Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

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BillK
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Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

Post by BillK »

I was led to believe that the Hauppauge HVR-2255 was supported in the Ubuntu 16.04 kernel. I was running 14.04 with the custom-built kernel supplied by Hauppauge and mythtv worked fine (most of the time). So I "upgraded" to 16.04 and got all sorts of problems, the worst being that I couldn't get the backend to see the cards until I rebooted with the old kernel. I went to Hauppauge's website and found stuff to install. Now when I go to mythbackend-setup->Capture Cards, It shows two cards but when I try to open either card, or create a new card, nothing happens for a VERY long time - even if I press {Esc}.

Messages like this popped up repeatedly in the backend log:

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Sep  4 11:30:02 Jupiter mythbackend: mythbackend[1574]: E CoreContext mythdbcon.cpp:230 (OpenDatabase) Driver error was [1/2002]:#012QMYSQL: Unable to connect#012Database error was:#012Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)
BillK
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Re: Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

Post by BillK »

Another thread suggested checking owner/permission of /dev/dvb/adapter0.

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$ ls -al /dev/dvb/adapter0
ls: cannot access '/dev/dvb/adapter0': No such file or directory
MikeB2013
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Re: Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

Post by MikeB2013 »

As you mentioned ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04, i would investigate the following before suspecting permissions issues on /dev/dvb/adapter...

The following is a description of issues I have encountered when upgrading or even a fresh install, with solutions I have used. Note that there are many posts on various forums concerning these issues.

1. Ubuntu 16.04 and later uses systemd instead of upstart when it boots, this change has impacted certain configurations with mythtv. There are two main problems at boot time, one being mythbackend can startup before networking, mysql and device drivers for tuners have fully initialized, this causes various problems with mythbackend. A simple test is to restart mythbackend by doing" sudo systemctl restart mythtv-backend.service" , if everything now works, a simple, pragmatic, solution is to delay mythbackend startup for a number of seconds. This is done by creating an override file (which will survive mythtv updates) for the mythtv-backend.service file :

sudo systemctl edit mythtv-backend.service and then add the following two lines
[Service]
ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 20

Then exit from the edit screen (it uses nano by default, so Ctrl+x, then
y, then Return key) then either reboot the machine or do "sudo systemctl
restart mythtv-backend.service"

2. The other boot time issue, but only if you have multiple types of tuner, in that the order of initialization can vary between reboots and this confuses mythtv as it could for example try to use an OTA tuner that was the first device on one boot, but becomes a different type at the next boot. Being in the UK I have OTA (DVB-T tuners) and Satellite (DVB-S tuners) so if these get swapped around between boots, mythtv will have all sorts of problems. There are two solutions to this, one is to use a configuration file in /etc/modprobe.d, the other is to setup udev rules.

3. An issue that can cause mysql not to start, is where "Enable MySQL performance tweaks" in mythbuntu-control-center has been enabled, and mysql get updated to version 5.7 which does not like one of the entries, specifically "table_cache=128". The performance tweaks file (mythtv-tweaks.cnf) is typically in /etc/mysql/conf.d/. If you have this problem (error.log in /var/log/mysql/ has an entry "unknown variable 'table_cache=128' ) you can comment out the line in mythtv-tweaks.cnf, or even just delete the mythtv-tweaks.cnf file, then reboot the machine.

4. mythtv-setup does not always stop mythbackend, both running at the same time can cause strange issues. Always ensure mythbackend is stopped before running mythtv-setup, this is done with sudo systemctl stop mythtv-backend.service

Mike
MikeB2013
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Re: Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

Post by MikeB2013 »

One other point what is your kernel version, on my ubuntu 16.04 systems mine is 4.10 series kernel from ubuntu hwe stack. this version has better support for various tuner cards including Hauppauge- I have a Hauppauge QuadHD PCI-e card.

Mike
Wroxter
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Re: Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

Post by Wroxter »

All good advice.

I have an older 2250 on LTS 16.04 with the stock generic kernel. My adapters are all owned by root.
$ ls -al /dev/dvb/adapter0 .
ls: cannot access '/dev/dvb/adapter0': No such file or directory
As you do not have an adapter in /dev/dvb/ the kernel is not recognizing your tuner and creating the needed node. Check the kernel logs from the last time you booted--mine are being filled by apparmour spam so you may have to go back a while. You should see some lines similar to those on https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ ... V-HVR-2200 .

If not, you may need to check your firmware. See https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ ... V-HVR-2255 for the links to Steven Toth's website.


W
MikeB2013
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Re: Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

Post by MikeB2013 »

You can also use dmesg command, it is slightly easier than going through the kernel logs unless you want to check history over multiple boots e.g.
dmesg | grep -i frontend will list all detected frontend adapters.
dmesg | grep -i fw will show what is happening (or not) with firmware files (assumes firmware files end with .fw, there are some around ending with .bin or other suffix)
Wroxter
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Re: Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

Post by Wroxter »

Yes that would have worked on my last system (Debian) and should probably work on this standard mythbuntu install, but when I checked dmesg today for this post, my dmesg output only consisted of many apparmor nags. But the adapter creation is in the kernal log from the last boot up. I am still on the learning curve on *buntu and suspected an unknown-to-me feature of its relationship with apparmor.

One could also grep the cat (or zcat) of the kernel log which would make finding it easier.
BillK
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Re: Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

Post by BillK »

Thanks to all!

I'm back with 14.04. What I think I'll do is install 16.04 in a test environment so I can work on making all these tweaks without screwing up my working system.
jrockinl
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Re: Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

Post by jrockinl »

I know this is old thread, but frustration is very high right now.

A thunderstorm shutdown my mythbuntu system and the backup UPS was apparently needing new batteries so it failed also. The system did not work on startup when power came back. The database was likely corrupted or something. Since it had been many years since I set it up, I thought it would be a good time to uprgrade the system to latest software so I downloaded mythbuntu 16.04. It just did not work with my two HVR-2250's cards. I am tired of trying to get it to work and would like to go back to the mythbuntu 14.04 also. Unfortunately, the iso is no longer found on the internet. Is it possible for someone here to post it somewhere I can get it?

Thanks in advance for any help!
wesnewell
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Re: Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

Post by wesnewell »

Mythbuntu 16.04 reached eol last April iirc and 14.04 is older. Suggest you try a newer linux version, which will have later drivers, kernels, everything, and still be supported. xubuntu 18.04 LTS works well for me with mythtv V30.
BE/FE-Asrock AB350 Pro Ryzen 3 3200G, 6 atsc tuners. FE's-GF8200's Athlon II, Ryzen 3 2200G. Mythtv user since 2005.
chipsugar
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Re: Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

Post by chipsugar »

I don't own the card myself but have found instructions to use a recent kernel and add the line "options saa7164 card=8" to a file and put it in the /etc/modprobe.d/ directory, and to copy the firmware to /lib/firmware. I got this from the below thread.

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2400652

If this doesn't work try manually modprobing the relevant modules then post your dmesg output here.
wesnewell
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Re: Hauppauge HVR-2255 and Ubuntu 16.04

Post by wesnewell »

BE/FE-Asrock AB350 Pro Ryzen 3 3200G, 6 atsc tuners. FE's-GF8200's Athlon II, Ryzen 3 2200G. Mythtv user since 2005.
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