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

[bbear]

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.

[bbear]

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

[bbear]

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

[tschak909]

Install the orbiter software on an old PDA, or a PC (Tablet, laptop, whatever), it is the most capable remote that LMCE has. If you have a Nokia N810, you can also use this. tkmedia also sells touchpads with the orbiter software on it.

The orbiter software is available via a link on the web admin login page.

Cell phone is another option.

While the Fiire Chief is a good choice, most other remotes are actually on the opposite side of the spectrum and are the least capable.

-Thom

[bbear]

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