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Hi, I wonder if anyone could help me make my remote control work with my great new xbian 1 beta 1 xbmc on my raspberry pi.

I have a Pinnacle Systems, Inc. Remote Kit Infrared Transceiver purchased quite a while ago.
It comes with a RC-6 MCE remote control, and a usb receiver/transmitter.


It works great on my older htpc, which I originally installed mythtv on, and then updated to ubuntu 12.04 and xbmc. I think it runs a 3.2 kernel. But it works great on it, mode2 has output, and irw works, and even ir transmission.

However, it does not work out-of-the-box with xbian. Very strangely, if I hold some buttons down for a long time, they sometimes work.
Initially, I plugged it in and got nothing. So then I copied my /etc/lirc/hardware.conf from my old computer to the rpi. Somehow I did get mode2 to send output. irw would sometimes give output from a dev_input remote when I held it down for a long time, and other times, I think when I manually edited lirc.conf to include the mceusb.conf file in remotes, irw would spit out commands from a mceusb remote after I held down some buttons for a while. Most buttons would not work in any scenario.

I imagine it may be related to the kernel, because if I turn off lirc completely (/etc/init.d/lirc stop) and I hold "left" for a while I can see it work on xbmc. And by a while I mean like a full minute.

Then I think I reinstalled xbian and now mode2 does not work, no irw output, but holding down left still does work after a minute. I tried the 3.6 kernel and it did not make a difference.

If I plug the receiver back into my old computer, it still works great. The battery on the remote is fine. So I'm pretty baffled. Does anyone have any advice? I'd really like to have a real remote working, I prefer it to an app remote, and I would also like to do some IR transmitting if possible. Can I build an older kernel or just the RC modules or something?

Thanks to anyone who might help!

This issue is currently being worked on, until then see this thread:

http://forum.xbian.org/showthread.php?tid=972

(1st Aug, 2013 02:57 AM)f1vefour Wrote: [ -> ]This issue is currently being worked on, until then see this thread:

http://forum.xbian.org/showthread.php?tid=972

Thanks, I did see this, and I applied the original hardware.conf fix, but it did not fix the remote. I will keep an eye on that thread, too.

The developers are aware of the issue with your particular hardware, I'm not sure if an update will be made available in beta1.1 or if it will come when beta2 is released.

If you would like to try updating to beta2 currently in development I can point you in the right direction. I believe some work has already made it in that is related to your remote problem.

(1st Aug, 2013 04:14 AM)f1vefour Wrote: [ -> ]The developers are aware of the issue with your particular hardware, I'm not sure if an update will be made available in beta1.1 or if it will come when beta2 is released.

If you would like to try updating to beta2 currently in development I can point you in the right direction. I believe some work has already made it in that is related to your remote problem.

Sure, that would be great.

You can read this thread and test if your up for it.

http://forum.xbian.org/showthread.php?tid=1121

Do you know what modules are loaded for the remote in your Ubuntu installation?

mceusb and lirc_dev according to hardware.conf
Also the kernel mceusb source code has a reference to the vendor and model numbers from lsusb.

Are those modules loaded on Xbian?

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I'm thinking your issue may be a bit different being your USB receiver also contains an irblaster.

(1st Aug, 2013 11:04 AM)f1vefour Wrote: [ -> ]Are those modules loaded on Xbian?

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I'm thinking your issue may be a bit different being your USB receiver also contains an irblaster.

@f1v4 they are. yesterday as we discussed I was telling you there are approx 8 different rpi modules. mceusb is one of them.

@thenork so they are available. maybe keymap is needed as well (look here http://forum.xbian.org/thread-1056-post-12799.html#pid12799). anyhow read the whole forum, whether it is not the same kind of problem.

same module - same script, so could be solved already. if yes, try the package from git (xbian-package-lirc) or from http://ivka57.dyndns-ip.com

Ok I will try it, thanks. I don't know if the hardware.conf was the only change for xbian-package-lirc, but I did apply that manually by just copying the new hardware.conf from git and replacing mine. But I will try the beta 2 kernel and xbian-package-lirc. If I add http://ivka57.dyndns-ip.com to my apt-sources do I just need to apt-get install --reinstall xbian-package-lirc, or do I need to download source and compile?

(2nd Aug, 2013 05:22 AM)thenork Wrote: [ -> ]2 kernel and xbian-package-lirc. If I add http://ivka57.dyndns-ip.com to my apt-sources do I just need to apt-get install --reinstall xbian-package-lirc, or do I need to download source and compile?

if you use the apt sources approach, you have packages directly, the same ways as raspbian upstream repo and debian wheezy on top.

Tried beta 2, did not help for my remote. I'm trying on a couple different systems. Not entirely certain the remote works with a kernel since 3.2. Can't seem to find any examples online.

Well, I confirmed my remote does work on Ubuntu 13 with 3.10 kernel out of the box. But it still has problems on Openelec and Xbian where I have to hold down each button for quite a while for them to work, and only a few work. This happens with XBMC quit and lirc stopped, and just looking at ir-keytable -t, so I'm guessing it is a kernel module thing?

maybe it is because the usb implementation on rpi.

try please to research a bit around https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/issues/19 . or search google for "rpi usb missing keys/repeat keys"

I solved my USB remote issues using the info here http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=104541

What it amounted to is dropping Lirc completely (dtop & disable the lirc service), and just relying on the ir-keytable to map the remote's scancodes to keys expected by XBMC.

BTW mine to is an RC-6 based mce emulation on harmony with an ehome USB receiver. Had to manually modify only two keys in the keytable so far.