[solved] lirc dies sporadically in kernel 2.6

oscarwild · Last edited by oscarwild on Wed Sep 29, 2004 7:30 pm; edited 1 time in total

Hi folks,

i've been successfully using lirc for several years now with kernel 2.4, and never experienced trouble in any way until I changed to kernel 2.6 some months ago. I haven't ever since been able to keep lirc running for longer than about 2 days without a manual restart.

Most of the threads I read in the gentoo forums deal with how to get lirc installed in conjunction with kernel 2.6. But that's not my question; I managed to do that in several ways:
- love-sources, that already contain a lirc patch
- manually applied several different lirc patches to gentoo-dev-sources
- used the current CVS snapshot with unpatched gentoo-dev-sources (that's the way recommended by the lirc website! There's really _no_ need to patch the kernel anymore!)
- modified the latest lirc ebuild in order to compile and correctly install the driver modules (should give the same result as CVS install).

*EACH* of these approaches works (the obvious difference was, that the kernel patches provided the device node /dev/lircd when the CVS shapshots provided /dev/lrc/lircX). But regardless of kind of installation, suddenly the lirc daemon stops processing incoming remote signal, then I've to kill lircd, unload and reload the kernel modules (lirc_dev and lirc_serial), afterwards it works for some hours again and so on.

When the failure occurs, the lirc daemon doesn't die for some reason. It simply stops processing the remote signal... The fatal thing about it: there's no note in any way about a lirc failure in the log files! I'm absolutely clueless what to try next...

I heard about a unresolved "spinlock issue", but can't do anything with this information (wtf is a spinlock?).

So, is there anyone out there experiencing similar behaviour? Probably, even found out why this occurs and how to solve it??

Thanks in advance for your advice!

My setup:
- currently gentoo-dev-sources 2.6.7-r13 (tried 2.6.2, 2.6.4, 2.6.5 as well, also gave love-sources in several versions a try without any effect)
- kernel patched for em8300 in order to support my dxr3 video-out board
- lirc 0.7.0 pre6 (modified ebuild that compiles/installs the kernel modules, also tried pre5 and pre4)
- homebrew receiver on the serial port (lirc_serial module)

Tasslehoff · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:06 pm Post subject:

This doesnt help solve your problem , though I am confirming I have the same problem.

I am using gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.5-r1 my remote is for the Hauppage 350 pvr. It will be working great and just stop with no warning or errors. I checked lsof to see if anything is blocking /dev/lirc and nothing is.

oscarwild · Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 11:51 am Post subject:

Thanks for your response, Tasslehoff!

What lirc driver does your Hauppauge remote use?
I suppose it's not the lirc_serial module, so we could exclude it when looking for the failure cause.

oscarwild · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 9:15 am Post subject:

*bump*
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dvh · Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 3:23 pm Post subject:

Not sure if I can help or not, but I use LIRC with a Hauppauge 250 and the grey remote. I'm not aware that my LIRC stops working (maybe I have not gone long enough without a reboot), but I do know that LIRC only works until I stop the mythtv frontend. If I restart, then it no longer works. Same behavior with irw.

I am using kernel 2.6.7 with some form of lirc patch (something.2.6.5.something) and the latest lirc from portage. I am aware of lirc/kernel issues, but I don't understand them. From your post, I have learned that the kernel *patch* provided the device link. If I use the CVS version, that will provide a different device link? What would change in my myth setup to accomodate that? I would be happy to try this to see if I can duplicate your issue if I can make the CVS work once, but I need your help to set up for the CVS lirc.

-dvh

oscarwild · Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 7:30 pm Post subject:

hi dvh,

first of all, thanks for your response.

As it seems to me, I've found the reason for my lirc problem as well as a solution

A long time ago I had to provide four serial interfaces. When I replaced my peripherals by USB ones, some kernel configuration had been left, which enabled extended serial support (interrupt sharing and interrupt auto detection):

dvh · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:10 am Post subject:

thanks for the response...will try your advice. BTW, I aready have the lirc version you recommended installed, but I don't get the device node as you suggest. I get a different node "/dev/lirc/lirc0". Is this the device that the kernel patch will attempt to create? Should I not see both?

-dvh

oscarwild · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 8:35 am Post subject:

Hi dvh,

dvh · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:36 pm Post subject:

Yes, you have it rightI have both installed. I looked through all of the directories under /lib/*kernel-name* and I have found two sets of lirc-related modulesone set is located in /lib/*kernel-name*/kernel/drivers/char/lirc, with filenames lirc_dev and lirc_i2c. Another set (with the same filenames) is located in /lib/*kernel-name*/misc. Those in the misc directory have a time stamp that makes me think they were created from my last emerge lirc, while the other pair looks like it came from the kernel build. Now I have no idea which are being used. But, if your speculation about the device node names changing slightly is true, then I must be still using the old modules, as I have not needed to change the /etc/conf.d/lircd contents.

When I get home, I will try to relocate/rename one set (probably the kernel set) and see if all still load appropriately. BTW, these get loaded with the ivtv (PVR-250 drivers) modules as dictated by the modules.conf. The names lirc_dev and lirc_i2c were dictated by a Hauppauge setup howto, so I think that these are the Hauppauge drivers.

Thanks again for your help. Using a variety of (good and bad) information from many sources, I have assembled my current mythtv setup, but in this case, the result is a somewhat patchwork solution that I did not fully understand. With your guidance, I think I finally am close to understanding this

-dvh

dvh · Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 12:49 am Post subject:

...update...I eliminated the kernel modules as I described above, leaving only those that appeared to be from an "emerge lirc". As you predicted, this resulted in a different device node structure "/dev/lirc/0", and changing /etc/conf.d/lircd to indicate the correct device leads to success!

Looks like I can now build a new kernel, emerge lirc, and have a working system without patching. Thanks again for the help.

-dvh

oscarwild · Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 6:33 am Post subject:

you're welcome, good luck

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dvh · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 8:01 pm Post subject:

I have built kernel 2.6.8-r3, lirc-0.7.0_pre7, and ivtv ck113a (for PVR-250), AND, I have added the latest CVS mythtv, and all appears to be working! no need to patch anything in the above list. I do have one remaining (somewhat confusing) issue however...maybe someone out there has a simple answer...

In theory, the ivtv module config file (/etc/modules.d/ivtv) should only require these two lines:

alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-0 ivtv

however, my lirc does not load properly and connect with mythtv unless I also add:

alias char-major-61 lirc_i2c
add above ivtv lirc_dev lirc_i2c

These lines were required for earlier ivtv versions, but should (again, IAW other posts I have read) no longer be required. I must be missing some other configuration that would force the lirc modules to be loaded when I need them, IF the recommendation for the ivtv config is accurate. Does anyone have an idea of what I might be missing?

-dvh

oscarwild · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 10:37 am Post subject:

Hi dvh,

I've heard about an issue with lirc and the devfs, which still might be not fully supported yet.
I can confirm, that the lirc modules are not started by the kernel autoloader as expected. As a work-around I added them (in my case: lirc_dev and lirc_serial) to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6.
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