[LINUX] HOW-TO use all custom buttons of your remote control with LIRC

abster Wrote:Aug 25 00:11:08 XBMCLive lircd-0.8.6[940]: Failed to initialize hardware

LIRC is unable to initialize your infrared receiver.

You have to configure LIRC first. As I don't know anything about XBMCLive, I can't help you here. However, if XBMCLive is a Debian based distribution you might be able to configure LIRC by simply entering...



You have to make sure that 'irw' outputs some data, before you can continue with this Howto.

yeah, im slightly puzzled by this as the IR is working slightly (arrow keys move through menus and 'esc' stop, pause etc)

it is usable
i'll tinker further tonight

Thanks
Scott

Temar Wrote:LIRC is unable to initialize your infrared receiver.

You have to configure LIRC first. As I don't know anything about XBMCLive, I can't help you here. However, if XBMCLive is a Debian based distribution you might be able to configure LIRC by simply entering...

Code:

sudo dpkg --configure lirc

You have to make sure that 'irw' outputs some data, before you can continue with this Howto.

I give up with it, i updated to latest lirc, checked config etc, then i updated ubuntu core, wasnt a good move, it seemed to disable my hdmi audio, finally gave up and backed up and reinstalled, im just going to live with the remote as is till i understand linux better.

another xbmcfreak release is due in a few weeks, perhaps i'll try again then

id have liked to get some mame games and firefox working under darma, but launcher isnt working as good and im getting lost with the games, perhaps everything will be automatic addons soon.

ahh i feel better now ha ha
scott

i found the solution to my problem and as i had expected it was trivial. Well i guess this is the way it mostly is with it stuff so here i am to share what i learned.

The missing link between xbmc and lirc was simply and embarassingly an entry in my hardware.conf which sets the output socket for the lircd. So after setting the property REMOTE_SOCKET to "/var/run/lirc/lircd" everything worked like a charm. I still do not fully grok the difference between setting it and not setting it though as my irw seemed to be able to connec to the socket when running with root privileges. Only when i tried irw with a non root account i realized that it gave me a permission denied error which then quickly enabled me to further isolate the cause of the problem. Obviously setting the remote socket explicitly somehow affects the permissions of the socket file.

That's it folks. I hope someone will one day read this and use it as a shortcut to a blissfull xbmc experience

One more thing: Configuring the lircrc config file to be able to launch xbmc using only my remote control did not quite work out. I got to launch it, but once i did so using irexec and the lircrc i could not use all my buttons within xbmc any more. But that is just a minor issue and does not bother me too much. There will certainly be a solution waiting for me somewhere.

Right now, the only thing i want to do is to finally enjoy my HTPC and Logitech Harmony twosome watching a few nice movies and hopefully sleep away my cold.

Thanks for your help.

regime

After installing Dharma 3 beta I can't modify my keys anymore. When I'm using IRW I'm getting just some replies with [[ and so on... no keynames. So the remote itself is working

I checked the lircd.conf and the lircmap.xml - for me it looks OK:

lircd.conf:
include "/usr/share/lirc/remotes/mceusb/lircd.conf.mceusb"

lircmap.xml:
<lircmap>
<remote device="mceusb">
<play>KEY_PLAY</play>
<pause>KEY_PAUSE</pause>
<stop>KEY_STOPCD</stop>
<forward>KEY_FASTFORWARD</forward>
<reverse>KEY_REWIND</reverse>

keymap.xml:
<keymap>
<global>
<remote>
<pageminus>ContextMenu</pageminus>
<mute>FullScreen</mute>
<clear>XBMC.ActivateWindow(Home)</clear>
<record>OSD</record>
<pause>Close</pause>

I think it's just a small thing, but I can't find it out...

Zubbeli Wrote:After installing Dharma 3 beta I can't modify my keys anymore.

At least Dharma Beta 2 does not support the Keymap.xml file any more. I don't know if they fixed it in Dharma Beta 3 but it does not really matter. The Keymap.xml file was still supported in Confluence but already marked as deprecated.

The new file name for the remote keymapping is: $HOME/.xbmc/userdata/keymaps/remote.xml

So you can just copy your current Keymap.xml to that location:

Quote:When I'm using IRW I'm getting just some replies with [[ and so on... no keynames.

When using irw you should always see a line which lists the name of the remote and the name of the button which was pressed. Otherwise something is wrong with your LIRC setup.

Thanks for the quick reply!
OK, now I understand the difference between keymap.xml and remote.xml. I have renamed to keymap.xml to remote.xml (under "/.xbmc/userdata/Keymap.xml $HOME/.xbmc/userdata/keymaps/")

Quote:When using irw you should always see a line which lists the name of the remote and the name of the button which was pressed. Otherwise something is wrong with your LIRC setup.

I agree that something must be wrong in the LIRC configuration. Do you have any hint what I have to check? Do you think I have to reinstall LIRC? (By the way, I don't know how).

Zubbeli Wrote:Thanks for the quick reply!
OK, now I understand the difference between keymap.xml and remote.xml. I have renamed to keymap.xml to remote.xml (under "/.xbmc/userdata/Keymap.xml $HOME/.xbmc/userdata/keymaps/")

You should delete your Keymap.xml file if you have a userdata/remote.xml file. Otherwise it could cause problems in the future.

Quote:I agree that something must be wrong in the LIRC configuration. Do you have any hint what I have to check? Do you think I have to reinstall LIRC? (By the way, I don't know how).

The fact that you get some irw-output, shows that you LIRC configuration is not completely messed up. Can you provide a sample of the irw-output you receive?

Reinstalling lirc is not required. But if you really want to, you can do it with:



Normally it is enough to just fix the configuration problem. You can do that by reconfiguring LIRC:

Quote:The fact that you get some irw-output, shows that you LIRC configuration is not completely messed up. Can you provide a sample of the irw-output you receive?

I receive by pressing some buttons on the remote:

Zubbeli Wrote:I receive by pressing some buttons on the remote:

Code:

^[[A^[[B^[[C^[[D

Ok, that looks pretty messed up :-)

Try to reconfigure LIRC and make sure you select the correct IR-receiver and the correct remote control. If your remote is not supported you need to create a custom lircd.conf file using irrecord.

I've used "devunit" before upgarding to dharma 3 which worded pretty good by follwing the Wiki from

(I have exactly the same hardware)

I reconfigure manually again in the same way (except the keymap.xml) without sucess.

I do not know what I can select by using "sudo dpkg-reconfigure lirc"