[Solved] HD Homerun support is now broken

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wartstew
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[Solved] HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by wartstew »

It was a big mistake for me up upgrade from .30 > .31. Here is just one issue:

I'm running Debian Buster with backports enabled.

A couple of weeks ago I upgraded to the current version at that time from the backports. HD homerun quit working (mythth-status shows tuners listed but disconnected). I've since upgraded to a more recent build that just came down, things got worse, so now when I select capture cards, it doesn't even show the serial numbers (just showing "HDHOMERUN: ") and no tuners at all in mythv-status.

Note I have the now very old "white" original ATSC only dual tuner model, but with latest available firmware. I can pull up the tuner using the "hdhomerun-config_gui" program just fine.

Let me know if anyone here needs more information (as in willing to work on this), as I'll hold off on downgrading back to .30 (Unfortunately the last database snapshot I can use for .30 is from back in July ... my bad).
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bill6502
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Re: HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by bill6502 »

Odd, as the pool feature for HDHRs was added in v30 (0.nn was dropped in v29 FYI.)
I would have expected this to be an issue for you in v30, not v31.

Check out the Release Notes: https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Release_Not ... structions
(last bullet item).

The GUI has changed, this may help: https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Channel_Sca ... Run_tuners

I have two HDHRs, and they work fine (on v31 and master aka v32Pre). I don't
have the "white" one though.
wartstew
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Re: HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by wartstew »

Yes, Odd.

I had been working on a RPI-4 mythtv replacement for my aging PC hardware back in late July. It still has .30 on it, but with a database & recordings "snapshot" from then. I powered it up and it detected the HDHR just fine and started recording some shows. Since my .31 unit is pretty non-functional right now I swapped it out for the RPI-4 for now. I don't consider the RPI-4 quite "ready for production" yet as it has a number of issues that are not MythTV related. At least it basically works however.

Anyway, interesting you have your HDHRs working. So perhaps there is something wrong with the build I have. I was previously mistaken, as it came from the "debian-multimedia" repository with latest build named "31.0+fixes20201018.giteb3c84de5f-dmo0~bpo10+1" (as in they did the "backport") Anyway, the .31 version they had just before this (about two weeks ago) at least "saw" the tuners in mythtv-setup. Now I can't even get to the menu past you select the HDHomerun Network Tuner because nothing is actually detected. I was also able to do the "channel scan" within mythtv-setup with the previous build. Should I start bugging the "debian-multimedia" people? Perhaps they are getting something too bleeding edge or are trying to use some incompatible libraries?

Yea, I realize the issues that can happen if you have other applications competing for the HDHR. I never ever had any trouble with it, but I was always careful. I typically only took over a tuner when running hdhomerun-config-gui on a separate laptop to peak an antenna outside as it has good signal strength and quality meters, or sometimes playing around with other PVR plugins with KODI.

Other background information is that this install dates back to about back to about 2004 in the debian tradition of "you only have to install it once" as I've upgraded it in place many times since then and replaced the PC hardware once, cloned/replaced the hard drive a couple of times, and replaced the power supply on the HDHR once. So maybe something has gotten messed up during all this evolution! I think this was the original "dual tuner" HDHR model, I love it and it still works after all these years!

Thanks for the time to come up the links, but I already have been trying to follow them. The extra HDHR link in the release notes was also nice review as it has been awhile since I read it.
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bill6502
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Re: HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by bill6502 »

Commit [eb3c84de5f] is the latest for v31 that's good.

Does this: mythbackend --version|grep --color=always using_hdhomerun
have: using_hdhomerun in the output?
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bill6502
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Re: HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by bill6502 »

Does: dpkg -l libhdhomerun4 libhdhomerun-dev return something like this

Code: Select all

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                   Version      Architecture Description
+++-======================-============-============-===============================================
ii  libhdhomerun-dev:amd64 20200225-1   amd64        Development library for Silicon Dust HD HomeRun
ii  libhdhomerun4:amd64    20200225-1   amd64        Library for Silicon Dust HD HomeRun
wartstew
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Re: HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by wartstew »

Yes, it is compiled with the "using_hdhomerun" (cool, never used the --color option before)

I only have the libhdhomerun4 installed, not the libhdhomerun-dev package. Are you suggesting I need it?

Anyway, so I went and installed it just-in-case and it downgraded my libhdhomerun4 from a 2020 version from "buster-backports" to a 2018 version in the main debian "Buster" (stable), and that fixed it!

I guess this is the risk of having extra repositories listed with your package manager. I usually have good luck with compatibility with Debian related ones, as compared with that I usually quickly break things when I try to add extra repositories to those RedHat RPM based distributions.

Anyway, thanks a lot, sorry I accused the mythtv people of breaking something! I've been a happy user and advocate for years.

(Well all is not THAT rosy ... yet: .31 made me put a newer video card in my computer, and I'm having trouble getting Schedule Direct's XMLTV grabber mode to work, but I am getting help on this in another thread.)
wartstew
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Re: [Solved] HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by wartstew »

I'm back:

I believe that I only have one of the two tuners in my HDHR working in Mythtv. In the old version each tuner was separately detected and had an enumeration "-1 & -2" after its serial number/name. With .31 I don't get a separate enumeration, just a single tuner. The instructions I've found are unclear on this. Some say just add the tuner twice (which is what I did). I saw there was a setting somewhere that you could specify the number of streams each tuner can produce (in the case of the HDHR, I've been told it can do two streams per each tuned station), but I'm guessing this is NOT where you get both tuners to work.
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kmdewaal
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Re: [Solved] HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by kmdewaal »

Adding the tuner twice, as described in https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Channel_Sca ... Run_tuners is correct.
You also need to connect both tuners to the same video source in the Input Connections dialog pages. This is also described in the same WIki page.
If you have the ¨Schedule as Group"option selected then additional virtual tuners are created when needed. This is default.
If your HDHomeRun has two antenna inputs they must both receive the same signal.
wartstew
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Re: [Solved] HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by wartstew »

Okay, maybe it's all solved. I see in "upcoming recordings" listings for both my named "Input 1" and "Input 2" listed. I'll see if both are working tomorrow. Everything had been setup as was described in the above tutorial. I *did* just now update Mythtv from the Debian-backports that just came through so maybe something got fixed there. It is just that some shows were missed earlier this week (that were marked in schedule to be recorded) and I haven't been able to quite figure out why, and it could have been unrelated to this.
jleflar23
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Re: [Solved] HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by jleflar23 »

Hi all,
I'm in a similar situation, and I've followed the above guidance, however I'm still having a problem watching Live TV and scheduling recordings. Let me know if I should submit a separate thread rather than piggybacking on this one.

I have an HDHomeRun DUAL (circa 2013) that I'm trying to setup as a DVR. I added the two cards and was able to successfully perform a Channel Scan. In MythTV FrontEnd I can view the resulting Program Guide (just using EIT for now), however when I attempt to Watch TV in MythTV FrontEnd, I get a black "Please Wait..." screen, then it exits back to the menu. When I try to record a show that is currently playing, I get "Single Record 0 Recorder Failed". Also I noticed it seems I can schedule three simultaneous recordings without conflict, which doesn't make sense since I only have two tuners.

I really appreciate what you've put together here. Many thanks in advance for any advice and help troubleshooting.
jksj
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Re: [Solved] HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by jksj »

Also I noticed it seems I can schedule three simultaneous recordings without conflict, which doesn't make sense since I only have two tuners.
This might be due to some of them being on the same mux.
When I try to record a show that is currently playing, I get "Single Record 0 Recorder Failed"
This can happen if a filter is set in the default recording profile. I have a 'prime time' condition set in mine which means that recordings fail from Live TV in daytime.
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kmdewaal
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Re: [Solved] HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by kmdewaal »

If the channel scan is OK then a lot is already working. The backend does also work because you have the EIT guide data.
Recordings do need to be stored somewhere and also Live TV always makes a recording.
It could be that there is something wrong with your storage configuration.
jleflar23
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Re: [Solved] HD Homerun support is now broken

Post by jleflar23 »

Eureka! I just ran chmod 777 on my storage directories and I now have live TV! Many thanks @kmdewaal!
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