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

[Stephen Worthington]

On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 22:14:56 +1300, you wrote:

>
>
>> On 18/10/2021, at 22:00, Wade Maxfield <mythtvnz at hotblack.co.nz> wrote:
>> 
>> Trying dvbtune instead with TBS
>> 
>> me$ dvbtune -f 1219000 -s 22500 -p H -tone 0 -c 2
>> Using DVB card "TurboSight TBS 6909 DVB-S/S2 "
>> tuning DVB-S to L-Band:0, Pol:H Srate=22500000, 22kHz=off
>> polling....
>> Getting frontend event
>> FE_STATUS:
>> polling....
>> Getting frontend event
>> FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL
>> polling....
>> polling....
>> polling
.
>
>
>And of course after spending a few hours this afternoon and definitely after sending my message to the list, I think I’ve found part of the problem. 
>
>I finally remembered the TBS6909 has 4 aerial inputs and requires creating a modprobe conf file to set the card to use the single aerial input #3 across all the tuners. Without the lower number adapters I tried with dvbtune and dvbstream, effectively had no aerial attached.  Recreating /etc/modprobe.d/mxl58x.conf (and rebooting) since it went missing somewhere between the big upgrade, removing and reinstalling the TBS drivers, and now dvbtune is working with that card:
>
>
>me$ dvbtune -f 1219000 -s 22500 -p H -tone 0 -c 2
>Using DVB card "TurboSight TBS 6909 DVB-S/S2 "
>tuning DVB-S to L-Band:0, Pol:H Srate=22500000, 22kHz=off
>polling....
>Getting frontend event
>FE_STATUS:
>polling....
>Getting frontend event
>FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL
>polling....
>Getting frontend event
>FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL FE_HAS_LOCK FE_HAS_CARRIER FE_HAS_VITERBI FE_HAS_SYNC
>Event:  Frequency: 10969000
>        SymbolRate: 22500000
>        FEC_inner:  3
>
>Bit error rate: 0
>Signal strength: 36080
>SNR: 40062
>FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL FE_HAS_LOCK FE_HAS_CARRIER FE_HAS_VITERBI FE_HAS_SYNC
>
>
>
>Should be smooth sailing from this point
. 8)
>
>Thanks Stephen, previous conversations are coming back to me now - shall dig through archives and look at the numbering patch for the card.
>
>
> - Wade

I have a patch for the TBS6909 drivers that I did that allows me to
select which aerial input is used for each tuner pair.  With my patch
in place, there is a new option "inputs=".  So this is what I have in
my /etc/modprobe.d/options-dvb.conf file:

options mxl58x mode=1 inputs=1,1,1,1

That allows me to plug my aerial into input 1 (second from the bottom)
where the stress on my aerial cable is less and it does not get in the
way of other things so much.

The latest versions of my patch and the build scripts are here:

http://www.jsw.gen.nz/mythtv/tbs6909/options-dvb.conf
http://www.jsw.gen.nz/mythtv/tbs6909/download_and_build_with_addons.sh
http://www.jsw.gen.nz/mythtv/tbs6909/mxl58x.patch

But you should not need the patch if you are happy to use input 3.

I am getting my OpenTV EPG from the DVB-S multiplex on 12519 like you,
but if you want to get it from one of the DVB-S2 multiplexes, you will
need to set up dvbtune to do DVB-S2 by changing the -fec option to 2_3
and using the -8psk option.