Tvheadend

Max Carpenter wrote:

Hi all,

So Got my new TBS6905 card and I have downloaded and installed a clearn Ubuntu 15.10 server. Plugged my TBS card in downloaded their official latest drivers tried to follow their instructions but they seem very out of date and incorrect. Firstly the README files contained within the driver download doesn't contain one for the 6905 so picked the nearest one. It tells me to move a file that does not exist. A package to install that apparently hasn't been around since Ubuntu 10. And the make && make install doesn't work as suspected due to previous errors.

I have tried searching online for a few set of instructions and followed them but they all seem to have their problems.

This is after a previous fail to setup a TVHEADEND server earlier in the year with a BlackGold card which didn't work in Linux. I am literally banging my head against a brick wall it can't be this difficult. What am I doing wrong?

Please please pretty please with a cherry on top can someone help me. I have spent over £300 now on TV cards trying to get this to work its getting silly now.

Bold 1: You're buying cards that are a pain in the arse on Linux. TBS drivers are horrible so bad in fact that ljalves has created his own open source drivers for many cards but unfortunately yours isn't supported.

Bold 2: If you paste the error you're getting here we should be able to give you more help, the driver should work at least. I hope you can get some money back on those cards too.

Seriously.... Why do I have the worst of luck I saw quite a few people using TBS with TVH so I thought I would be ok...I just want a quad tuner that works!

Thanks for your reply its 3.30am only been woken up because of an oncall alarm so what I will do is when I properly wake up in a few hours I will start from scratch with their instructions and log out the process with what responses I get and post here.

ps I will sell the blackgold card once I get the TBS one working since that was only 1 DBV-T2 and 1 DVB-S2 inputc and hopefully make some money on it but really am hoping to get this TBS one working. I don't mind going back a Ubuntu version or two to fix it or even using a different Linux Distro.

Thanks,
Max

Ok Here are a PDF version of the instructions I followed I have put the steps I followed exactly all commands

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f0uhqhkzg8w5nh0/README_TBS6920_8920_UBUNTU.pdf?dl=0

Or I have uploaded to this post.

Oh also forgot to say I put the errors in this document highlighted red and bold.

Max Carpenter wrote:

Seriously.... Why do I have the worst of luck I saw quite a few people using TBS with TVH so I thought I would be ok...I just want a quad tuner that works!

TBS cards are very high quality sadly the drivers aren't, they're pre-built blobs that no doubt are just modified open source drivers that they've hacked to get their cards working.

Some interesting reading regarding the drivers by one of the Tvheadends devs here: https://tvheadend.wordpress.com/

Thanks for your reply its 3.30am only been woken up because of an oncall alarm so what I will do is when I properly wake up in a few hours I will start from scratch with their instructions and log out the process with what responses I get and post here.

Theres a guide here that should work, I know it's two years old but I doubt they've changed their shitty drivers that much.. https://tvheadend.org/boards/5/topics/10407

Make sure you have the kernel headers and a few other bits installed first (do sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` libproc-processtable-perl)

ps I will sell the blackgold card once I get the TBS one working since that was only 1 DBV-T2 and 1 DVB-S2 inputc and hopefully make some money on it but really am hoping to get this TBS one working. I don't mind going back a Ubuntu version or two to fix it or even using a different Linux Distro.

Thanks,
Max

Max Carpenter wrote:

Ok Here are a PDF version of the instructions I followed I have put the steps I followed exactly all commands

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f0uhqhkzg8w5nh0/README_TBS6920_8920_UBUNTU.pdf?dl=0

Or I have uploaded to this post.

Oh also forgot to say I put the errors in this document highlighted red and bold.

It looks like you need to unzip the files first and then run the commands, the tar linux-tbs-sources is inside the zip.

If you're still having trouble I (mpmc) and many others can be found on IRC in #hts (use this client here: https://kiwiirc.com/client select freenode & join channel #hts)

So many of the instructions out there make this WAY more difficult than it needs to be. I followed some instructions I found at http://linux.mjnet.eu/post/401/tbs-driver-install-ubuntu-11-10-tbs6921/. Since that site no longer appears to be among the living, use this cached copy instead:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150501172647/http://linux.mjnet.eu/post/401/tbs-driver-install-ubuntu-11-10-tbs6921

Just be sure you substitute the current kernel version for the one shown in the instructions. Go to http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/ and you will note that (as of the time I am writing this) the current version of the drivers is found at http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/tbs-linux-drivers_v151105.zip so use that filename (specifically, replace the part showing the date) in the instructions on that page. You do NOT have to mess around with firmware or anything like that.

Before you do the above for the very first time, you may need to do these, so that you won't have compilation errors. First, if you have any pending kernel updates you haven't yet applied, do those first. Then do these - note that some or all of these packages may be already installed:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
sudo apt-get install make gcc

Also when following the instructions from that page, ignore this line, since you are not running the 13.04 version of Ubuntu:

sudo mv /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/media /home/youruser/media.bak (that is only for ubuntu 13.04)

AFTER you have it installed, these commands should show you if it's working - you should see all four of your tuners:

dmesg | grep -i dvb
ls -l /dev/dvb

Also after they are installed, see the instructions at https://freetoairamerica.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/do-you-run-one-or-more-tbs-pcie-cards-under-linux-check-your-irqs/ to improve reliability. You only need to do that once.

Whenever you apply a kernel update you'll need to rebuild the drivers again. It's a bit of a PITA but once you've done it a few times it won't seem like such a daunting process. I always check for driver updates at http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/ before rebuilding, but I also always save a version or two of the previous driver package just in case the new one introduces any new bugs (so far that hasn't happened, thankfully).

Why so many people want to overcomplicate this is beyond me. Just follow the instructions on that archived page and you should be fine.

EDIT: Also, if you find you are getting bad timing information on recordings, see https://freetoairamerica.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/getting-bad-satellite-recordings-in-tvheadend-heres-a-possible-fix/ - this seems to be more of an issue with the TBS6905 than some previous cards, though they might have fixed it in more recent driver updates.

Mark Clarkstone wrote:

Bold 1: You're buying cards that are a pain in the arse on Linux. TBS drivers are horrible so bad in fact that ljalves has created his own open source drivers for many cards but unfortunately yours isn't supported.

Oh, come on, they aren't "horrible" - the biggest reason people hate them is because of the need to rebuild them after EVERY kernel update, and Ubuntu likes to push a LOT of kernel updates. That said, I know there are a few open source variations floating around out there (I think "Crazycat" also made some), I just have never seen anyone that can say there's a definitive advantage to using one of the open source variations. And as you note, the open source authors haven't made any for the TBS6905. If TBS or anyone would send one of them a TBS6905 card they might actually write open source drivers for it, but they are not going to pay out of pocket to buy a card they don't need so they can write drivers for it, especially since the official TBS drivers for that model appear to work fine, for the most part.

Unfortunately, if you live in the USA or Canada, and/or want quad tuners on a single card, TBS may be your only choice. While you could order from an overseas seller, that tends to get complicated (and sometimes expensive, depending on the country of origin). I think the biggest reason Americans don't like to order from overseas, besides the fact that there's often a long wait for the item to arrive, is because if we get a defective unit, the U.S. Postal Service REALLY gouges us on return shipping, so much so that sometimes it's just cheap to scrap the device and buy another (but then you still don't know you won't get another defective one). So we find it is better to stick with companies that at least have a U.S. address that can accept returns of defective products.

K Shea wrote:

Mark Clarkstone wrote:

Bold 1: You're buying cards that are a pain in the arse on Linux. TBS drivers are horrible so bad in fact that ljalves has created his own open source drivers for many cards but unfortunately yours isn't supported.

Oh, come on, they aren't "horrible" - the biggest reason people hate them is because of the need to rebuild them after EVERY kernel update, and Ubuntu likes to push a LOT of kernel updates. That said, I know there are a few open source variations floating around out there (I think "Crazycat" also made some), I just have never seen anyone that can say there's a definitive advantage to using one of the open source variations. And as you note, the open source authors haven't made any for the TBS6905. If TBS or anyone would send one of them a TBS6905 card they might actually write open source drivers for it, but they are not going to pay out of pocket to buy a card they don't need so they can write drivers for it, especially since the official TBS drivers for that model appear to work fine, for the most part.

Unfortunately, if you live in the USA or Canada, and/or want quad tuners on a single card, TBS may be your only choice. While you could order from an overseas seller, that tends to get complicated (and sometimes expensive, depending on the country of origin). I think the biggest reason Americans don't like to order from overseas, besides the fact that there's often a long wait for the item to arrive, is because if we get a defective unit, the U.S. Postal Service REALLY gouges us on return shipping, so much so that sometimes it's just cheap to scrap the device and buy another (but then you still don't know you won't get another defective one). So we find it is better to stick with companies that at least have a U.S. address that can accept returns of defective products.

Bold: They are horrible (and I'm not just talking about the drivers here) warning long story ahead..

I purchased a TBS DVB-S USB tuner the QBox S2 the precursor to the TBS 5922 (which I still have, TBS replaced the QBox with this) and it caused me no end of trouble.

Firstly they (TBS) packaged their device (the qbox) with a known faulty power supply that caused EMI to all my other devices and knocked out Ethernet on a few of my machines, it also affected my broadband (which resulted in having 3 BT Engineers rubbing their balds spots). TBS eventually replaced the power supply with a good one and the problem disappeared but that isn't the end of my woes..

I still could not use the tuner as it got too hot (too hot to touch, it made good fried eggs though, I'm not joking here Profyaffle still has his..) and it took 5-10 seconds on each tune hanging Tvheadend each time.

The replacement still suffers with slow tuning caused by the IR sensor just like the qbox before it (even with ljalves drivers but thankfully it doesn't overheat) at least now with decent drivers tuning takes 1-2 seconds with the IR disabled, with TBS' drivers it takes 5-7 seconds still (no it's not the machine, I've tried it on many).

After reading this I hope you understand why I do not recommend people bother with TBS anything, yes it may have been bad luck but I'm not going to let other people enjoy the experience I had..

Mark Clarkstone wrote:

After reading this I hope you understand why I do not recommend people bother with TBS anything, yes it may have been bad luck but I'm not going to let other people enjoy the experience I had..

Well I have never thought that USB connected tuners were a good idea, and after reading your story I understand why you don't like TBS, but here we are specifically talking about their PCIe cards. Although they may not be the best available anywhere in the world, in North America we have limited options and in my experience they mostly work, though not without the user having to do things that users should never have to do (like manually build drivers in Linux). But when all is said and done, I would take a TBS PCIe card over a standalone satellite receiver any day of the week.

What you are seeing, I think, is part of a general decline in quality that has plagued the electronics industry over the past few years - so many things nowadays are made so they work just well enough that customers don't consider them total garbage, and in your case it sounds like you got tuners that didn't even meet that low standard.

I'm not saying that TBS cards will win any awards for quality engineering, but at the same time there must be some reason nobody's importing other brands into North America. Anyway, IN MY EXPERIENCE TBS cards have not been "horrible". They haven't been superbly wonderful either, and if I could have purchased a brand that was better (and that didn't force the end user to rebuild drivers every time there's a Linux kernel update) I certainly would have considered it, but there simply was nothing else, particularly in quad tuner models.

+1 for the egg fryer... eventually melted itself, replacement never unboxed.

My grief with the tuner wasn't having to rebuild on a kernel update - it was a nuisance on a slow system, but kernel updates can be held back if you wish until you have the time. My big annoyance was how the TBS driver tree would knock out my other tuners, so I had to make a choice of which tuners TBS would allow me to use, despite them having had mainstream Linux support for aeons. The OpenELEC came along with a fixed kernel and driver set, and made it all far too difficult ...

... and then the thing dissolved in a fit of pique, so that problem was solved for me

@K Shea: I agree in regards to using TBS cards over a standard receiver and I'm aware we're talking about PCIe cards here :), even so their drivers are still a pain the in arse regardless of whether or not it's USB or PCIe.

Prof Yaffle wrote:

+1 for the egg fryer... eventually melted itself, replacement never unboxed.

My grief with the tuner wasn't having to rebuild on a kernel update - it was a nuisance on a slow system, but kernel updates can be held back if you wish until you have the time. My big annoyance was how the TBS driver tree would knock out my other tuners, so I had to make a choice of which tuners TBS would allow me to use, despite them having had mainstream Linux support for aeons. The OpenELEC came along with a fixed kernel and driver set, and made it all far too difficult ...

Bold: Ugh thanks for reminding me of that, I wonder if TBS are actually updating their drivers to include newer drivers for other cards or is it "our cards work with these drivers screw all the rest"? Not a direct quote but that's how it feels.

You're at the whim of TBS as to whether your awesome new card will work along side your TBS one and you're screwed if a driver has bugs recently fixed in media_tree..

... and then the thing dissolved in a fit of pique, so that problem was solved for me

Mine survived only because I stopped using it. TBS happily replaced it after I sent it to Bulgaria at my expense and even then it was apparently lost!

Wow quite a few replies thanks guys haven't read through them all just yet. I did however email TBS support and they responded to me within 24 hours with instructions. I followed their instructions and BINGO my card was detected and displayed in tvheadend..... however rebooted this morning and its gone again. Here are the instructions they provided me for any others struggling:

Download latest driver:
http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/tbs-linux-drivers_v151105.zip

rm -rf /lib/modules/${version}/kernel/drivers/media

the version you can get with
uname -a

1. uname -a
   Linux skyip 3.19.0-30-generic #34~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 2 22:09:39 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
2. ls /lib/modules/3.19.0-
   3.19.0-25-generic/ 3.19.0-30-generic/
3. rm -rf /lib/modules/3.19.0-30-generic/driver/media

then
1. tar jxvf linux-tbs-drivers_xxx.tar.bz2
2. cd linux-tbs-drivers
3. ./v4l/tbs-x86_64.sh
4. make -j4

make install
restart

Max Carpenter wrote:

rm -rf /lib/modules/${version}/kernel/drivers/media

No idea why they told you to do this - I didn't, and the card still worked. Then again, I'm running Debian, not Ubuntu (though I would not necessarily recommend that because it makes a few things harder - if I'd known then what I know now, I'd have chosen Ubuntu Server).

Did you ever get it working again?

K Shea wrote:

Max Carpenter wrote:

rm -rf /lib/modules/${version}/kernel/drivers/media

No idea why they told you to do this - I didn't, and the card still worked. Then again, I'm running Debian, not Ubuntu (though I would not necessarily recommend that because it makes a few things harder - if I'd known then what I know now, I'd have chosen Ubuntu Server).

Did you ever get it working again?

To prevent symbol mismatches with drivers already on the system - you're essentially installing a set of drivers based on whatever version of media_tree they're using.

Not sure why Debian would make things harder though, I've used Debian and Ubuntu & I've had to do this, doing so does remove some built-in drivers for other cards as their media_tree is way out of date.

To make things worse if you ever want to use your other cards and think 'Oh hey, I can patch TBS' drivers to get my card working' think again as you'll soon find out like I did that part of the source code you need to patch is a pre-built blob!

Such horrid drivers, yes I know you disagree with me but I'm not the only one who thinks this, but I suppose as long as you only use TBS products you're golden

Mark Clarkstone wrote:

Such horrid drivers, yes I know you disagree with me but I'm not the only one who thinks this, but I suppose as long as you only use TBS products you're golden

Well we are each entitled to our own opinions, I suppose. The real problem for those of us in North America is that TBS cards are the only PCIe DVB-S2 cards available at a reasonable price that aren't shipped from overseas (or if they are, at least there's a U.S. address where they can be returned if DOA). There are probably better cards out there with better drivers, maybe even drivers included in the Linux kernel so you don't have to build/rebuild the damn things yourself after every single kernel update. But for whatever reason (probably the price) no one imports them into North America, and most Americans just don't feel comfortable ordering from overseas, especially if they have ever been burned by the ridiculously high postage rates the USPS charges when shipping a defective item back.

As you mentioned there are open source drivers out there (at https://github.com/ljalves/linux_media/wiki), but they do not cover the latest TBS cards. Also, "updatelee" (http://updatelee.blogspot.com/ also https://bitbucket.org/updatelee/v4l-updatelee) has built his own Linux kernel which I believe includes open source drivers, although he's not real great at documentation and he's so far above my level in Linux that I can only barely grasp what he's doing (I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would want to write their own kernel, not that I would stand a snowball's chance in hell of installing it even if I did figure out why it's desirable). Also I think "CrazyCat" wrote his own drivers and source for those is available (https://bitbucket.org/CrazyCat/linux-tbs-drivers) but I don't know if he has drivers for the newer cards yet either. I get the feeling the only reason open source drivers haven't been released for the newer cards is because those guys don't have them, and therefore can't write drivers for them and test them.

All of that stuff is way out of my level of understanding of Linux; at first I could barely manage to build the official TBS drivers, and I have never found any reason to use anything other than the official drivers. I understand what you are saying but the TBS drivers (at least the older ones) can't be that big of a mystery if all these guys are writing open source drivers for them (probably forking each others' work, but still...). And for the TBS PCIe cards at least, they do appear to work with no major issues. Still, if the TBS6905 is ever supported by the open source drivers, and they're no harder to install than the official drivers and offer some clear advantages, I would not be adverse to trying them.

Just FYI TBS cards aren't the only ones with horrid drivers. I once had a Prof Tuners card that seemed to work pretty well. At the time I was using it with MediaPortal under Windows, since I hadn't discovered TVheadend yet. I decided I wanted to add a second tuner, so since that model (7301) had worked well for me, I bought another. It turned out that the idiots that wrote the drivers never anticipated that anyone would like their cards enough to put 2 in the same machine, so their drivers refused to recognize the second card. The Prof Tuner cards were PCI not PCIE so I doubt they are even sold anymore, but it seem like finding satellite cards with good drivers might take a minor miracle.