Libreelec registers multiple key presses for each button on my IR remote (8.2.1 & 8.2.2)

abarylak · January 6, 2018 at 3:26 PM

Hi, I first noticed this when trying to upgrade to 8.2.1, and i just upgraded to 8.2.2 today and it does the same thing. Almost every time i press a button on my MCE remote, it registers as multiple button presses in the system. This makes the system unusable for me. This is my family's primary system, so i can't leave it like that. Therefore, both attempts to upgrade have resulted in me having to roll back to 8.0.2.

I'm using the generic Intel/Nvidia build on an Xtreamer Ultra system. The last time i attempted the upgrade to 8.2.1, i did change some settings in advancedsettings.xml file to control some timing or something, but it wasn't very reliable either. My remotes work perfectly on 8.0.2, so this is very frustrating that the simple navigation doesn't work in the new version. If there is anything i can do to help diagnose this issue further, please let me know. I can only upgrade to the newer version for a few hours at a time until this is fixed though.

Let me know what you think. Thanks.

**HiassofT** · January 6, 2018 at 3:52 PM

See the 8.2.1 release notes: LibreELEC (Krypton) v8.2.1 MR – LibreELEC

Go to LE Settings -> Services and disable Lirc

so long,

Hias

Lexridge · January 6, 2018 at 9:41 PM

The change log for 8.2.1 does mention if one is getting double button presses to turn off the lirc service which is not really helpful for folks having that particular problem. I personally have not experienced this with my hauppaug remote. However, with the 8.2.2 release, it completely kills my remote. Nothing, notta. It works for about 2 seconds when starting, then quits working altogether even though the lircd service is still running. The 8.2.2 changelog mentions nothing about lirc changes. Only in the 8.2.1 change log are they mentioned. Should I be looking at creating the 8.2.1 mentioned /storage/.config/lirc_options.conf file? If that is the case, why does 8.2.1 still work fine when I go back to it? None of this really makes sense.

I did compare the dmesg outputs between 8.2.1 and 8.2.2, and this is new in 8.2.2:

Code

[   10.888581] lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, major 244
[   10.990727] lirc_rpi: module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned.

**HiassofT** · January 7, 2018 at 11:01 AM

Lexridge the question in this thread was about an MCE remote on x64, where in-kernel decoding is used, and having Lirc enabled in addition to that will often cause double keypresses.

You, however, seem to be using a GPIO remote on RPi using the lirc-rpi dtoverlay, which is something completely different.

I'm not exactly sure what problem you are experiencing. There were no changes between 8.2.1 and 8.2.2 in that area and the dmesg lines you posted should be there both with 8.2.1 and 8.2.2 if you have the "dtoverlay=lirc-rpi" line in config.txt.

Anyways, if you are using lirc-rpi it's best to switch to gpio-ir and disable Lirc in LE settings. lirc-rpi will be dropped in LE9, gpio-ir is the more modern successor (which doesn't need lircd to work, decoding is performed in the kernel). Read the wiki for details: infrared_remotes [LibreELEC]

so long,

Hias

Lexridge · January 7, 2018 at 8:14 PM

Quote from HiassofT

Anyways, if you are using lirc-rpi it's best to switch to gpio-ir and disable Lirc in LE settings. lirc-rpi will be dropped in LE9, gpio-ir is the more modern successor (which doesn't need lircd to work, decoding is performed in the kernel). Read the wiki for details: infrared_remotes [LibreELEC]

Good information! Thank you so much. I will look into changing this from lirc-rpi to gpio-ir before going back to 8.2.2.

abarylak · January 12, 2018 at 3:17 AM

Thanks for that information about disabling lirc. I will try that out the next time i upgrade the device and will post back. I'm sure that if this was documented that it will fix it. Sorry, i didn't read all the release notes for every version between my old version and the new one.

Thanks for pointing me towards this.

Digidog · March 13, 2018 at 3:28 AM

Hello, What if a person wanted to forgo the in kernel decoding and use lirc only for (x64 with usbdongle/mce rc6) remote ?

Scenario:

- Fresh install of LE 8.2.3, x86 Asus Atom/Ion board, USB dongle MCE RC-6 remote.

- Boot system, remote works well, seems very responsive, no lag or multi press. [Yay!]

- Watch video from local source for 10 or 15 mins, remote bogs down (0.5 - 2 second delay from keypress to action) [Boo!]

- Stop video remote bog remains until reboot. [Also Boo!]

Theory:

No.1 - The background software to convert linux kernel events to lirc events for KODI gets "distracted" or something.

No.2 - My poor little Atom board just isn't up to muster (although RAM/CPU usage suggests all is good)

No.3 - The infrared_remotes wiki gives me my answer but I cannot see the forest for the trees.

Hoping for :

- Some sort of modprobe command or other black magic to stop the in kernel and the translator and simply re-enable lirc so I can take this back to my G.F's house and look like i knew what I was doing.

I also hope I provided a small amount of humor.

Regards,

Ian

**HiassofT** · March 13, 2018 at 9:08 AM

To use lircd instead of in-kernel decoding you just need to create an empty .config/rc_maps.cfg file, and enable lirc in LE settings, as outlined in the wiki.

It's odd though that your remote suddenly starts lagging. My first guess is that kodi is busy and can't immediately process the remote events. I've been experiencing this on my RPi1 when kodi is updating addons after startup - top shows kodi.bin using all CPU resources and after a minute or so when addons have been updated things (CPU usage and remote response) are back to normal.

To narrow things down run the following command when your remote started lagging:

Code

irw /run/lirc/lircd

This let's you monitor the remote events as they reach kodi. Press a few buttons on the remote and check how long it takes until they show up. If they show up almost immediately here but navigation in kodi is delayed it must be something in kodi. If they are delayed here as well, it's something in the kerne/lirc area.

so long,

Hias

Schreibwaise · March 13, 2018 at 9:56 AM

Quote from HiassofT

It's odd though that your remote suddenly starts lagging. My first guess is that kodi is busy and can't immediately process the remote events. I've been experiencing this on my RPi1 when kodi is updating addons after startup - top shows kodi.bin using all CPU resources and after a minute or so when addons have been updated things (CPU usage and remote response) are back to normal.

Are we talking about this remote?

If yes, it would be interesting to know whether the control-LED is still working when the remote starts to become unresponsive.

I do not think the problem is in kodi. At least I was having a very mysterious problem on one of my LE systems. I know that kodi is not busy at this time but it felt like the USB port got temporarily disabled.

As I still had a DIJ receiver at hand and found some no-name remote in a drawer, I finally gave up with the USB remote on this specific system and am now using this other remote on the serial port. Works like a charm. Only issue I ran into was with setserial. The busybox developers decided that it would be a clever idea to rename the option for disabling the uart from "none" to "unknown". Which seems to serve no other purpose than rendering the helpful system log messages useless and confusing people

Digidog · March 14, 2018 at 4:03 AM

Hello HiassofT and Schreibwaise,

It is a Mediagate Rc126 (MG-IR01BK)...This One

The LED indicator does light to show signal being received while the lag happens.

Quote from HiassofT
To use lircd instead of in-kernel decoding you just need to create an empty .config/rc_maps.cfg file, and enable lirc in LE settings, as outlined in the wiki.

It's odd though that your remote suddenly starts lagging. My first guess is that kodi is busy and can't immediately process the remote events. I've been experiencing this on my RPi1 when kodi is updating addons after startup - top shows kodi.bin using all CPU resources and after a minute or so when addons have been updated things (CPU usage and remote response) are back to normal.

To narrow things down run the following command when your remote started lagging:
Code
irw /run/lirc/lircd
This let's you monitor the remote events as they reach kodi. Press a few buttons on the remote and check how long it takes until they show up. If they show up almost immediately here but navigation in kodi is delayed it must be something in kodi. If they are delayed here as well, it's something in the kerne/lirc area.

I will try this when I get a few minutes and let you know what happens.

Thank you for the reply.

Regards,

Ian