apple ir remote (atvclient) not working after upgrade from 9.0.2. to 9.1.002

atvclient has been dropped in LibreELEC master and 9.2 because it was constantly causing troubles.

The remote should be supported by the linux kernel, but probably the buttons need to be remapped - the hid-appleir kernel driver sends volume-up/down and back/forward when you press the navigation keys.

Please post dmesg, lsusb and journal from LE 9.1.002 and a kodi debug log where you pressed the various buttons on the remote - this should allow us to create a proper default config for the remote.

so long,

Hias

First install the System Tools addon (from the LibreELEC repository, in the section "Programs") and enable debug logging in kodi. Then reboot.

Now press up/down/left/right/OK buttons (plus any other buttons on the remote) and observe if they trigger some obvious functions in kodi.

Then ssh into LE and run the following commands and post the output:

systemctl stop kodi
systemctl stop eventlircd
paste .kodi/temp/kodi.log
journalctl -a | paste
lsusb

Then run

evtest

and choose the event device number of the Apple IR receiver (it should have appleir or something similar in it's description. evtest will then output some info, ignore that.

Now press all of the buttons, one after the other. You should see some lines like

Event: time 1565859742.121362, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value c00e9
Event: time 1565859742.121362, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 115 (KEY_VOLUMEUP), value 1
Event: time 1565859742.121362, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1565859742.137362, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value c00e9
Event: time 1565859742.137362, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 115 (KEY_VOLUMEUP), value 0
Event: time 1565859742.137362, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------

for each button press. Post that output here, too.

so long,

Hias

Thanks for the info!

The info on the kodi wiki page looks a bit outdated. Please try with this keymap instead:

<keymap>
  <global>
    <keyboard>
      <browser_back>Left</browser_back>
      <browser_forward>Right</browser_forward>
      <volume_up>Up</volume_up>
      <volume_down>Down</volume_down>
      <key id="61952">Back</key>
    </keyboard>
  </global>
</keymap>

This maps the "menu" button on the remote to "Back" (something in kodi's "menu" key handling doesn't look quite right, therefore I had to use the id variant), long-pressing on the center return/OK/select button will bring up the context menu (that's the default action in kodi, so it's not listed in the keymap above).

so long,

Hias

Good to know that navigation works now!

How did you previously (with atvclient) get volume up/down?

With keyboard input in kodi (which is how the remote is recognized/setup at the moment) you can assign separate functions to long-pressing a button.

eg to get volume-up/down when long-pressing up/down add the following 2 lines after the volume_up / down entires in your keymap:

<volume_up mod="longpress">VolumeUp</volume_up>
<volume_down mod="longpress">VolumeDown</volume_down>

PS: forget about lirc, it's not needed and you would loose longpress support in kodi.

so long,

Hias

Kodi already supports context-specific keymapping. For example to map up/down on the navigation wheel to volume-up/down when visualization/full-screen music or full-screen video is playing you can use add the following block (between </global> and </keymap>) to keymap.xml:

<Visualisation>
  <keyboard>
    <volume_up>VolumeUp</volume_up>
    <volume_down>VolumeDown</volume_down>
  </keyboard>
</Visualisation>
<FullscreenVideo>
  <keyboard>
    <volume_up>VolumeUp</volume_up>
    <volume_down>VolumeDown</volume_down>
  </keyboard>
</FullscreenVideo>

The main reasons for dropping atvclient is that it didn't really work perfect and was constantly causing issues over the past few years. And as no one on the team is using an Apple IR remote testing and fixing was rather cumbersome.

As in the meanwhile the Apple IR receiver is perfectly supported by the linux kernel and with kodi keymap configuration people have a far more flexible possibility to map and configure the remote the decision to drop atvclient wasn't a really hard one - as a better alternative to it exists.

I'm a bit undecided if we should route it through eventlircd (like a few other remotes) by default, the pro of that would be that you could use the navigation wheel to navigate through the menus OOTB, but you'd also loose the possibility to use longpress mappings - which some users prefer to have on low-button-count remotes like the Apple one.

so long,

Hias

Quote from jcjdammers

Thanks for all your help again HiassofT. The keymap works.

However, I never had any issues with atvclient, on the contrary it always worked perfect for me (using macmini).

As an alternative/test I also tried to install the atvclient myself, and that also worked:

I stored the binary in /storage/bin/atvclient

and then created a service to start it at boottime in /storage/.config/system.d/atvclient.service

Regards.

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Hi, I am a relative novice with Libreelec and I have recently installed 9.2.2 on a 2007 Mac Mini using ReFind (Grub). My apple remote doesn't fully work and I was hoping you could share your working keymap so I can see how you structured it from @HiassofT guidance? Regards.

That would be great if you could provide atvclient install instructions, thanks.

Quote from jcjdammers

In the end I decided not to go for the keymap, but to install the atvclient my self.

The atvclient used to be shipped with LE, but is no longer the case.

For me atvclient provides the best experience for the apple remote.

If you want I can provide you the instructions on how to install the atvclient yourself.

Would you be so kind to provide me with those instructions as well?

I really miss the use of my Apple remote on my Mac mini 2010.

Thanks in advance!