Fintek IR receiver and XBox remote to control MythTV: fail

So I'd gotten the Fintek IR receiver to work previously under ubuntu, but the upgrade to precise broke it. Little did I know that things had changed drastically when LIRC was built into the kernel.

Mythtv has new LIRC configuration instructions, and I spent a fair bit of time following a helpful forum post. After spending a number of hours screwing with it, I'm documenting what I have and giving up, maybe I'll try again later.

Lets start from the beginning. The kernel recognises the device (hurrah!):

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 1934:5168 Feature Integration Technology Inc. (Fintek) F71610A or F71612A Consumer Infrared Receiver/Transceiver

If you stop lirc, you can get keycodes out of ir-keytable:

$ sudo ir-keytable -t --device=/dev/input/by-id/usb-FINTEK_eHome_Infrared_Transceiver_88636562727801-event-if00
Testing events. Please, press CTRL-C to abort.
1356325906.087938: event MSC: scancode = 1f3f
1356325906.087941: event sync
1356325906.201936: event MSC: scancode = 800f7422
1356325906.201942: event sync
1356325907.147952: event MSC: scancode = 1f3f
1356325907.147955: event sync
1356325907.253948: event MSC: scancode = 1f3f
1356325907.253951: event sync

I switched to using the xbox remote, and found someone had already posted a complete keytab file, here it is for reference should anyone else want to save some time:

# table xbox, type: UNKNOWN
0x800f7400 KEY_NUMERIC_0
0x800f7401 KEY_NUMERIC_1
0x800f7402 KEY_NUMERIC_2
0x800f7403 KEY_NUMERIC_3
0x800f7404 KEY_NUMERIC_4
0x800f7405 KEY_NUMERIC_5
0x800f7406 KEY_NUMERIC_6
0x800f7407 KEY_NUMERIC_7
0x800f7408 KEY_NUMERIC_8
0x800f7409 KEY_NUMERIC_9
0x800f740a KEY_DELETE
0x800f740b KEY_ENTER
0x800f740c KEY_SLEEP
0x800f740d KEY_MEDIA
0x800f740e KEY_MUTE
0x800f740f KEY_INFO
0x800f7410 KEY_VOLUMEUP
0x800f7411 KEY_VOLUMEDOWN
0x800f7412 KEY_CHANNELUP
0x800f7413 KEY_CHANNELDOWN
0x800f7414 KEY_FASTFORWARD
0x800f7415 KEY_REWIND
0x800f7416 KEY_PLAY
0x800f7417 KEY_RECORD
0x800f7418 KEY_PAUSE
0x800f7419 KEY_STOP
0x800f741a KEY_NEXT
0x800f741b KEY_PREVIOUS
0x800f741c KEY_NUMERIC_POUND
0x800f741d KEY_NUMERIC_STAR
0x800f741e KEY_UP
0x800f741f KEY_DOWN
0x800f7420 KEY_LEFT
0x800f7421 KEY_RIGHT
0x800f7422 KEY_OK
0x800f7423 KEY_EXIT
0x800f7424 KEY_DVD
0x800f744f KEY_EPG
0x800f7427 KEY_ZOOM
0x800f7432 KEY_MODE
0x800f7433 KEY_PRESENTATION
0x800f7428 KEY_EJECTCD
0x800f743a KEY_BRIGHTNESSUP
0x800f7446 KEY_TV
0x800f7447 KEY_AUDIO
0x800f7448 KEY_PVR
0x800f7449 KEY_CAMERA
0x800f744a KEY_VIDEO
0x800f744c KEY_LANGUAGE
0x800f7451 KEY_TITLE
0x800f744e KEY_PRINT
0x800f7450 KEY_RADIO
0x800f745a KEY_SUBTITLE
0x800f7425 KEY_RED
0x800f7466 KEY_GREEN
0x800f7426 KEY_YELLOW
0x800f7468 KEY_BLUE
0x800f7465 KEY_POWER2
0x800f746e KEY_PLAYPAUSE
0x800f746f KEY_PLAYER
0x800f7480 KEY_BRIGHTNESSDOWN
0x800f7481 KEY_PLAYPAUSE

I wrote the table to the system keytable (not sure what that error means):

$ sudo ir-keytable -c -w /etc/xbox_remote_keymap --device=/dev/input/by-id/usb-FINTEK_eHome_Infrared_Transceiver_88636562727801-event-if00
Read xbox table
Old keytable cleared
Wrote 62 keycode(s) to driver
���/protocol: No such file or directory
Couldn't change the IR protocols

Check it is stored OK:

$ sudo ir-keytable -r --device=/dev/input/by-id/usb-FINTEK_eHome_Infrared_Transceiver_88636562727801-event-if00
[snip same output]
Enabled protocols: RC-5

And now, key events are recognised:

$ sudo ir-keytable -t --device=/dev/input/by-id/usb-FINTEK_eHome_Infrared_Transceiver_88636562727801-event-if00Testing events. Please, press CTRL-C to abort.
1356326333.173697: event MSC: scancode = 800f7422
1356326333.173702: event key down: KEY_OK (0x0160)
1356326333.173703: event sync
1356326333.201701: event key up: KEY_OK (0x0160)
1356326333.201704: event MSC: scancode = 1f3f
1356326333.201705: event sync
1356326333.280699: event MSC: scancode = 800f7422
1356326333.280703: event key down: KEY_OK (0x0160)
1356326333.280704: event sync
1356326333.530999: event key up: KEY_OK (0x0160)
1356326333.531001: event sync
1356326337.414740: event MSC: scancode = 800f7410
1356326337.414747: event key down: KEY_VOLUMEUP (0x0073)
1356326337.414748: event sync
1356326337.522744: event MSC: scancode = 800f7410
1356326337.522746: event sync
1356326337.771005: event key up: KEY_VOLUMEUP (0x0073)
1356326337.771007: event sync

I changed my lirc config over to devinput as suggested in the mythtv instructions, but if I start LIRC back up, I don't see any output in irw, and the button presses don't do anything. If I leave lirc off, lots of functionality (such as back on the remote = Esc in mythtv) doesn't work since lirc isn't doing that key mapping.

I'm running lirc 0.9:

$ lircd --version
lircd 0.9.0

I suspect the problem is in the error message from the write operation. Even if you tell it to send events to LIRC specifically:

$ sudo ir-keytable -c -p LIRC,RC-5 -w /etc/xbox_remote_keymap --device=/dev/input/by-id/usb-FINTEK_eHome_Infrared_Transceiver_88636562727801-event-if00
Read xbox table
Old keytable cleared
Wrote 62 keycode(s) to driver
���/protocol: No such file or directory
Couldn't change the IR protocols

It still only lists RC-5 as an 'enabled protocol'. And yet, this seems to indicate it is enabled:

$ cat /sys/class/rc/rc1/protocols 
[rc-5] [nec] [rc-6] [jvc] [sony] [mce_kbd] [lirc]