[linux-dvb] nova-t-usb-2 suddenly stopped working w/ 'no frontend was attached' error

[Matthew Bloch]

Hello - I thought I should share the experience of (what seems like) a 
bricked Hauppaughe nova-t-usb2 USB DVB-T tuner; it worked up until a few 
days ago, then after some rearrangement of cabling, I get this on 
whichever of my three machines I plug it into (I have an i386, amd64 and 
powerpc machine at home for good measure!):

[13450.058031] usb 4-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and 
address 7
[13450.267194] usb 4-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[13450.548721] dvb-usb: found a 'Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T usb2' in cold 
state, will try to load a firmware
[13450.657741] dvb-usb: downloading firmware from file 
'dvb-usb-nova-t-usb2-02.fw'
[13450.737687] usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_nova_t_usb2
[13450.738275] usb 4-2: USB disconnect, address 7
[13450.738453] dvb-usb: generic DVB-USB module successfully 
deinitialized and disconnected.
[13452.486029] usb 4-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and 
address 8
[13452.621180] usb 4-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[13452.621359] dvb-usb: found a 'Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T usb2' in warm state.
[13452.621562] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to 
the software demuxer.
[13452.621848] DVB: registering new adapter (Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T usb2)
[13452.622146] dvb-usb: bulk message failed: -71 (5/0)
[13452.622388] dvb-usb: bulk message failed: -71 (5/0)
[13452.625587] dvb-usb: MAC address: 00:0d:fe:f0:e2:e2
[13452.627154] dvb-usb: no frontend was attached by 'Hauppauge 
WinTV-NOVA-T usb2'
[13452.627473] input: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as 
/class/input/input5
[13452.627508] dvb-usb: schedule remote query interval to 100 msecs.
[13452.627515] dvb-usb: Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T usb2 successfully 
initialized and connected.

The MAC reported doesn't match what's on the box, though is slightly 
different on each architecture.  I've tried with 2.6.22-3-amd64, 
2.6.22-12-powerpc and 2.6.24-i386 (I think) from the latest Ubuntu/hardy 
release.  On each one I've tried compiling the latest dvb stuff from 
Mercurial and get the same reaction.

As a final sanity check, since this was working a few days ago, I 
plugged the box into a fresh XP install, got the latest drivers from 
Hauppauge and while the device claims to register with Windows properly, 
it can't find any channels any more (I checked the aerial with another 
DVB stick, works fine).  The official Hauppauge software is a real dog's 
dinner, looks like something dragged screaming from Windows 3.1, but I'm 
sure "out of the box" it shouldn't have this trouble.

It seems like some combination of my plugging & unplugging this box has 
bricked the tuner somehow - every time I've tried it before on any other 
platform, it has worked straight off once the firmware is in place 
(which it is on all three of my machines)

The 'no frontend was attached' error has been reported on this list 
before without anyone posting a definite resolution, e.g.:
   http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2006-July/011690.html

Does anyone have an idea what might have gone wrong with it?

-- 
Matthew