[Solved] WinTV-quadHD fails to find channels - UK

Hi all, I just install the WinTV-quadHD card…

The card is recognised and shows up as 2 tuners in the DVR set-up (got excited!!), it scans but fails to find any channels… Any ideas folks?

Ubuntu 16.04.02 VM update to kernel 4.10 and all system updates, on ESXI 6.5 with card directly passed through.

Running latest version of the pms docker, tested both tags – plexpass and also switched back to latest.

The card finds channels perfectly on a Windows 10 install with WinTV, signal strength reported as 9.5 and quality 10.

Logs attached. Only WARN reported are;

Jul 28, 2017 08:22:27.048 [0x7f6725417700] WARN - [W] onetv_factory::DeviceGetListEx. libusb_init returned an error -99
Jul 28, 2017 08:25:52.216 [0x7f671cff9700] WARN - [W] CV4lTunersStreamSrc::Start. pthread_setschedparam failed 1
Jul 28, 2017 08:25:57.224 [0x7f671d7fa700] WARN - [E] dvb_channel_scanner_t::do_scan. Tune failed for 474000,8,QAM64
Jul 28, 2017 08:25:57.286 [0x7f671cff9700] WARN - [W] CV4lTunersStreamSrc::Start. pthread_setschedparam failed 1
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:02.345 [0x7f671d7fa700] WARN - [E] dvb_channel_scanner_t::do_scan. Tune failed for 474200,8,QAM256
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:02.409 [0x7f671cff9700] WARN - [W] CV4lTunersStreamSrc::Start. pthread_setschedparam failed 1
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:07.417 [0x7f671d7fa700] WARN - [E] dvb_channel_scanner_t::do_scan. Tune failed for 481800,8,QAM64
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:07.485 [0x7f671cff9700] WARN - [W] CV4lTunersStreamSrc::Start. pthread_setschedparam failed 1
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:12.543 [0x7f671d7fa700] WARN - [E] dvb_channel_scanner_t::do_scan. Tune failed for 482000,8,QAM256
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:12.605 [0x7f671cff9700] WARN - [W] CV4lTunersStreamSrc::Start. pthread_setschedparam failed 1
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:17.612 [0x7f671d7fa700] WARN - [E] dvb_channel_scanner_t::do_scan. Tune failed for 482200,8,QAM256
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:17.675 [0x7f671cff9700] WARN - [W] CV4lTunersStreamSrc::Start. pthread_setschedparam failed 1
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:22.733 [0x7f671d7fa700] WARN - [E] dvb_channel_scanner_t::do_scan. Tune failed for 489800,8,QAM64
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:22.800 [0x7f671cff9700] WARN - [W] CV4lTunersStreamSrc::Start. pthread_setschedparam failed 1
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:27.856 [0x7f671d7fa700] WARN - [E] dvb_channel_scanner_t::do_scan. Tune failed for 490000,8,QAM64
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:27.922 [0x7f671cff9700] WARN - [W] CV4lTunersStreamSrc::Start. pthread_setschedparam failed 1
Jul 28, 2017 08:26:32.979 [0x7f671d7fa700] WARN - [E] dvb_channel_scanner_t::do_scan. Tune failed for 490200,8,QAM64

etc. etc……

Thanks.

Plex version - 1.7.6.4058

Further poke around and lspci -v appears to show the card is passed though and recognised by the Docker host;

13:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23885 PCI Video and Audio Decoder (rev 04)
DeviceName: pciPassthru0
Subsystem: Hauppauge computer works Inc. CX23885 PCI Video and Audio Decoder
Physical Slot: 224
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 16
Memory at fd000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2M]
Capabilities: [40] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [80]
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Kernel driver in use: cx23885
Kernel modules: cx23885

1b:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23885 PCI Video and Audio Decoder (rev 04)
DeviceName: pciPassthru1
Subsystem: Hauppauge computer works Inc. CX23885 PCI Video and Audio Decoder
Physical Slot: 256
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 17
Memory at fce00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2M]
Capabilities: [40] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [90] Vital Product Data
Capabilities: [a0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [200] Virtual Channel
Kernel driver in use: cx23885
Kernel modules: cx23885

I’ve then linked this to the Plex Docker container with this flag;

–device=/dev/dvb \

Can someone confirm the log messages I’m seeing are normal?

So you need to download two firmware files (well at least on Ubuntu Server) and put them in /lib/firmware

You can get them from the OpenELEC git, but must download by pressing the View Raw link, you can not wget etc…

https://github.com/OpenELEC/dvb-firmware/blob/master/firmware/dvb-demod-si2168-b40-01.fw

https://github.com/OpenELEC/dvb-firmware/blob/master/firmware/dvb-demod-si2168-02.fw

I did drop back to the default kernel 4…4 and followed the instructions on the link below so not sure if this works with the latest kernel…

http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/support/linux.html?zoom_highlight=plex

Hope that helps someone!!!

@jmccoy555 you’re a champ! I’m running Ubuntu Server with a Hauppauge WinTV-DualHD, and was experiencing a similar issue as described here. Adding the two firmware files as you describe above made everything work for me.

Thank you! I am writing back to Hauppauge to let them know and suggest they update their Linux setup pages.

@jmccoy555, I have the same card under Ubuntu 16.04.02 VM, kernel 4.4 on ESXI 6.5, and used the same firmware versions, however I found that the card would sometimes fail during w-scan and sometimes would work. The host I have is a 4.2MHz i7 - a similar issue was reported here:
mail-archive.com/linux-media@vger.kernel.org/msg113541.html
I used the workaround, which was to put the driver in debug mode by editing this line in /etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="cx23885.debug=8"
The card has been solid since (the last month or so).

@alanswarbrick, Not had that problem myself so far, but thanks for the tip!!

Also I’ve just rebuilt my docker server with Ubuntu server 16.04.03 and updated to 4.10.0-32-generic (it didn’t update automatically for me but this will get it - sudo apt install linux-generic-hwe-16.04). Now it runs ‘out of the box’ without needing to follow the Hauppauge guide, just add the .fw files and you’re good to go.