Dell MCE Remote Troubles

[jay.hankins]

Hi all,

I have a Dell MCE Remote that is having some trouble working. It doesn't work at all on the XBMC interface, so I tried configuring it according to the tutorial in the wiki.

Using the mceusb lircd.conf didn't change it, so I tried using irrecord, and that still didn't work. No output is displayed in irw. From dmesg and lsusb, I know the receiver is recognized.

This is the product I have: http://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-Dell-Microsoft-MCE-Media-Center-Remote-Control-Kit-/150548490382?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item230d63a88e
I don't know a whole lot more about it. Lsusb shows a Philips eHome receiver, 0471:0815, which I know should work, because I've seen that ID in tutorials on how to setup LIRC before.

I wish I wasn't having such a hard time getting this remote to work. It has always worked fine in Windows, and used to work fine on an Ubuntu installation many years back. I think when the kernel changes and LIRC changes happened is when it stopped working in virtually all linux distros. I've followed basically every tutorial I can find, and nothing is working.

Thanks for your help.

[CurlyMo]

Can you post the output of lsusb, dmesg and 'cat /proc/bus/input/devices'.

Did 'mode2' show any output when pressing buttons?

[jay.hankins]

Oh yes, I should have mentioned that. Following the tutorial, I completed steps 1-3 with Step 2 failing every time.

mode2 did show output from all of my remotes (I mean like my TV remote, BluRay remote, etc. Not remotes I want to use with Xbian, but it just shows that the IR receiver is working).

lsusb:

Code:

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9512 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0471:0815 Philips (or NXP) eHome Infrared Receiver

dmesg:
http://pastebin.com/erf4vqRx

cat /proc/bus/input/devices:
http://pastebin.com/kB9QJ8yF

[CurlyMo]

So 'mode2' also shows output with the Dell Remote?

[jay.hankins]

Yes. It works with any IR remote.

[rikardo1979]

please can you use pastebin next time instead of posting raw out of 1000's lines here ?
not pleasant to scroll down through all the lines (especially on touch devices )
-thx-

[jay.hankins]

(13th Jan, 2013 12:26 AM)rikardo1979 Wrote:  please can you use pastebin next time instead of posting raw out of 1000's lines here ?
not pleasant to scroll down through all the lines (especially on touch devices )
-thx-

Yeah, sorry. I didn't really think of that until I opened it up on my own mobile.

[CurlyMo]

If step 2 of my tutorial fails, just go to step 3

[rikardo1979]

not a problem,it was just advise 3:-)

[jay.hankins]

(13th Jan, 2013 12:52 AM)CurlyMo Wrote:  If step 2 of my tutorial fails, just go to step 3

Well, that's what I did. I couldn't find a lircd.conf file on sourceforge that worked. Which is weird, because it's a fairly standard MCE remote, from what I understand. Anyway, I did step 3b and created my own config file, but the end of 3b says to retry step 2 (the irw step).

irw still did not working after following all the steps of 3.

[CurlyMo]

Did you put your new lircd.conf as 'custom.conf' in /etc/lirc/remotes/
and added this line to '/etc/lirc/lircd.conf:

Code:

include "/etc/lirc/remotes/devinput.conf"
include "/etc/lirc/remotes/xbox.conf"
include "/etc/lirc/remotes/smt1000t.conf"
include "/etc/lirc/remotes/srm7500.conf"
include "/etc/lirc/remotes/custom.conf"

[jay.hankins]

(13th Jan, 2013 01:15 AM)CurlyMo Wrote:  Did you put your new lircd.conf as 'custom.conf' in /etc/lirc/remotes/

Well, originally, I just prepended the new config at the end of /etc/lirc/lircd.conf per the tutorial. But, I just followed the instructions you gave me, by putting an include statement and putting the file in the remotes folder, but irw still did not produce output.

[CurlyMo]

Can you post you lircd.conf you created with irrecord?

[jay.hankins]

Created with irrecord:
http://pastebin.com/Qvqcb19z

[CurlyMo]

Can you try putting this mceusb.conf in /etc/lirc/remotes/, also add the path to the new mceusb.conf to /etc/lirc/lircd.conf

Code:

include "/etc/lirc/remotes/devinput.conf"
include "/etc/lirc/remotes/xbox.conf"
include "/etc/lirc/remotes/smt1000t.conf"
include "/etc/lirc/remotes/srm7500.conf"
include "/etc/lirc/remotes/mceusb.conf"