Sony BD Remote pairing problems with new distributions

Sony BD Remote pairing problems with new distributions

[Jim Faulkner]

My sony BD remote (aka PS3 remote) requires a convoluted process to get it 
working each and every time my computer boots.  A description of the 
process I must use is here:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Talk:Sony_PS3_BD_Remote

In short, I must hold down shift+enter on the remote to pair the device, 
kill some processes, and start some processes each time the computer 
boots.

This apparently did not used to be necessary with some older 
distributions.  For example, this was not necessary under Ubuntu 8.04, but 
is necessary under Ubuntu 8.10:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-874284.html
(page is down as I type so here's the google cache):
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:YuyKFubNWPMJ:ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-874284.html+bdremoted&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us&client=firefox-a

I am running 64-bit Gentoo, kernel 2.6.27.10.  I've tried both the 2.25 
userspace and the 4.21 userspace with no luck.

My questions are:  Are you guys aware of this problem?  Is there any known 
fix, besides downgrading to an older distribution?

thanks,
Jim Faulkner

PS please CC me on any replies, I'm not subscribed to this list.

Re: Sony BD Remote pairing problems with new distributions

[Jim Faulkner]

On Tue, 13 Jan 2009, Jim Faulkner wrote:

> My sony BD remote (aka PS3 remote) requires a convoluted process to get it 
> working each and every time my computer boots.

I just wanted to follow up on this.  I have managed to get my BD remote 
permanently paired with my computer.  I no longer need to to go through 
the process of pairing it each time the computer boots.

The problem is, I'm not sure exactly how I got it working.  I had resigned 
myself to the fact that it wasn't going to automatically pair at boot 
time, so I was playing around with "hidd --connect" and the cakemote.py 
script, seeing which would work best to pair the device at each boot.

I tried running "hidd --connect (hardware address)" to get the remote 
paired.  It said that it successfully paired, and "hidd --show" showed the 
BD remote device, however I wasn't able to get any output from the 
bdremoted daemon when pressing keys on the remote.

So, I tried pairing it with cakemote.py, but got a "connection refused" 
error, presumably because the bluetooth stack thought it was already 
paired.  I then ran "hidd --killall", then cakemote.py, ctrl-cing out once 
the device was paired.

And since then, the remote is working fine without out any need to pair 
again.  I'm not sure exactly what I did... I have used cakemote.py to pair 
the device many times before without this result.  But its nice to have it 
working.

Jim

Re: Sony BD Remote pairing problems with new distributions

[Bastien Nocera]

On Thu, 2009-01-15 at 14:23 -0500, Jim Faulkner wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Jan 2009, Jim Faulkner wrote:
> 
> > My sony BD remote (aka PS3 remote) requires a convoluted process to get it 
> > working each and every time my computer boots.
> 
> I just wanted to follow up on this.  I have managed to get my BD remote 
> permanently paired with my computer.  I no longer need to to go through 
> the process of pairing it each time the computer boots.

It doesn't need actual pairing, because there's no PIN code exchange.
Also, hidd doesn't know how to drive the device whatsoever.

Using bluez-gnome to pair the device using the wizard should just work.
See the archives for more discussion about that.

Cheers