on A1 - A10)

Anyway, when I do all that, then reload the router, I see the following in my log (/var/log/pluto/65_CM11A.log)

Code: [Select]

========== NEW LOG SECTION ==========
1       12/03/08 10:11:18       65 (spawning-device)    Starting... 1
1       12/03/08 10:11:18       65 (spawning-device)    Found /usr/pluto/bin/CM11A
05      12/03/08 10:11:23.825           Creating child 71 <0xb79846c0>
05      12/03/08 10:11:23.825           Note: Device manager has attached a device of type 37 that this has no custom event handler for.  It will not fire events. <0xb79846c0>
05      12/03/08 10:11:23.826           Note: Device manager has attached a device of type 37 that this has no custom handler for.  This is normal for IR. <0xb79846c0>

Ok so I'm confused by the no custom handler messages, but so far so good... (device 71 is the light I added)

So now I try sending an on or off command to the light... When I do... Nothing. Nothing shows in the CM11 log, and the light doesn't turn on or off...

So I wait about a minute or two... Then suddenly the following pops up in the log file (/var/log/pluto/65_CM11A.log)

Code: [Select]

01      12/03/08 10:12:47.440           No response from CM11A device. <0xb6941b90>
01      12/03/08 10:12:47.540           Failed sending address. <0xb6941b90>
01      12/03/08 10:13:02.565           No response from CM11A device. <0xb6941b90>
01      12/03/08 10:13:33.253           No response from CM11A device. <0xb6941b90>
01      12/03/08 10:13:48.369           No response from CM11A device. <0xb6941b90>
01      12/03/08 10:17:05.452           No response from CM11A device. <0xb6941b90>
01      12/03/08 10:17:50.852           Failed sending address. <0xb6941b90>

So what's going on here? The CM11A is definately set to talk to /dev/ttyS0 which is exactly how I configured heyu running from the media director, and heyu saw the CM11 right away, and fired off lighting commands without a hitch.

any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks!

10

Users / Re: New Media Tagging System

« on: December 02, 2008, 07:46:29 pm »

Excellent

Since I have yet to get my fixes in for flac files... (damn work getting in the way of the fun stuff lol)

Is there an easy way for me to commit those directly to SVN? or is it a "submit a ticket to trac, and attach the updates" thing?

Just checking, so that when I apply updates or new functionality to this code I know how to submit it in a sane way.

Thanks!

11

Users / Re: What is better ZWave or X10?

« on: November 29, 2008, 03:26:45 pm »

I agree with the idea that X10 is definately inferior to zwave or insteon, but it is a great starting point.

And it is a HUGE price difference (To zwave) and still a large difference to insteon.

The cheapest I could find zwave parts was like:
$40 - $50 per module (plug in, screw in, or receptical, as well as switches and such)
$120 - $150 for a controller/interface

I bought my X10 gear brand new just a few days ago, for:
$5-$8 per module
$10 for RF Reciever
$20 for the controller/interface

That's a HUGE difference in price. I was able to spend $150 and hook up lighting control in my whole house including the controller, not to mention a few pieces of security gear to experiment with. (1 controller, 1 rf reciever, 3 remotes, 9 lights, 3 door alarms)

With ZWave the same setup would have cost me $740

Sure it might be flaky, but I can use it to experiment, and get used to home automation. When I want to invest in a "proper" setup, I can drop a couple grand on it. But for now, the $150 I spent lets me get wife acceptance factor, then I can argue "Ok, now that you like this, see how this is a bit of a pain, and how this doesn't work quite right, well switching to this technology a few pieces at a time would solve that" and I can get buy in on the larger investment

So I totally agree, if you have the money to spend, zwave or insteon is superior. BUT don't discount X10 as an option, especially for a "getting your feet wet for minimal expense" option lol.

12

Feature requests & roadmap / Re: Better Media Organization / Browser

« on: November 28, 2008, 09:27:52 pm »

I'll just throw my 2 cents in here too, (and beat the dead horse a few more times lol)

I think the media browser in lmce is actually very nice, with a few minor issues (as thom has pointed out above). One of which is tv episode browsing that causes me some pain lol...

Anyway, but yeah the big pain point for most people is tagging their media. Without tagging, any nice media browsing system is useless (short of file folder browsing). Properly tagged media is key to a nice clean media browsing experience (a perfect example of this is what is accepted by many as one of the most intuitive music browsing interfaces around, that is the ipod/itunes). Without proper tagging, the ipod is useless. Luckily music bought through itunes is pre-tagged (and most downloaded music is at least partially tagged).

To this end I have re-written a chunk of media tagging code in LMCE web admin, it helps with tagging files in large volumes. It also has some nice functions specifically targetted at tagging tv episodes.

Anyway, check out my thread at http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=6571.0

It still has some minor issues but I'm working on it. Hopefully when I get the bugs ironed out (mostly relating to flac files) it will get merged into the 0810 release of LMCE.

Anyway, hope this helps some of you.

13

Users / Re: New Media Tagging System

« on: November 28, 2008, 08:45:55 pm »

lmao been busy as hell at work lately, haven't had a chance to check this thread. (subscribing to email notices now so I can respond to people's questions lol)

anyway, Zug, when you say your getting that error, can you provide more info about your environment? (what version of lmce, how did you install, specificially how did you install it step by step)

Also Zaerc: Awesome! I'm glad to hear it will get merged into the tree eventually (provided 0810 doesn't drive you into total insanity first lol)

One note, please contact me before doing merges. There is an outstanding issues regarding flac audio files, apparently it corrupts the metadata for them when it encounters them. Tkmedia has been battling with it for some time. I haven't had time to try and fix it yet. I hope to try and either:
A) Get this fixed this weekend
B) Put in a bandaid (skip processing of flac files) until I get time to fix it proper...

So want to make sure this fix makes it into the main code then.

Thanks for your feedback everyone! I'm glad this is getting some good use!

14

Installation issues / Re: Nightmare Install Problems on new core

« on: November 12, 2008, 05:07:30 pm »

Thanks Hari Yeah I was having a bad day and was going a bit overboard lol... Being sick and sleep deprived (and rediculously stubborn) was making me a little irrational...

Turns out it was ram... Had a bad stick of ram...

Still confuses me, in that running any other Linux or Windows OS it worked fine, and it passed a few hours straight of memtest checks... But in the end, I removed sticks of ram one at a time, and this one came out, and suddenly everything worked perfectly, no more flaky behavior lol...

Anywhoo thanks to everyone on IRC that put up with my whining the past 2 days lol...

15

Installation issues / Nightmare Install Problems on new core

« on: November 11, 2008, 10:53:18 pm »

Ok, here's the skinny:

Hardware:
Tyan Thunder S2882
Dual Operon 200 series 2.0GHZ (not sure of precise model)
4GB Of ram
4X 3Ware 8506-4LP SATA RAID cards
10x Seagate 300GB HDDs (SATA)
4X Seagate 500GB HDDs (SATA)
1X Western Digital 120GB HDD (SATA) (connected to onboard SATA controller).
IDE DVDROM
Dual Onboard Gigabit NICs
Single Onboard 10/100 NIC.

Problem:
I installed this a couple days ago. First time trying it booted almost immediately to a prompt for BusyBox, Figured it was a cd read error or something wierd, so just rebooted. The install started, and finished just fine, LinuxMCE started up, walked through the av wizard, and came to a running core...

I fucked around with settings a bunch, broke some stuff, and decided to re-install (this was a new core, old one was still running so I had the option to experiment).

On the next install it took 5 reboots to get the install to go (Same thing as before) (note nothing is changing between these reboots, just hit reset button and wait for it to boot)

Did another reinstall... This time it installed with no reboots, first try.

Then tried another reinstall, this time took 20-30 reboots, (pissed me off) but installed fine... This time I left it up, and configured it somewhat, it was stable, and I rebooted the system a few times for various reasons, it rebooted fine no worries on the installed system.

(at this point I should mention that up until now, the first 4 bays running on the first 3ware card were populated with the 500GB drives, no other drives were populated yet, and the first 3ware card was configured for a 4 drive RAID5 hardware array with the 4 500 gb drives)

So I added that raid array as a drive in LMCE, and started migrating my media across from the old core to the new one (across the network, network ports working fine, tested both the 100mb and the gigabit ports)

Now with all the data migrated, I wanted to move some of the drives from the old system into the new system, and figured a fresh install wouldn't hurt (I know I know I probably didn't need it, but I did it anyway).

So I moved my drives across:
Installed a second 120GB drive on the onboard controller
Populated the remaining bays in the system with the 300gb drives
Added some ram from the other system to this one bringing it up to 6GB of ram.
I didn't configure the 300gb drives on hardware raid, I plan on letting lmce use software raid for those.
I did configure the 2x 120gb with raid using the motherboards bios, RAID1 mirror, so I could use that as my OS partition.

Reboot off the install DVD. this time it dies almost right away with:

Code: [Select]

udevd-event[2452]: run_program: '/sbin/modprobe' abnormal exit

BusyBox v1.1.3 (Debian 1:1.1.3-5ubuntu7) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

(initramfs)

So I assume it's the same issue as before, so I reboot about 30 times... then I got pissed off...

So then I notice that the modprobe abnormal exit is different this time than last time... So I decide lets put the hardware back exactly like before...

So I remove all the drives I add, remove the extra ram, and reset the raid settings on the onboard to be standard sata, with only the single 120 gb drive installed...

Still getting same error... retried another 10 times...

Then I tried reburning the disk in case disk was bad

Tried another 10 times....

Figured, must be a hardware failure or something... So I tried a centos 5 disk I had laying around...

(all drives and network working fine)

Installs fine, boots to a desktop...

Tried a Windows Server 2003 install... It works fine boots to a desktop (all drives and network working fine)

Then I tried searching on the error, found some bugs relating to seagate drives... Said to use all_generic_ide

So I tried that, that got it past the first error, but now it locks hard on "Configuring Network Interfaces"

WHAT THE HELL?

So after some more searching I find that there are 2 kernel bugs known specifically with the 0710 kubuntu install livecd, that cause this error either on the seagate hdds or on certain onboard network interfaces.

So I go into the bios and disable the onboard nics entirely...

Reboot, now the installer starts... So I run through the install. but after the normal grub install part, when it spits the disk out and reboots, it does nothing (the screen blanks, leaving a blinking cursor in the top left corner, it responds to keystrokes, but does nothing else... hangs there forever, I left it for half an hour to be sure).

At this point I hit the reset button... It booted off the hard drive, but hung with a kernel panic??? what the hell???

So at this point I re-download the iso... MD5 Check it, it's fine... Re-burn it at 1X... Retry the boot... Same friggin deal...

So I retry the install again... using the all_generic_ide and only the gigabit nics disabled... No go... (still failing at configuring network)
Tried again with all_generic_ide and the 100mb nics disabled... No go... (still failing at configuring network)
Tried again with all nics disabled, but without the generic ide... Dies with busybox prompt...

So I retried again with all nics disabled and all_generic_ide... Again, install works fine, but hangs before reboot... Left it for half an hour, hit reset button...

This time it boots, loads the kernel, then my monitor gives me an error saying that the video signal it's recieving is out of it's refresh rate range... (no this is not the av wizard, this is IMMEDIATELY like within half a second of the kernel loading after the bootloader).

Left it for a bit, then hit reset again...

This time I stopped grub, and took off the quiet and splash options... This time it hung at...
udevd-event[2053]: run_program: '/sbin/modprobe' abnormal exit

So I reboot again, this time editing the grub line to pull out the quite/splash and to add all_generic_ide

This time it boots through the proper startup for dcerouter, which gets angry as all hell because I have no network interfaces, but it does get me to avwizard...
Then X starts, and the launch manager comes up.
Got the girl on the screen, did the config steps (whipped through with minimal config to see what's next)
It regenerated the orbiter
While it was doing that I dropped out to a terminal to edit my boot config to force it to set the all_generic_ide option, but the pass for linuxmce user I set during install wasn't working (that may have been a typo during install though)
It came up with onscreen orbiter fine, so I rebooted it via the menu.
This time I hit the bios and re-enabled the onboard NICs
then interrupted grub and added all_generic_ide and still disable the quiet and splash so I can see what's going on...
This time around, it passes configuring network interfaces, but not by much (didn't see the exact line unfortunately, after 4-5 more lines maybe? it kernel panics...
specifically: Kernel panic - not syncing: Aiee, killing interrupt handler

Anyway, so at this point I'm ready for a full blown nervous breakdown... Ready to smash something seriously... was up all night last night, was also si9ck as a dog... Feel like shit, and frustrated as hell right now...
AND sine it worked fine before, and I copied my data over, I have canibalized my old core, so now I am completely without a core! which is REALLY pissing me off lol...

Just for shits and giggles... I retried with the CentOS5.1 dvd again... To confirm it still works... (with the network cards enabled, and no special boot options) (to see if it works without any "workarounds")
The installer booted fine, detected nics fine, detected hard drives fine, with no errors...
The install completed fine with no errors.
And it rebooted and started udev fine...
Detected the nics fine...
fired up networking fine, and booted to X perfectly fine...
From within X I tested networking, and it's working perfectly...
Kernel was 2.6.18-53

So I ask a few questions:

#1 - WHAT THE HELL?
#2 - Why would something that appears to be hardware incompatibility, work perfectly "sometimes", and then suddenly stop working at all unless it's hardware failure.
#3 - If it's not hardware failure, why does it work perfectly in all other OSs lol (including other linux distros)

ok, I'm done ranting now, just if anyone has any other suggestions for me to try PLEASE they would be much appreciated...

Thanks!