six degrees of freedom

XBMC & Lirc & Ubuntu 11.10 oneiric

After upgrading to Ubuntu 11.10, my MCE remote stopped working in XBMC. Since XBMC did not get an update (it’s coming from a separate PPA), I assume the LIRC button naming for the “mceusb” driver has changed in the new lirc package. It doesn’t match the “mceusb” section in XBMC’s Lircmap.xml anymore.

What I had to do to get my MCE remote working again in XBMC was to create a new file ~/.xbmc/userdata/Lircmap.xml and insert the remote button codes that I gathered from running “irw” and pressing the buttons. Make sure that the “lirc” package is installed and choose the “Windows Media Center Remote” when it asks you for the type of remote you have.

This is mostly the default mapping, with a few customisations for my personal preferences. Note that this is for the “mceusb” driver, if you use a different driver, you have to change the “<remote device=”mceusb”>” line and gather the correct codes from “irw”.


	
		KEY_LEFT
		KEY_RIGHT
		KEY_UP
		KEY_DOWN
		
		KEY_HOME
		KEY_BACK
		KEY_RECORD
		KEY_PLAY
		KEY_PAUSE
		KEY_STOP
		KEY_FORWARD
		KEY_REWIND
		KEY_VOLUMEUP
		KEY_VOLUMEDOWN
		KEY_CHANNELUP
		KEY_CHANNELDOWN
		KEY_NEXT
		KEY_AGAIN
		Teletext
		KEY_MUTE
		KEY_POWER
		KEY_VIDEO
		KEY_AUDIO
		Pictures
		LiveTV
		KEY_1
		KEY_2
		KEY_3
		KEY_4
		KEY_5
		KEY_6
		KEY_7
		KEY_8
		KEY_9
		KEY_0
		KEY_RED
		KEY_GREEN
		KEY_YELLOW
		KEY_BLUE
		
		More
		Guide
		KEY_DVD
		KEY_CLEAR
		KEY_ENTER

The above file maps the buttons on the remote to XBMC button names. If also want to change the mapping of XBMC buttons to XBMC functions, you need to create another file, e.g. ~/.xbmc/userdata/keymaps/remote.xml . I like to use the “play” button to display a context menu on the selection screens and codec statistics during playback. The following file overrides the default XBMC mapping to enable this:


  
    
      ContextMenu
    
  
  
    
      CodecInfo

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Comments

9 responses to “XBMC & Lirc & Ubuntu 11.10 oneiric”

  1. Logan

    Thanks for posting that. It’s just what I needed. I’d narrowed it down to lirc but had no idea how to revert back to an old version or fix this one. Appreciate folks like you who post helpful things for the benefit of others.

  2. dash

    Thanks a lot !, that’s exactly what I needed to make my remote work again with XBMC .

  3. Richard

    Thanks a lot! That worked for me!
    Just made a minimal install of Ubuntu 11.10 with XBMC Nightly and the only thing that didn’t work until now was my mce remote.

    Keep posting stuff like this….. kept my out of the dark cold late nights searching the web 😉

  4. Roberto

    Thanks. This works for everything lirc. From Rhythmbox to mplayer and pulseaudio.

  5. Vincent

    Thanks too, Works perfectly now on 11.10

  6. fr0sty

    This fixed it for me, but now i seem to have double keypresses in XBMC. IRW gives me double keypresses, for example when going through the menu in XBMC it moves 2 options instead of 1

  7. Mark Anderson

    Thank you so much!!! I thought I broke my lirc with 11.10 update, only to find it did the exact same thing with a fresh install. With these instructions, I had my HTPC working in no time.

  8. Elliot Nathanson

    Yes – thank you! Lirc also broke with my 11.10 update.

  9. Daniel D

    I have a Rosewill RRC-126 and i wasn’t sure how to map it fully in XBMC thank you so much all buttons work how i want now!