[mythtvnz] SkyStar 2 DVB-S card failing to load after 20.04 upgrade

[Stephen Worthington]

On Sun, 17 Oct 2021 22:08:02 +1300, you wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>Ive just upgraded my Myth box from Ubuntu 16.04 to 20.04 (via do-release-upgrade) and have hit a few snags.
>Machine has been running for a few years, so I’m a bit rusty on getting it back running properly.
>
>First one I’m trying to tackle is one of my SkyStar 2 DVB-S cards isn’t being fully recognised.
>
>It should appear as /dev/dvb/adaptor1 but doesn’t appear at all. adapter0 is a SkyStar 2, adapter 2&3 are a TBS DVB card
>
>me$ ll /dev/dvb/
>total 0
>drwxr-xr-x 11 root root  220 Oct 17 19:54 .
>drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4.6K Oct 17 19:54 ..
>drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  120 Oct 17 19:54 adapter0
>drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  120 Oct 17 19:54 adapter2
>drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  120 Oct 17 19:54 adapter3
>
>
>me$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/dvb.conf
># Technisat SkySTAR2 DVB-S
>options b2c2_flexcop_pci adapter_nr=0,1
>
>#TBS 6909
>options tbsecp3 adapter_nr=2,3
>
>
>dmseg says no frontend driver found
>
>me$ dmesg | grep flex
>[    3.985342] b2c2-flexcop: B2C2 FlexcopII/II(b)/III digital TV receiver chip loaded successfully
>[    3.992261] b2c2_flexcop_pci: unknown parameter 'adapter_nr' ignored
>[    3.992314] flexcop-pci: will use the HW PID filter.
>[    3.992314] flexcop-pci: card revision 2
>[    3.992418] b2c2_flexcop_pci 0000:05:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0003)
>[    4.016165] b2c2-flexcop: MAC address = 00:d0:d7:0c:01:a5
>[    4.398695] b2c2-flexcop: no frontend driver found for this B2C2/FlexCop adapter
>[    4.400528] flexcop-pci: will use the HW PID filter.
>[    4.400529] flexcop-pci: card revision 2
>[    4.400535] b2c2_flexcop_pci 0000:05:01.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0003)
>[    4.428468] b2c2-flexcop: MAC address = 00:d0:d7:0e:c6:8e
>[    4.644817] b2c2-flexcop: found 'ST STV0299 DVB-S' .
>[    4.644819] b2c2_flexcop_pci 0000:05:01.0: DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (ST STV0299 DVB-S)...
>[    4.644855] b2c2-flexcop: initialization of 'Sky2PC/SkyStar 2 DVB-S rev 2.6' at the 'PCI' bus controlled by a 'FlexCopIIb' complete
>[   37.816078] b2c2_flexcop_pci 0000:05:01.0: Frontend requested software zigzag, but didn't set the frequency step size
>
>
>It does exist as a pci device:
>
>me$ lspci -vvv
>05:00.0 Network controller: Techsan Electronics Co Ltd B2C2 FlexCopII DVB chip / Technisat SkyStar2 DVB card (rev 02)
>	Subsystem: Techsan Electronics Co Ltd B2C2 FlexCopII DVB chip / Technisat SkyStar2 DVB card
>	Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
>	Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=slow >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
>	Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 18
>	Region 0: Memory at f7110000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
>	Region 1: I/O ports at e020 [size=32]
>	Kernel modules: b2c2_flexcop_pci
>
>05:01.0 Network controller: Techsan Electronics Co Ltd B2C2 FlexCopII DVB chip / Technisat SkyStar2 DVB card (rev 02)
>	Subsystem: Techsan Electronics Co Ltd B2C2 FlexCopII DVB chip / Technisat SkyStar2 DVB card
>	Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
>	Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=slow >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
>	Latency: 32
>	Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 19
>	Region 0: Memory at f7100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
>	Region 1: I/O ports at e000 [size=32]
>	Kernel driver in use: b2c2_flexcop_pci
>	Kernel modules: b2c2_flexcop_pci
>
>
>Note the second card has Kernel driver in use: b2c2_flexcop_pci, but the first card doesn’t.
>
>Any tips or things I should be looking at?
>
>
>
> - Wade

I am not familiar with the Skystar 2 cards, but I do have a TBS6909.
It requires compiling its version of the Linux DVB driver code, and in
the past doing that has caused incompatibility with some older cards.
So the first thing I would try would be to remove and reinstall your
current kernel and see if it will run the Skystar 2 cards with the
normal kernel DVB drivers.  Then compile and install the TBS drivers
and see if that causes the problem.  To do that, you need to reboot to
the older kernel that should still be installed, then remove the newer
kernel packages and then reinstall them.  Then reboot to the newer
kernel.

And I am not sure why you would be needing to use the old DVB-S cards
anyway - the TBS6909 has 8 DVB-S(2) tuners, so there should not be any
need to have two more on the old DVB-S cards.  If you are using DVB-S
for the Freeview satellite service, you only need 3 tuners, and if you
are recording Sky, you need DVB-S2 for all the Sky multiplexes now,
except for the one they broadcast Freeview DVB-S channels on.