LibreELEC in virtual box with Tvheadend as TV server.

    Hi all,


    I've installed the latest LibreELEC in a virtual box with latest VMware Player on Windows 10 with the Tvheadend server addon

    in order to serve TV channels to the Windows host, but it doesn't work, the scanning of channels fails. When added DVB-T

    muxes, they don't scan even with the 'Force Scan' option.


    The tuner is a dual, 2 tuners, USB stick named 'NPG Real DVB-2T USB', and its chipset is a AF9015. The tuner is recognized

    by Tvheadend, both tuners, but the number is wrong, it shows as AF9013. not 15.


    So, what is the problem here? To start with, should this setup work in a virtual box? Or the problem is the driver not being

    compatible with this stick? If the latter, any other version of the ISO that includes the right driver? Or is it possible to

    patch it?


    Also, I've tried the 3 '.img' versions of this distro booted from an USB boot pen, but with the 3 I got an error message,

    "Failed Xorg server" and the loading stopped.


    How to make this work? My goal is to have a TV server within Windows to serve channels to VLC.


    Thanks in advance,


    Cheers.

    I'll state the obvious first: we don't officially provide any support for running LE in virtual environments. The Generic OVA exists to support occasional GUI oriented dev work; e.g. at the recent Kodi DevCon (in Spain) I've developed a Tailscale add-on by using the OVA running on an ESXi box at home (6,000km away). If users want to experiment with LE in a VM for other purposes that's fine, but there should be no expectations of support or interest (or timely bugfixes) from staff.

    So, with the disclaimer done:

    I would experiment with LE on a USB stick first, to prove the DVB hardware is supported, has the right firmware etc., and runs well, before add a layer of obfuscation attempting the same thing in a VM.

    Google says AF9015 is a combo chip that contains a USB bridge and AF9013 demod, so Tvheadend showing an AF9013 demod is probably correct; it wouldn't care about the USB bridge.

    If things are not working when running LE from a USB stick, run "journalctl | paste" and share the URL so someone who knows more about DVB things can comment.

    Hey chewitt, I think I've seen you somewhere else lately...


    Thanks again for the help. Well, since the LibreELEC image exists in VM format, I thought what I want to achieve

    should work... OK about the driver numbering, maybe its the same. But, not loading from a boot USB, that's

    strange. By the way, it's a multiboot (a few Linux ISOs inside) done with Ventoy, and all work fine, so I don't

    think running it from this loader is the problem.


    Anyway, how do I run "journalctl | paste" and where?


    It's a shame this won't work. Maybe I should start trying other small linux images in VM too. Maybe one could

    work to stream to Win.


    Cheers.

    Quote from ServeMe

    Hey chewitt, I think I've seen you somewhere else lately...

    I have my fingers in a few pies :)

    I'm suggesting to experiment with LE running on bare-metal from a USB stick because I'm not interested in troubleshooting VM problems unless the hardware actually works in our distro. If you continue with LE, you can run commands via SSH, either over SSH from a console, or in a web browser if you install the TTY service addon from the LE addon repo.

    If you want to experiment with Tvheadend on other distos that's also fine, but out of scope for this forum.

    Making work LibreELEC would be nice, but in the meantime trying some other distros could maybe tell if this

    setup in a VM could work or not. If you haven't mentioned it, it's because nobody has done it yet. I fear it

    could be a waste of time testing a few small diistros...