Configuring video source? Cabel provider not listet

[kenfox]

Hi, I'm new to sagetv. 'Till now, I did the following:

- Installed ubuntu 16.0.4
- Installed dvb-c usb card (PCTV 520e)
- Installed SageTV 9

Installation did work nicely. Afterwards i went through the configuration wizard, using the mini client. When selecting my dvb-c card as digital tv source, I get only one cable provider suggested: willytel. However, my cable provider is unitymedia. If I use willytel, I do not get any channels.

When stopping sageserver and running w_scan in a terminal, it shows any available channels for unitymedia. Why doesn't sage find provider and channels? Are there any other configuration options? Like configuration files in the server directory? (I didn't find any).

Thanks for help.
Ken

[kenfox]

OK, I really need help with the channel scan. I did a w_scan run and filled the resulting information in my PredefinedDVBC.frq together with my provider name like this:

"Germany-unitymedia"
frq:610000000;rate:6900;mod:3;
frq:754000000;rate:6900;mod:3;
frq:762000000;rate:6900;mod:3;
...and so on.

I've selected the provider in the setup wizard and started the scan, but no channels where found. Information in sagetv_0.txt doesn't give me any hints. It says:

Do 10/27 12:29:59.274 [Fork-BASE-72179@7bc517af] --- Scanning digital tuner physical channel number 0
Do 10/27 12:29:59.275 [Fork-BASE-72179@7bc517af] SCANINFO=[]

for any channel (except the channel number, of course).

What needs to be done to successfully find channels?

[Narflex]

Are you using SchedulesDirect for the EPG source?

For the scanning issue, first enable debug logging in Detailed Setup->Advanced. Then also create a file called NATIVE_LOG.ENABLE in the sagetv program directory, then restart SageTV and do the scan again. Then post the sagetv_0.txt and native.log files that should get created so we can see what's going on.

[kenfox]

Thanx for your answer. Currently, I'm not using EPG. I did as you suggested, and attached the two files.

Greetings
Ken

[kenfox]

Hi, in the native log sage is missing adapter0.cfg and adapter0-DVB-C.frq. Where are these files supposed to be and what is the expected contents?

[trk2]

Hi and welcome to SageTV! Unfortunately I am unable to help directly since I am unfamiliar with DVB setup. I believe however that adapter0-DVB-C.frq is created after a successful channel scan, so your issue is probably the missing adapter0.cfg file. Hopefully someone more helpful will chime in. Good luck!

[kenfox]

Hmm, I think, the timestamp of opening the file is before the scan. But somthing other is weird : The first tuning is logged with

>> frq:156500000 rate:0 mode:5 fec_inner:9

This entry doesn't belong to the PredefinedDVBC.frq.

[kenfox]

I took a look at the sources and I'm almost sure, that the files shown in the native.log as missing are optional. The correct tuner is found, definitely, as one can see in the native.log:

10/27/2016 20:24:31 DVB:Open device /dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0 (ver 2.0.11)
10/27/2016 20:24:31 DVB: SetInput () on /dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0, country:49 file format:PS (1)
10/27/2016 20:24:31 DVB:tuner name: DRXK DVB-C DVB-T
10/27/2016 20:24:31 DVB:frq (47000000-864000000), rate(870000-11700000) cap:0xc01afaaf
10/27/2016 20:24:31 DVB:Tuner type: DVB-C

These are the exact values, which does w_scan find, too.

So I still have no idea, why the scan fails. Any help is desperately welcome.

[kenfox]

I finally found that the call to ioctl(fd_frontend, FE_SET_PROPERTY, &cmdseq)) fails, which sets the actual tuning parameters. I hope to find the reason for the failure. If any1 has any hints, I'll be glad to hear them.

[Narflex]

Take a look at the history on that file making the call from SageTV...I seem to recall someone making some changes to that code not too far in the past, so you probably want to try that file with a regressed version...I know we didn't get too wide of testing on that change.

[kenfox]

I found the reason. Short version:

Line 1769 in sage_DVBCaptureDevice.c must be changed from

if ( ioctl( CDev->frontendFd, FE_SET_PROPERTY, &feparams ) < 0)

to

if ( ioctl( CDev->frontendFd, FE_SET_FRONTEND, &feparams ) < 0)

Long version:

I found this ioctl call in both, sage_DVBCaptureDevice.c (sage) and scan.c (w_scan). With w_scan, it works. With sage, it doesn't. In the next step, I added output of the ioctl return value and the errno to the logfile. errno said 22, which is EINVAL = invalid argument. Since it works with w_scan, there must be a difference to sage. Taking a closer look to the calls, I found that w_scan uses the struct dtv_properties, whereas sage uses the struct dvb_frontend_properties. Looking at frontend.h I discovered, that there exists a define for each struct. FE_SET_PROPERTY for dtv_properties and FE_SET_FRONTEND for dvb_frontend_properties. In conclusion, I changed the line as noted above and voilà: it works.

With respect, I doubt that this has ever been tested.

Greetings
Ken

[Narflex]

Yeah, that likely was never tested. When that change was made before...he was only able to test it in one environment...and we posted asking for more testing but never got feedback. So if you wouldn't mind submitting a patch for this, that'd be great so nobody else runs into it. If you don't want to submit the patch, just let me know and I'll do it myself.

[kenfox]

If you don't mind, I'd prefer if you'd create the patch. Thanx.

[Narflex]

OK, done.