New TBS Card. Need Help! Any Linux Experts Out There?

LocutusOfBorg · Nov 3, 2015

I guess I need to find someone that can help me make my DVB pcie card work. The driver loads and the /dev/dvb/adaptor0 shows up and I'm looking at SES3 Ku but no hits. No voltages coming out of the pcie antenna port either. Looks like the v4l firmware (v4l-cx23885-avcore-01.fw) isn't loading. I can't even get into the TBS DVB forum just to look at posts. Why can't this stuff just work out of the box?

Titanium · Nov 3, 2015

Sorry, installed on a PC. Worked out of the box.

Maybe a moderator will break this off and make a thread that can be better found by a member with Linux experience.

mattopia · Nov 3, 2015

I don't know much about DVB-S devices on Linux (I'm struggling with a USB adapter myself), but I can tell you that usually the most helpful error messages for hardware will be found in the output of the dmesg command. From there, you can usually copy and paste your specific error into Google and find help.

And yes, Linux stuff often does not work out of the box (particularly with somewhat esoteric hardware that not everyone uses regularly), my experience is often (not always, but often) that it's incredibly stable and functional once you get everything working.

LocutusOfBorg · Nov 3, 2015

I followed the manufacturers instructions for installing it under Linux. It should be working. dmesg is somewhat helpful but it seems that I get directed to the manfacturers forum but I can't get in there just to look for answers - login required even to do that. Not much else out there to solve the problem. I think it's a firmware problem since dmesg doesn't give output for the cx23885. The firmware was installed in /lib/firmware and a reboot didn't get it loaded. The wiki's haven't been much help either.

N6BY · Nov 4, 2015

johnnynobody said:
I followed the manufacturers instructions for installing it under Linux. It should be working. dmesg is somewhat helpful but it seems that I get directed to the manfacturers forum but I can't get in there just to look for answers - login required even to do that. Not much else out there to solve the problem. I think it's a firmware problem since dmesg doesn't give output for the cx23885. The firmware was installed in /lib/firmware and a reboot didn't get it loaded. The wiki's haven't been much help either.

I had the same problem with my TBS6983 under Linux. Couldn't get the Linux drivers to install and run either. But I know very little about Linux and its drivers, so I probably did something wrong.

After that I just installed the Windows drivers onto my Windows 7 system. Worked first try. The software that came with the card was lame, and I ended up buying EBSPro which I am extremely happy with. :thumbup

ancient · Nov 4, 2015

I'm not sure how you expect to get help when you're not saying which model TBS card you have, nor what version of Linux you are using, nor what software you are using for streaming or PVR. Without knowing exactly what you're trying to do, there is no way anyone can help you. But what I don't understand is, why are you trying to install firmware in the first place? I have two TBS cards and I didn't install firmware for either one (unless it came as part of the TBS drivers package, but if that's the case I knew nothing of it).

A basic procedure for installing TBS drivers can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/2015050.../401/tbs-driver-install-ubuntu-11-10-tbs6921/ (I had to use a Wayback Machine link because the original post seems to have disappeared). There are a lot of instructions out there that make it way more complicated than it needs to be, and that also might lead to issues such as the ones you are seeing.

For best results you want to make sure your TBS cards aren't sharing interrupts with any other cards, see https://freetoairamerica.wordpress....e-tbs-pcie-cards-under-linux-check-your-irqs/

And yes you do have to register for the TBS forum to be able to view the posts there, which is really stupid IMHO. On the other hand, you may not be missing much. It's not a very active forum and a lot of times questions just sit there like giant turds that everyone avoids. Then again, sometimes questions get great answers. I think it kind of depends on how lucky you are and on who's working at TBS on the day you post your question.

Without knowing your Linux distro and version, TBS tuner model, and the PVR or streaming software you plan to use, it's pretty difficult to give any better advice.

Titanium · Nov 4, 2015

This thread was broken off from another unrelated subject thread in the FTA Receiver Support sub-forum by the moderators. Johnnynobody had ordered a TBS6922SE card and running Ubuntu 14.04 64 bit, kernel 3.19.0-26-generic. I'm not sure what other software he is using with the card.

RT-Cat · Nov 4, 2015

N6BY said:
.....After that I just installed the Windows drivers onto my Windows 7 system. Worked first try. The software that came with the card was lame, and I ended up buying EBSPro which I am extremely happy with.

My TBS-8922 PCI card worked also first time installed in a Windows PC. Agree 100% the software is junk and not just lame. Had to use something else to get it to work correctly.

LocutusOfBorg · Nov 4, 2015

Titanium said:
This thread was broken off from another unrelated subject thread in the FTA Receiver Support sub-forum by the moderators. Johnnynobody had ordered a TBS6922SE card and running Ubuntu 14.04 64 bit, kernel 3.19.0-26-generic. I'm not sure what other software he is using with the card.

Right now, I'm just using the CLI. I've tried a couple of different scan & scan-s2 commands such as scan -c or scan-s2 -c. No transponders are picked up on AMC15 or SES3 Ku even though a Birdog connected inline sees the sats. I tried to install MythTV and the software install did not go well (backend couldn't access a database). VLC doesn't see anything when I manually enter a TP freq and symbol rate also. I believe that I mentioned that the TBS6922 isn't putting out any LNBF voltage so maybe there's some kind of command somewhere that turns the card on/off. Anyway, my attachment above shows a lot of info. According to the instructions that came with the card, dmesg | grep cx23885 should produce an output but it doesn't.

LocutusOfBorg · Nov 4, 2015

ancient said:
I'm not sure how you expect to get help when you're not saying which model TBS card you have, nor what version of Linux you are using, nor what software you are using for streaming or PVR. Without knowing exactly what you're trying to do, there is no way anyone can help you. But what I don't understand is, why are you trying to install firmware in the first place? I have two TBS cards and I didn't install firmware for either one (unless it came as part of the TBS drivers package, but if that's the case I knew nothing of it).

Ubuntu 64bit 14.04, TBS6922, VLC. BTW, the software that came with the card has firmware that the instructions says to install into /lib/firmware.

A basic procedure for installing TBS drivers can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/2015050.../401/tbs-driver-install-ubuntu-11-10-tbs6921/ (I had to use a Wayback Machine link because the original post seems to have disappeared). There are a lot of instructions out there that make it way more complicated than it needs to be, and that also might lead to issues such as the ones you are seeing.

I did everything in that link Card just doesn't work.

For best results you want to make sure your TBS cards aren't sharing interrupts with any other cards, see https://freetoairamerica.wordpress....e-tbs-pcie-cards-under-linux-check-your-irqs/

I have only one pcie card installed.

bpalone · Nov 4, 2015

I just recently setup a newer computer to use my USB tuner (tbs5922) and remember that there is one different file that you use for 64bit. I run 32 bit, but remember the different 32 and 64 bit files. Be sure to read the README file for your card. I just got a tbs5980 in the mail yesterday (USB device) and just copied the 5980 hardware file over and it worked.

Use "lspci" command to get a list of the pci devices in the system. You will be surprised and it will also let you know if your new card is even being seen.

I am no guru, especially with the pci cards. HOPEFULLY someone with more experience than I will chime in here. Just thought I would mention the files as you might have used the 32 bit one by accident. I had issues with the grep call too. Had to abbreviate the limiting term to just the first few letters to get it to return that my device/drivers was being seen.

I am running Linux Mint 17 on the newer machine.

Good luck, getting there.

LocutusOfBorg · Nov 4, 2015

bpalone said:
I just recently setup a newer computer to use my USB tuner (tbs5922) and remember that there is one different file that you use for 64bit. I run 32 bit, but remember the different 32 and 64 bit files. Be sure to read the README file for your card. I just got a tbs5980 in the mail yesterday (USB device) and just copied the 5980 hardware file over and it worked.

Use "lspci" command to get a list of the pci devices in the system. You will be surprised and it will also let you know if your new card is even being seen.

I am no guru, especially with the pci cards. HOPEFULLY someone with more experience than I will chime in here. Just thought I would mention the files as you might have used the 32 bit one by accident. I had issues with the grep call too. Had to abbreviate the limiting term to just the first few letters to get it to return that my device/drivers was being seen.

I am running Linux Mint 17 on the newer machine.

Good luck, getting there.

I set it up for 64 bit Linux per the instructions. Those instructions are also at the wiki and howto web sites. So, I did follow the instructions.

LocutusOfBorg · Nov 4, 2015

This was one website that mentioned doing the following but the driver doesn't exist:

user@server1:~$ sudo modprobe saa716x_budget int_type=1
[sudo] password for ki7rw:
modprobe: FATAL: Module saa716x_budget not found.
root@server1:~/tbs# updatedb && locate saa716x
/lib/modules/3.13.0-66-generic/kernel/drivers/media/common/saa716x
/lib/modules/3.13.0-66-generic/kernel/drivers/media/common/saa716x/saa716x_core.ko
/lib/modules/3.13.0-66-generic/kernel/drivers/media/common/saa716x/saa716x_tbs-dvb.ko

Instead, I did sudo modprobe saa716x_tbs-dvd which loaded that driver and saa716x_core (which gets reloaded on a reboot)

root@server1:~/tbs# lsmod | grep tbs
tbsfe 13023 1
rc_tbs_nec 12502 0
saa716x_tbs_dvb 76784 0
tbs6982fe 22408 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
tbs6680fe 17791 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
tbs6923fe 22408 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
tbs6985se 17882 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
tbs6928se 17884 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
tbs6982se 22408 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
tbs6991fe 17785 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
tbs6618fe 17791 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
saa716x_core 50899 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
tbs6922fe 22478 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
tbs6928fe 17785 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
tbs6991se 17882 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
tbs6290fe 50747 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
stv090x 70414 1 saa716x_tbs_dvb
dvb_core 109932 2 saa716x_core,saa716x_tbs_dvb
rc_core 26933 10 ir_lirc_codec,ir_rc5_decoder,ir_nec_decoder,ir_sony_decoder,rc_tbs_nec,saa716x_tbs_dvb,ir_mce_kbd_decoder,ir_jvc_decoder,ir_rc6_decoder
i2c_algo_bit 13413 2 saa716x_tbs_dvb,radeon

Everythings seems to have happened except for getting cx23885 loaded and the card doesn't receive anything - not even with a Birdog in series and powering the LNBF. The Birdog sees the sat but the card doesn't.

There's some mention of S2API but I don't know if that's an issue.

bpalone · Nov 4, 2015

I was hoping Update Lee would make it by here.

Have you tried this to see what it returns: dmesg | grep tbs

Should do it not to long after you boot up. If you don't see anything about the system detecting the card and installing the drivers then something went wrong with the install. I think you need to do it all as Root, but sudo does that since Ubuntu doesn't openly allow you to log in as root.

If nobody else steps in here, you might try over at Rick's, they have group of threads on using pci and usb receivers. UpDate Lee also has links to his custom stuff there as well. If you decide to go Lee's route, be sure to check that your card is supported. My 5922 was not, which I found out after I spent the time building the kernel. I think yours is, but check. You will get more utility out of your card if you go with Lee's set of programs and kernel patches.

I will be doing it sometime here in the not to distant future for my new 5980, but will need for things to slow a bit as it isn't a 10-15 minute affair.

Another thought, have you tried a different slot for the pci card? Have read of that sometimes making problems go away.

Sorry, I am not all that much help. But maybe I will say something that makes the go on, on your side.

. Raine · Nov 4, 2015

Is there a link you can put up for the drivers you're using so I can look at them?

You could try updating your system too, if you haven't already -- sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade

If the source code is available to you, you'll probably have better luck compiling the drivers from source on your system, rather than installing them already done.

N6BY · Nov 4, 2015

The drivers are all here: http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/

Unfortunately, TBS doesn't release the Linux driver source code.

For Windows, a Russian programmer with the handle 'CrazyCat' has done a lot of work on TBS DLL's (dynamic link libraries).

EDIT: As A Raine discovered below, the driver source actually IS available. Its just buried inside the directories.

. Raine · Nov 5, 2015

N6BY said:
The drivers are all here: http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/

Unfortunately, TBS doesn't release the Linux driver source code.

For Windows, a Russian programmer with the handle 'CrazyCat' has done a lot of work on TBS DLL's (dynamic link libraries).

Well, there goes compiling it on his system. So pretty much they just made a driver to be able to say 'Linux compatible'.

Thanks for the link, Brett!

. Raine · Nov 5, 2015

At a quick glance, it looks like it may be mis-identifying the kernel version. I'll try to get a chance to look at it some more later in the next few days, may be pretty easy, if it is that.

It looks like the source is there, I have a makefile and all, compiling it on the system will take care of it, I bet.

After installing the drivers, did you have errors like this:

"disagrees about version of symbol..."

and/or

"Unknown symbol..."

on 'dmesg' output and no DVB devices are created

I'll try and get some time to play with it and see if it'll compile on my Ubuntu 14.04, even though it won't be usable for you. But if it compiles on my system, then compiling it on yours should fix the problem.

N6BY · Nov 5, 2015

A Raine said:
...
It looks like the source is there, I have a makefile and all, compiling it on the system will take care of it, I bet.....

All this time I had falsely assumed that it wasn't available. Whoa, that's great! Its nested down a few directory levels and I see '.c' and '.h' files (C source code and header files).

LocutusOfBorg · Nov 5, 2015

I'm making progress. I just used the CLI command to w_scan to scan 105.0W and it found stuff. BUT, it turns out that the card isn't powering the LNBF - I had to have my Birdog inline to power the LNBF. Without the Birdog I get nothing.

New TBS Card. Need Help! Any Linux Experts Out There?

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