lirc lirc-0.8.4a-1.fc10.i386 irsend not working properly for me

[Jay J. <cu...@ch...>]

I am setting up a MythTV box for a friend, and he needs an "IR blaster" to 
control an HD to SD converter box.  I am using Fedora 10, and the 
"provided" lirc RPMs from Fedora.  I figured out how to get lirc to 
simultaneously support coexistance with his Hauppauge 350 (lirc_i2c) and 
serial (lirc_serial), with two lircd processes.  The receivers on both work 
fine, and the Hauppauge receiver works fine with MythTV.  However, 
transmitting is not working.  Even when I remove lirc_i2c and just run the 
serial lirc, the transmitter is unable to get the controlled device to respond.

So, after trying "this and that" to no avail, I took my two transmitters 
(one a home built using the "improved" two-transistor circuit, off of the 
site, and one purchased over to my Windows box) and installed each, one at 
a time in turn, and tried them with WinLIRC, and both work fine from 
Windows (so, the transmitter hardware is fine).  But neither transmitter 
works using the lirc I have installed under Fedora 10 .

On the two-transistor circuit, I have a visible LED in series with the IR 
LED (series so that I was sure the IR LED wasn't connected backwards), and 
the visible LED does flash when I use irsend on the Linux box.  However, 
none of the devices I try to control respond to the Linux box -- and both 
transmitters control both devices fine from WinLIRC.

In both cases I used identical configuration files for WinLIRC and Linux 
lirc, and I have tried both "raw" and standard config files.  (Currently 
using the "raw" file).  So, the config file is fine, too.

So, I see only two possibilities:  Either DTR on the COM port on the Linux 
box is busted (seems really unlikely, especially given the visible 
indication from the other LED), or a software problem (perhaps inverted 
pulses from Linux LIRC irsend or something I need to provide to modprobe 
lirc_serial?, wrong frequency, or some such).

FYI, I also noted that I was unable to get the transmitter to do anything 
at all on COM2 on the Linux box, even when providing serial port parameters 
to modprobe.  Perhaps it wasn't compiled with that support?  Is there any 
way to tell how it was compiled?

I also tried unloading lirc_i2c and lirc_dev and doing the modprobe for 
lirc_serial, and adjusting lircd appropriately, to no avail -- wanted to 
make sure lirc_i2c wasn't interfering.

I searched the mailing list archives, and didn't see anything that seemed 
to apply.

Suggestions?  Right now my prime suspect is lirc_serial .

Here is the info from my most recent test (where I eliminated lirc_i2c):

[root@mythsoby1 ~]# uname -a
Linux mythsoby1 2.6.27.9-159.fc10.i686 #1 SMP Tue Dec 16 15:12:04 EST 2008 
i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

[root@mythsoby1 ~]# rpm -q -a | grep lirc
lirc-0.8.4a-1.fc10.i386
lirc-devel-0.8.4a-1.fc10.i386
lirc-remotes-0.8.4a-1.fc10.i386
lirc-doc-0.8.4a-1.fc10.i386
lirc-libs-0.8.4a-1.fc10.i386

[root@mythsoby1 ~]# lsmod | grep lirc
lirc_serial            15072  0
lirc_dev               14232  1 lirc_serial

# dmesg

lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, major 61
lirc_serial: auto-detected active low receiver
lirc_dev: lirc_register_plugin: sample_rate: 0


[root@mythsoby1 ~]# ls -ld /dev/lirc*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root   root     5 2009-01-10 20:31 /dev/lirc -> lirc0
crw-rw-rw- 1 mythtv root 61, 0 2009-01-10 20:31 /dev/lirc0
srw-rw-rw- 1 root   root     0 2009-01-10 20:34 /dev/lircd1

(Note:  when I started lircd, I specifically indicated 
output=/dev/lircd1.  I realize this isn't "typical").

lircd --driver=default --device=/dev/lirc0 --output=/dev/lircd1 
--pidfile=/var/run/lircd1.pid

# irsend -d /dev/lircd1 SEND_ONCE Tivax.raw POWER POWER POWER

# tail /var/log/messages

Jan 10 20:58:42 localhost lircd-0.8.4a[8781]: accepted new client on 
/dev/lircd1
Jan 10 20:58:43 localhost lircd-0.8.4a[8781]: removed client

Thanks in advance for any help.

(Otherwise, I suppose the next step will be to hook a 'scope up and see 
what the signals coming out of the serial ports actually look like -- but 
that is a bit of work...)

JRJ
---	
Jay R. Jaeger					The Computer Collection
cu...@ch...