LCDproc problem

  • Hi
    with special thanks to LibreELEC team for their continuous efforts to produce ver 8
    unfortunately still in this ver my LCD (hd44780) does not work again.
    I have RPi3 and LCD hd44780 connected together through GPIO. I have done all wiring according LCD-Display HD44780 20×4 under Openelec and Kodi(XBMC) at the Raspberry Pi – Michael Diesterhöft
    everything worked great until v7.90.006. but after v7.90.007 till now I could not run the LCD.
    I installed sevices.xbmc lcdproc 2.6.0 and sevices.LCDproc 8.1.102 and set driver to hd44780.
    I also modified LCDd.conf inside directories:
    ~/.kodi/addons/http://service.lcdd/config
    and
    ~/.kodi/userdata/addon_data/service.lcdd
    here is my LCDd.conf:

    ## Server section with all kinds of settings for the LCDd server ##
    [server]
    DriverPath=/storage/.kodi/addons/http://service.lcdd/lib/lcdproc/
    Driver=hd44780
    Bind=127.0.0.1
    Port=13666
    ReportLevel=3
    User=nobody
    Foreground=no
    Hello=" "
    Hello=" KODI"
    Hello=" Boot up ..."
    Hello=" "
    GoodBye=" "
    GoodBye=" KODI"
    GoodBye=" Shutting Down "
    GoodBye=" "
    WaitTime=5
    ServerScreen=blank
    Backlight=open
    Heartbeat=open
    TitleSpeed=10
    ToggleRotateKey=Enter
    PrevScreenKey=Left
    NextScreenKey=Right

    ## The menu section. The menu is an internal LCDproc client. ##
    [menu]
    MenuKey=Escape
    EnterKey=Enter
    UpKey=Up
    DownKey=Down

    ### Driver sections are below this line, in alphabetical order ###
    ## Hitachi HD44780 driver ##
    [hd44780]
    pin_D7=18
    pin_D6=23
    pin_D5=24
    pin_D4=25
    pin_RS=7
    pin_EN=8
    ConnectionType=raspberrypi
    Port=0x378
    Device=/dev/ttyS0
    Speed=0
    Keypad=no
    Contrast=0
    Backlight=no
    OutputPort=no
    Size=16x4
    CharMap=hd44780_default
    DelayBus=true
    KeyMatrix_4_1=Enter
    KeyMatrix_4_2=Up
    KeyMatrix_4_3=Down
    KeyMatrix_4_4=Escape

    when i wanted to run LCD i got this :

    LCDd 0.5dev, LCDproc Protocol 0.3
    Part of the LCDproc suite
    Copyright (C) 1998-2016 William Ferrell, Selene Scriven
    and many other contributors

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
    modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
    as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
    of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
    Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.

    check_board_rev: This board is not recognized as a Raspberry Pi!
    Driver [hd44780] init failed, return code -1
    Could not load driver hd44780
    There is no output driver
    Critical error while initializing, abort.

    I replaced the driver with my old one but i got same error except the line (check_board_rev:....)

    LCDd 0.5dev, LCDproc Protocol 0.3
    Part of the LCDproc suite
    Copyright (C) 1998-2016 William Ferrell, Selene Scriven
    and many other contributors

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
    modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
    as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
    of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
    Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.

    Driver [hd44780] init failed, return code -1
    Could not load driver hd44780
    There is no output driver
    Critical error while initializing, abort.

    Edited once, last by kavehebadi (February 23, 2017 at 10:15 AM).


  • This is a know issue thread-3769.html

    It has been fixed in the latest lcdproc if you can build it. I'm not that confident with cross compiling so I patched the HD44780.so file and it now works great.

    If you want the patched file let me know. This will fix the "Not a raspberry pi" message on 1.8


    As I wrote, I already have a driver which does not show "Not a Raspberry Pi" but there must be an other problem as well. Does your patched driver fix both problems? Pleasy share the driver. I would love to do some testing!

  • The driver is attached to the post. What's the other problem. I have replaced my HD44780.so and everything is fine. I run a raspberry pi 3 using the lcd from the GPIO pins. I can post my LCDd.conf. I initially had a 7.x system running fine, update to 8.0 and got the not a raspberry pi, the patch has fixed that and my lcd is running.


  • The driver is attached to the post. What's the other problem. I have replaced my HD44780.so and everything is fine. I run a raspberry pi 3 using the lcd from the GPIO pins. I can post my LCDd.conf. I initially had a 7.x system running fine, update to 8.0 and got the not a raspberry pi, the patch has fixed that and my lcd is running.

    it finally worked. thank you.

  • Houston, we have a problem...
    I'm a Linux/LE n0ob but I'm doing my best to figure this out.
    Hardware: RPi3
    OS: LE8.0.1 (Kodi 17.1)
    Display: 16x2 HD44780 compatible
    GPIO 4-bit interface
    Installed LCDproc from the LE repo.

    I have managed to get the display to turn on but I'm only getting the welcome message and the shutdown message. It seems LCD.xml isn't being read or something?
    The path is "/storage/.kodi/userdata/LCD.xml"
    Should this be entered somewhere in LCDd.conf or something? I don't understand what I'm doing wrong? I've tried following the tutorials that I've found?

    Edited once, last by Kema (May 7, 2017 at 1:00 PM).

  • Hi!

    I connected a hd44780 display (20x4) via i2c to a raspberry pi 1 rev 2. The i2c uses a PCF8574A chip. the port of the i2c is 0x27.

    I have installed both LCDproc addons and set hd44780 as driver in the LE LCDproc addon.

    Further i enabled i2c in the config.txt:

    my LCDd.config looks like that:

    ls /dev/ | grep i2c outputs:

    Code
    i2c-1

    If i disable the LCDproc and enable it again the other addon displays, that it is connectet.

    However the display only shows squares in line 1 and 3. I dont even get a welcome message.


    Could anybody help me please?

  • I can confirm this issue still persists in latest official and test LibreELEC builds (9.2.5 official, 9.80 nightly) and hd44780.so file must be replaced (see the Momo90's link above) in folder /storage/.kodi/addons/http://service.lcdd/lib/lcdproc/ otherwise it does not work with HD44780 compatible displays connected through i2c adapter.

    Edited once, last by ghtester (November 4, 2020 at 10:36 AM).

  • After some more extensive searching and testing I have found the reason why it did not work with the current hd44780.so driver (the same issue was in current Raspberry OS).

    A couple years ago the hd44780 driver was redesigned and it looks default pinout for i2c expander was changed and pinout configure options were added.

    Unfortunately so far there's no relevant information update in the LCDd.conf about it so it may confuse many users like me.

    In my case it was necessary to add the pinout configuration to [hd44780 ] section of /storage/.kodi/userdata/addon_data/http://service.lcdd/LCDd.conf file and the following settings works fine with my display and the current hd44780.so driver:

    -------------------------------------

    ConnectionType=i2c

    Port=0x3f # depends on i2c expander type, use i2cdetect -y 1 command to check

    Device=/dev/i2c-1

    Size=16x2

    i2c_line_RS=0x01

    i2c_line_RW=0x02

    i2c_line_EN=0x04

    i2c_line_BL=0x08

    i2c_line_D4=0x10

    i2c_line_D5=0x20

    i2c_line_D6=0x40

    i2c_line_D7=0x80

    Backlight=external

    BacklightInvert=yes

    ----------------------------------

    No file replacement is necessary anymore, just the proper configuration is the solution.

    Hope this helps...

  • Hi,

    I've been trying for a few days to get the LCD HD44780 working on Libreelec 10.0.2. with Raspberry Pi4B. Display connected via GPIO. Unfortunately, no attempts have been successful. Has anyone of you run the display in this configuration?


    Sorry for my English.


    Regards.