[SOLVED]Channel Scan – Timed out, no channels

[hutsmythtv]

Everything I have tried and still I can’t get any channels to show in Mythtv. I am running a Hauppauge WinTV-QuadHD on Ubuntu 20.04 (Mythtv v31) and have increased the channel timeouts to 10000 and 20000 respectively as advised on various posts. I have also installed the custom firmware as advised by Hauppauge. I have re-installed Ubuntu and Mythtv (as mythtv user) at least 3 times. The tuner card works fine with Kaffeine. I get all of the channels that I could with a previous installation of Ubuntu 18.04 and Mythtv v27. See below, the output from dmesg. I can’t understand why this installation has to be so difficult (as noted by many other posts to this forum)!

[kmdewaal]

If your tuner card works with Kaffeine or any other applcation on Linux then it should also work with MythTV.

There has been a lot of changes since 0.27 including the way the GUI works so you might need to do some reading.
The channel scanning Wiki in https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Channel_Scanning is intended to describe everything you need to do for a successful channel scan but maybe there is something not clear yet. Please mention what is unclear so it can be improved.

Can you please do a mythtv-setup channel scan with mythtv-setup and post the results?
Please start mythtv-setup with this command including the options to generate lots of additional information:

Code: Select all

mythtv-setup -v channel,chanscan,record,siparser --loglevel=debug --logpath=.

This will create a file mythtv-setup.....log in the current directory and that is the file I am interested in.

Succes,
Klaas.

[hutsmythtv]

Thank you very much for the reply Klaas!

I did read thru wiki-Channel_Scanning again and can confirm that my setup (especially the ATSC configuration section) matches that guide.

I have attached (got it compressed to an acceptable size) my log file. Hopefully you will see what is preventing my setup to add channels so that I can view live tv. And hoping your recommendation does not require me to change hardware!

Thanks again!
Mike

[kmdewaal]

It looks like the delivery system needs to be configured for the capture card.
This is in mythtv-setup, 2. Capture Cards / ... / Card Type and then select a Delivery system.
Probably there is only the choice ATSC and that is then OK. Save and exit and do a new scan.

Hope this helps and if it does not then we dig deeper!
Klaas.

[hutsmythtv]

Klaas,

I went ahead and deleted (for the umpteenth time) the capture card, video sources, and input connections so this new test could be as if starting from scratch. After making sure (again) that under "General > Locale" "Channel frequency table" was set to "us-bcast", i created a new capture card (Card type or delivery system as ATSC). This new card is named "TC1" under the "Video Source" section. TC1 is set to pull "default" Channel frequency table (from General). Finally, under "Input Connections" I created a new input connection called "Input 8". I ran a new "Full Scan", but alas, the same result for channels 2-51 (Failed to find any channels). I should also note that during scanning for channels, "Signal/Noise Ratio" stays at 0% - occasionally rising to 6% on a channel that I know it should pickup (will change from "Not Locked" to "Locked" in the upper left). "Signal Strength" consistently stays at 100% (only drops to 80% on channels that I have never received).

Could there be an issue with the "us-bcast channel frequency table"? In Kaffeine, I had to select "us-ATSC-center-frequencies-8VSB" with "062009" on the end to get all of my local over-the-air channels to pull in. Is there some way to get Mythtv to use "dtv-scan-tables.git"?

I did attach the latest mythtv-setup.log file

[kmdewaal]

The frequencies in the Kaffeine channel list https://linuxtv.org/downloads/dtv-scan- ... ntable.dvb entry

Code: Select all

[atsc/us-ATSC-center-frequencies-8VSB-062009]
A 57028615 8VSB
A 63028615 8VSB

etc etc are the same as those used by MythTV except for the last 28615Hz. Which should not make a difference.

The logs look really quite OK except that it fails to read the signal strength and that it tries to tune without a modulation system as shown by the
msys:UNDEFINED in the tuning parameters log:

Code: Select all

New Params: 69000000 8vsb a auto auto a a auto a v fec:auto msys:UNDEFINED rolloff:0.35

I understand that this is your card: https://hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_quadhd.html and this card is capable of both Cable/QAM and OTA/ATSC. It could just be that your card is in the QAM mode and that it needs to be told to go to the ATSC mode.
The European DVB cards that support multiple modulation systems do need configuration for that and that is built into MythTV since v31.
Unless I am mistaken this needs to be added to support your card properly as well.
I need to figure out how to fix this but it could involve my asking you to run test software and to run patched versions of mythtv-master.

Klaas.

[kmdewaal]

Can you please run the following program:

Code: Select all

dvb-fe-tool

and post the output?

On Ubuntu you can do

Code: Select all

sudo apt install dvb-tools

to install the command; you can also find it in this git repo: http://git.linuxtv.org/cgit.cgi/v4l-utils.git and build it yourself.

Thanks,
Klaas.

[hutsmythtv]

Klaas,

Yes, the Hauppauge product page shows the exact picture of my tuner card. I have noted a few posts on this forum and others that discuss the firmware required for this card. The PC system that this card runs on is an HWE system - wasn't sure if you had noted that from my first picture. And in attempting one-more-time to run this command (sudo apt-get install linux-hwe-mediatree) for the configuration of this Hauppauge card, it reports the package cannot be found (see attached picture)? It seems that this might be what is missing?

I have attached a picture showing the results of running "dvb-fe-tool".

Thanks!

[kmdewaal]

I am not really familiar with Ubuntu or HWE but if Kaffeine can show live TV from your card then you do have a working card with working firmware.
The output of dvb-fe-tool does show that ATSC is the default selected delivery system and that means that MythTV should work when you try to receive ATSC but not when you want to receive cable.

Can you please check if in mythtv-setup Capture Card, Delivery System, you do have the choice between ATSC and DVBC? A photo would be great.

If there are readers of this forum who have experience with this type of card then please respond!

Thanks,
Klaas.

[kmdewaal]

Screenshot from 2020-11-03 20-44-23-2.png (123.29 KiB) Viewed 3048 times

This is the Channel Scan / Scan type - Full Scan / Scan Type window.
Just be sure, can you please check that this was set to "Broadcast" as shown in this picture?

[heyted]

I am running a Hauppauge WinTV-QuadHD on Ubuntu 20.04 (Mythtv v31)

I have no experience with that card, but I do recommend upgrading to the latest v31 version. What is the output of mythbackend --version? Are you using the Updates PPA?

[hutsmythtv]

Klaas, Ted,

Thanks much for the replies. I'm sorry - I forgot to add what my delivery system is on my previous message. I have added it on this one. I need to do ATSC (no cable) as I do OTA with an old-school roof type tv antenna (in my attic). I was amazed by the channels and the programming we were able to bring in this way with my old mythtv setup. We don't miss DirectV a bit.

Anyway, please see the attached pics noting delivery-system, scan-type and the mythtv backend version. I sure hope someone can direct me in how this can be fixed. Would hate to have to re-image back to Ubuntu 18.04 and add mythtv v29!

Thanks!
Mike

[kmdewaal]

Thanks for the pictures, they show the correct content so that does eliminate the low-hanging fruit in this case.
To summarize, this is how I understand the situation:

• Ubuntu 18.04 and MythTV v0.27 works OK

• the same hardware with Ubuntu 20.04 and Kaffeine works OK

• the same hardware with Ubuntu 20.04 and MythTV v31 fails

This suggest that the problem is in how MythTV v31 talks to the driver.
Based on your logs I do have ideas about what this might be and I can make fixes but then you need to try them out because I do not live in ATSC country. So if you are willing to build from source (preferably master) and test my patches then we can have a go at fixing this.

Thanks,
Klaas.

N.B. It could be that the reason for failure is in the kernel/driver and then It could just be that MythTV v31 works OK on Ubuntu 18.04.

[hutsmythtv]

Klaas,

Thanks for your continued interest in getting this system working right. Yes, your summary hits the nail right on the head!
I certainly am interested in your plan to patch a build from source install. Would you prefer that I wipe the whole system and re-install Ubuntu 20.04 or do you feel that I should go back to 18.04? And then please provide or direct me to a guide for the "build from source" as that will be a new experience for me.

Thanks again and I await your plan.

Mike

[kmdewaal]

OK, let is go for it!

Building from source is completely documented in the Wiki in https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Build_from_Source.
Especially installing all the dependencies with ansible is great and absolutely necessary.

I personally put everything in a separate folder mythtv_master so that it is completely separate from the standard installation in /usr...

You can configure it any way you want but here is how I do it on my own development system.

My folder structure looks like this:
/home/<your_home>/mythtv-master
This is the toplevel for the local installation; this is where you do the "git clone https://github.com/MythTV/mythtv.git"

/home/<your_home>/mythtv-master/usr
This is where I let the "make install" put everything.

This is the script that sets the environment variables that are needed:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
#
INSTANCE=mythtv-master
#
PATH=$HOME/$INSTANCE/usr/bin:$PATH
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/$INSTANCE/usr/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
PYTHONPATH=$HOME/$INSTANCE/usr/lib/python3.7/site-packages
#
MYTHCONFDIR=$HOME/.mythtv/
#
export PATH LD_LIBRARY_PATH MYTHCONFDIR PYTHONPATH
#
# [The End]

Configuration and compilation is done like this:

Code: Select all

cd
cd mythtv-master/mythtv/mythtv
./configure --prefix=/home/<your_home>/mythv-master/usr
make -j4
make install

Note that this does use the same database as the standard installation. If you want to preserve it then back it up first because after the database is upgraded to the latest version used by master there is no way back.

When this all is done you can type "mythtv-setup" and then you get the one you just compiled. This will started with a database update and after that you can check if this also fails to scan....
Somewhere in the weekend I expect to have something that you can test.

Enjoy!
Klaas.