Install_IVTV_Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting

Check IVTV is initialized

Run:

```
dmesg |grep Initialized
```

You should see something like:

ivtv: Initialized WinTV PVR 250, card #0
ivtv: Initialized WinTV PVR 350, card #1

This example shows two cards. If you only have one, you will see results similar to this:

ivtv: Initialized WinTV PVR 250, card #0

This is a good way to identify if the card even initially loaded.

Testing Capture

After the driver is loaded, you can test it by doing a simple capture
- ```
cat /dev/video0 > /tmp/test_capture.mpg
```
Let this go for about 5 sec and then press <ctrl> + 'c'
Attempt to play this back using your favorite media player. (mplayer for the example)
- ```
mplayer /tmp/test_capture.mpg
```
See if you have some recorded content coming up in the test capture.

Diagnosing Problems

Check dmesg to see if there are any errors loading firmware or anything like that.

dmesg | tac | sed -n '/=\ \ END INIT IVTV\ \ =/,/= START INIT IVTV =/p;/= START INIT IVTV =/q' | tac

If you see any errors about "unable to load firmware" or "missing module" or anything like that, go into #ubuntu and see if you can grab some help or post on the forums.

Errors during modprobe

If you encounter errors similar to:

sudo modprobe ivtv
FATAL: Error inserting ivtv (/lib/modules/2.6.17-10-generic/ivtv/ivtv.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

and check dmesg to see similar things to this:

[17182375.312000] ivtv: disagrees about version of symbol video_unregister_device
[17182375.312000] ivtv: Unknown symbol video_unregister_device
[17182375.312000] ivtv: disagrees about version of symbol video_device_alloc
[17182375.312000] ivtv: Unknown symbol video_device_alloc
[17182375.312000] ivtv: disagrees about version of symbol video_register_device
[17182375.312000] ivtv: Unknown symbol video_register_device
[17182375.312000] ivtv: disagrees about version of symbol video_device_release
[17182375.312000] ivtv: Unknown symbol video_device_release
[17182762.044000] ivtv: disagrees about version of symbol video_unregister_device
[17182762.044000] ivtv: Unknown symbol video_unregister_device
[17182762.044000] ivtv: disagrees about version of symbol video_device_alloc
[17182762.044000] ivtv: Unknown symbol video_device_alloc
[17182762.044000] ivtv: disagrees about version of symbol video_register_device
[17182762.044000] ivtv: Unknown symbol video_register_device
[17182762.044000] ivtv: disagrees about version of symbol video_device_release
[17182762.044000] ivtv: Unknown symbol video_device_release

you will need to reinstall the running linux image. This can be caused by overwriting the modules necessary for ivtv to work.

Reinstall the linux image:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall linux-image-`uname -r`
sudo depmod -a

Follow the steps to rebuild the modules.

ivtv-firmware has no installation candidate

If when trying to install the firmware, you encounter an error similar to:

supermario@portablemario:~$ sudo apt-get install ivtv-firmware
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package ivtv-firmware is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package ivtv-firmware has no installation candidate

This likely means you had a typo when adding the firmware repository to your /etc/apt/sources.list

Recheck /etc/apt/sources.list and make sure that you properly added the repository that you are getting your firmware from.

Resource allocation errors

There are two possible solutions to resource allocation problems:

Be sure that you have enabled APIC on your machine's BIOS. This will guarantee enough resources are allocated for the device.
See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=284041 for more information.

Add vmalloc=192m to your kernel boot parameters. Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst to add the vmalloc=192 to the end of your kernel line:

title           Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.17-10-server
root            (hd0,0)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.17-10-server root=/dev/hda1 ro quiet splash vmalloc=192m
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.17-10-server
quiet
savedefault
boot

Further Troubleshooting

The IVTV Wiki includes lots of non-ubuntu specific information about IVTV Troubleshooting: http://ivtvdriver.org/index.php/Troubleshooting

Ubuntu Documentation