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davevallance

Member

Registered: 2014-11-10

Posts: 1

Setting up a remote with ir-tables for use with XBMC

My main goal is to use a remote with xbmc, but I'm having issues.

Issue #1 (main problem): The directional keys and enter will work but no other keys seem to register.

Issue #2: Even the keys that work have this weird usage issue, where pressing any of the same key twice loses the second key press. For example clicking up arrow 4 times results in only two actual "up's" being done. (first up works, second fails, third works, forth fails, etc)

I've spent about four hours getting to this point and there is a lot of conflicting information out there on this subject which has had me very confused, but at this point I assume I can ignore any mention of Lirc as it seems like its not needed and if ir-keytable is used correctly things should just work?

Quote from www.lirc.org: "Recent linux kernels make it possible to use some IR remote controls as regular input devices"

What I have got/done:

Machine: Zotac Zbox Nano AD10 with remote.
Linux: Manjaro Openbox Addition
Testing in applications: XBMC, Leafpad, Terminal

[david@zotac ~]$ dmesg | grep CIR
[    4.444693] ite_cir: Auto-detected model: ITE8704 CIR transceiver
[    4.444701] ite_cir: Using model: ITE8704 CIR transceiver
[    4.478490] input: ITE8704 CIR transceiver as /devices/virtual/rc/rc0/input8
[    4.478531] rc0: ITE8704 CIR transceiver as /devices/virtual/rc/rc0

[david@zotac ~]$ ir-keytable
Found /sys/class/rc/rc0/ (/dev/input/event6) with:
        Driver ite-cir, table rc-rc6-mce
        Supported protocols: NEC RC-5 RC-6 JVC SONY SANYO LIRC other
        Enabled protocols: NEC RC-5 RC-6 JVC SONY SANYO LIRC other
        Name: ITE8704 CIR transceiver
        bus: 25, vendor/product: 1283:0000, version: 0x0000
        Repeat delay = 500 ms, repeat period = 500 ms

#My keymaps file contains (I just put the keys that I would like to use with xmbc)
0x8034045b KEY_RIGHT
0x8034045a KEY_LEFT
0x8034045c KEY_ENTER
0x80348459 KEY_DOWN
0x80340458 KEY_UP
0x80348421 KEY_R
0x80340420 KEY_F
0x80348410 KEY_EQUAL
0x80348483 KEY_ESC
0x80348431 KEY_X
0x8034842f KEY_T
0x803404cb KEY_I
0x8034845d KEY_M
0x8034042c KEY_P
0x80340411 KEY_MINUS

I write my keymaps file: (I think /etc/keymaps/[file] would be a better location for this file but it shouldn't matter is that correct?)
ir-keytable -c -w /home/david/Documents/keymaps --device=/dev/input/event6 --period=500 --delay=500

I can verify the settings are registered:
[david@zotac ~]$ ir-keytable --read --device=/dev/input/event6
scancode 0x80340411 = KEY_MINUS (0x0c)
scancode 0x80340420 = KEY_F (0x21)
scancode 0x8034042c = KEY_P (0x19)
scancode 0x80340458 = KEY_UP (0x67)
scancode 0x8034045a = KEY_LEFT (0x69)
scancode 0x8034045b = KEY_RIGHT (0x6a)
scancode 0x8034045c = KEY_ENTER (0x1c)
scancode 0x803404cb = KEY_I (0x17)
scancode 0x80348410 = KEY_EQUAL (0x0d)
scancode 0x80348421 = KEY_R (0x13)
scancode 0x8034842f = KEY_T (0x14)
scancode 0x80348431 = KEY_X (0x2d)
scancode 0x80348459 = KEY_DOWN (0x6c)
scancode 0x8034845d = KEY_M (0x32)
scancode 0x80348483 = KEY_ESC (0x01)

At this point is seems like everything is setup correctly but like I said only the direction keys and return work. If it did work my next step would be determining when to issue the ir-keytable write, and I'm assuming I can just do that in openbox's autostart file?

Does anyone have any ideas as to what I might do to correct these issues?

clockworkgeek

Member

Registered: 2015-04-14

Posts: 1

Re: Setting up a remote with ir-tables for use with XBMC

I also encountered davevallance's issue #1.  Directional and enter keys already work, as do volume keys.  If any other button is mapped to those working keys (using ir-keytable) then they also work, for example I can successfully map the useless "teletext" to "enter" and it produces a linefeed when pressed but I cannot get it to do the same with "space".  Interestingly it does produce a space keypress in a virtual terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F3), also "ir-keytable -t" shows the correct key event which proves the underlying OS is recognising the mapping.  The issue is somewhere in the X system instead.

I refer now to HID Remotes which covers the situation well.  It explains that X does not process keycodes above 255 and at first that would seem to fit here.  All the keys which work (arrows, enter, volume) have keycodes less than 255.  So why don't other 'safe' keycodes work too?

Xorg has it's own keycode map with "xmodmap" but I don't think that is responsible in this case.  From the Arch wiki it suggests exploring with:

xev | grep -A2 --line-buffered '^KeyRelease' | sed -n '/keycode /s/^.*keycode \([0-9]*\).* (.*, \(.*\)).*$/\1 \2/p'

Unmapped keys should produce a "NoSymbol" message but for my non-working keys there is no response at all in X.  Is there another layer between kernal and GUI?

normanu

Member

Registered: 2015-12-18

Posts: 11

Re: Setting up a remote with ir-tables for use with XBMC

I have the same issue's here, did you ever solve it?

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,729

Website

Re: Setting up a remote with ir-tables for use with XBMC

For Kodi, recommend you use lirc.  I spend some time creating instructions and examples: https://github.com/graysky2/streamzap

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