Arch Linux

Cyphex

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-08-26

Posts: 18

Dead buttons on HTPC's remote

Hi everyone,

I'm setting up my HTPC with arch and have run into a problem that I can't seem to solve myself: The machine lives in an "MS-Tech MS-1200" case that comes with IR-receiver and remote. It obviously is an HID-type receiver that can act as keyboard or mouse. Both functions work out of the box, meaning that I can "type" digits into a terminal, navigate with the cursor-keys, move the (mouse's) cursor, trigger clicks etc.

Corresponding lsusb (uncut, there's no name or identifier behind it)

Bus 003 Device 003: ID 1d57:ac01

However, some of the buttons don't work, most notably the color-buttons that I need to control VDR. Besides, VDR seems to require LIRC, so I tried to get that up and running by following the wiki. First thing I noticed is that, contrary to the wiki, I don't have entries in /sys/class/rc/, but I was able to find the corresponding input-device with ls -l /dev/input/by-id/:

usb-Mouse_ac01-event-kbd -> event3
usb-Mouse_ac01-event-mouse -> event4
usb-Mouse_ac01-if01-event-mouse -> event4
usb-Mouse_ac01-if01-mouse -> mouse1
usb-Mouse_ac01-mouse -> mouse1

So I set up my /etc/conf.d/lircd.conf as

LIRC_DEVICE="/dev/input/by-id/usb-Mouse_ac01-event-kbd"
LIRC_DRIVER="devinput"
LIRC_EXTRAOPTS=""
LIRC_CONFIGFILE="/etc/lirc/lircd.conf"

with /etc/lirc/lircd.conf being the HID-config as linked by the wiki.

After starting lircd, I was still able to type digits into the terminal via the remote, but irw works as expected - at least for most of the buttons (digits, cursor, "OK" etc.), but the color-buttons still don't work. So I suspected that there are different keycodes used for this particular remote and I wanted to try irrecord to find them out. This failed because I don't have a /dev/lirc0. So I looked further and found the following code snippet (full version contained here):

switch (usage->hid & HID_USAGE) {
	case 0x000d:	mstech_map_key_clear(KEY_HOME);	break;	// The "green" start button
	case 0x004a: 	mstech_map_key_clear(KEY_RED);	break;	// Red
	case 0x0047:	mstech_map_key_clear(KEY_GREEN);	break;	// Green
	case 0x0049: 	mstech_map_key_clear(KEY_YELLOW);	break;	// Yellow
	case 0x0025: 	mstech_map_key_clear(KEY_BLUE);	break;	// Blue
	case 0x0046: 	mstech_map_key_clear(KEY_VCR);	break;	// RecordTV
	default:
		return 0;
}

Unfortunately, I don't understand what those keycodes actually mean (what are these operands to the bitwise-and?), so that didn't really help. Maybe one of you can figure out?

Next, I found this among some udev-rules for eventlircd in yavdr:

ctrl+KEY_M         =KEY_GREEN 
ctrl+KEY_E         =KEY_RED 
ctrl+KEY_I         =KEY_YELLOW 
ctrl+shift+KEY_T   =KEY_BLUE

I could not apply these of course (as I am not using eventlircd), but obviously, the keycodes should simply be normal key-presses as all the others. I also found out that the problem can't be the ctrl/shift-keys, because some of the buttons that work send similar combinations. I found another post in some forum confirming this mapping.

And this is basically where I am right now: I have no idea what to try next. By the way: The hardware itself is okay. I had a test-installation with windows and it worked. Also, there are several posts and articles online that suggest using inputlirc, but those apply to an earlier version of the case that had some other remote-control and receiver.

So, now I hope some of you can give me a pointer in the right direction - any help would by highly appreciated.