Sundtek DVB-S USB dongle armhf vs. arm64 Tvheadend incompatibility

brevilo · 26 January 2020 23:07

Ok, in the meantime I tried the armsysv build again, as that’s the only reasonable candidate in that list. And yes, it seems to be the right one:

libmediaclient.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, ARM, EABI4 version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, stripped

Now I need to fix the remaining ld preload error:

ERROR: ld.so: object '/opt/lib/libmediaclient.so' from /etc/ld.so.preload cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.

This is indeed a different error as the ELF/ABI mismatches I saw for the other builds - duh! Looking into it. We’re close…

sam_nazarko · 26 January 2020 23:10

Use readelf to verify

brevilo · 26 January 2020 23:25

Hm, the ELF header of /opt/lib/libmediaclient.so and /usr/bin/tvheadend look fine/identical, yet the file attributes differ:

/opt/lib/libmediaclient.so:

  Tag_CPU_name: "ARM9TDMI"
  Tag_CPU_arch: v4T
  Tag_ARM_ISA_use: Yes
  Tag_THUMB_ISA_use: Thumb-1
  Tag_ABI_PCS_wchar_t: 4
  Tag_ABI_FP_denormal: Needed
  Tag_ABI_FP_exceptions: Needed
  Tag_ABI_FP_number_model: IEEE 754
  Tag_ABI_align_needed: 8-byte
  Tag_ABI_align_preserved: 8-byte, except leaf SP
  Tag_ABI_enum_size: int
  Tag_ABI_optimization_goals: Aggressive Speed

/usr/bin/tvheadend:

  Tag_CPU_name: "7-A"
  Tag_CPU_arch: v7
  Tag_CPU_arch_profile: Application
  Tag_ARM_ISA_use: Yes
  Tag_THUMB_ISA_use: Thumb-2
  Tag_FP_arch: VFPv3-D16
  Tag_ABI_PCS_wchar_t: 4
  Tag_ABI_FP_rounding: Needed
  Tag_ABI_FP_denormal: Needed
  Tag_ABI_FP_exceptions: Needed
  Tag_ABI_FP_number_model: IEEE 754
  Tag_ABI_align_needed: 8-byte
  Tag_ABI_align_preserved: 8-byte, except leaf SP
  Tag_ABI_enum_size: int
  Tag_ABI_VFP_args: VFP registers
  Tag_CPU_unaligned_access: v6

It’s obvious though, that /opt/bin/mediaclient fails to run as long as /opt/lib/libmediaclient.so isn’t preloaded. FYI, by “fails” in mean this, even when setting LD_PRELOAD explicitly (I commented out the entry in /etc/ld.so.preload):

$ LD_PRELOAD=/opt/lib/libmediaclient.so /opt/bin/mediaclient --start=4
-bash: /opt/bin/mediaclient: No such file or directory

Yes, the path is correct and the file is executable (755), go figure…

brevilo · 26 January 2020 23:28

Oh, just noticed this in the ELF header of /opt/lib/libmediaclient.so:

Flags: 0x4000002, Version4 EABI, <unknown>

It doesn’t mention hard-float ABI so it might not be an armhf build after all…?

brevilo · 26 January 2020 23:55

Progress! There’s an undocumented armsysvhf build “hidden” in the install script! Just run the installer with the option -system armsysvhf and you get what the Vero needs

~~But… Tvheadend still doesn’t see the adapters, despite this:~~

     FRONTEND: /dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0
     DVR: /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0
     DMX: /dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0

~~Any idea?~~ (see below)

sam_nazarko · 27 January 2020 00:06

The adapters are probably cached and you need to clean the tuner cache.

Also try rebooting.

brevilo · 27 January 2020 00:12

Tried rebooting a couple of times. How do I scrub the tuner cache manually?

sam_nazarko · 27 January 2020 00:16

brevilo · 27 January 2020 00:21

Finally!!! Marking the hidden option above as solution.

@Xanderzdad : at your service

sam_nazarko · 27 January 2020 00:38

Glad it’s working now. I’m sure this will help others in the future too.

Xanderzdad · 27 January 2020 12:08

That is great news. Unfortunately I don’t really understand anything you did!
I am just an ordinary user and was hoping for more of PnP solution.
Is there a simple (and I really mean that - bullet points etc) step by step guide to getting DVB-S working?

My knowledge is limited to being able to SSH into the Vero so is there a basic script I can copy and paste? I am sure this would open up a larger market for the Vero

brevilo · 27 January 2020 12:35

It’s all in the post tagged as solution

It boils down to this:

ssh osmc@vero
wget https://sundtek.de/media/sundtek_netinst.sh
chmod +x ./sundtek_netinst.sh
sudo ./sundtek_netinst.sh -system armsysvhf
sudo reboot

If you have an existing Tvheadend setup on your Vero and the Sundtek adapters don’t show up, go ahead and delete the old Tvheadend config and start from scratch (following the Tvheadend wizard) like this.

Let me know if you’ve further questions.

Xanderzdad · 27 January 2020 17:57

Thank you very much. I actually think I can do that. I really appreciate you taking the trouble.
Any suggestions on the best place to buy a sundtek DVB-S?

I don’t have Tvheadend installed as I haven’t bothered to buy a DVB-S yet - since I couldn’t find anyone (until you) you had managed to get it working . Hopefully a clean install will work.
Thanks again

brevilo · 27 January 2020 18:19

Any suggestions on the best place to buy a sundtek DVB-S?

Probably best from Sundtek themselves…?

Xanderzdad · 27 January 2020 21:55

Ha…that should have been obvious. Stressy day and my brain is not engaged. Thanks

Sundtek · 28 January 2020 07:31

There are also Dual DVB-S/S2/S2X USB Tuners available now.

I guess it would have been easier just to ask us about the drivers
Does this system use a 64bit kernel and 32bit environment?
I wonder why it didn’t detect the system properly, there must be a reason behind that.

Back then in early 2018 we still had tons of driver updates for the current fpga based multituners in the queue.

brevilo · 28 January 2020 07:54

There are also Dual DVB-S/S2/S2X USB Tuners available now.

Yep, saw that right after ordering two single ones. Oh well…

I guess it would have been easier just to ask us about the drivers

I tried that but no one could be reached via the support chat. I’m also still waiting for my forum account to be activated and, to be honest, the info there is scattered across various places, outdated and riddled with heaps of broken links (404s, due to changed request URL format, could have been converted). I like your hardware but the so called “manual” (forum) is barely usable, in particular for the non-IT pros, I imagine, trying to use your devices.

Does this system use a 64bit kernel and 32bit environment?
I wonder why it didn’t detect the system properly, there must be a reason behind that.

Yes, that’s right. Thus the architecture detection simply finds arm64 and installs that. Also, armsysvhf, the option eventually used here, is completely undocumented in the installers help page. Please add that.

Cheers

Sundtek · 28 January 2020 08:44

The Support Chat is a public IRC channel (#sundtek) on irc.freenode.net, sometimes it takes some time to get an answer since it’s not a direct one to one chat.

arm64 is available since 2016
arm64musl is available since late 2018

If all Vero systems are the same we can add a check to the installer to use the 32bit build automatically instead of 64bit.

brevilo · 28 January 2020 09:37

arm64 is available since 2016
arm64musl is available since late 2018

Not sure how that’s relevant in this context.

If all Vero systems are the same we can add a check to the installer to use the 32bit build automatically instead of 64bit.

I recommend two things:

Add armsysvhf and arm64 to the (documented) -system options of the sundtek_netinst.sh installer script (see above)
Try to detect if there’s an armhf userland if you detected an arm64 kernel. If so install armsysvhf instead, at least optionally.

Yet, @sam_nazarko should chime in here for an official recommendation.

sam_nazarko · 28 January 2020 10:09

grep “osmcdev=vero3” /proc/cmdline should suffice to identify the system