• Devin Heitmueller's avatar
    [media] dvb_frontend: fix race condition in stopping/starting frontend · 2d196931
    Devin Heitmueller authored
    Attached is a patch which addresses a race condition in the DVB core
    related to closing/reopening the DVB frontend device in quick
    succession.  This is the reason that devices such as the HVR-1300,
    HVR-3000, and HVR-4000 have been failing to scan properly under MythTV
    and w_scan.
    
    The gory details of the race are described in the patch.
    
    Devin
    
    There is a race condition exhibited when channel scanners such as w_scan and
    MythTV quickly close and then reopen the frontend device node.
    
    Under normal conditions, the behavior is as follows:
    
    1.  Application closes the device node
    2.  DVB frontend ioctl calls dvb_frontend_release which sets
        fepriv->release_jiffies
    3.  DVB frontend thread *eventually* calls dvb_frontend_is_exiting() which
        compares fepriv->release_jiffies, and shuts down the thread if timeout has
        expired
    4.  Thread goes away
    5.  Application opens frontend device
    6.  DVB frontend ioctl() calls ts_bus_ctrl(1)
    7.  DVB frontend ioctl() creates new frontend thread, which calls
        dvb_frontend_init(), which has demod driver init() routine setup initial
        register state for demod chip.
    8.  Tuning request is issued.
    
    The race occurs when the application in step 5 performs the new open() call
    before the frontend thread is shutdown.  In this case the ts_bus_ctrl() call
    is made, which strobes the RESET pin on the demodulator, but the
    dvb_frontend_init() function never gets called because the frontend thread
    hasn't gone away yet.  As a result, the initial register config for the demod
    is *never* setup, causing subsequent tuning requests to fail.
    
    If there is time between the close and open (enough for the dvb frontend
    thread to be torn down), then in that case the new frontend thread is created
    and thus the dvb_frontend_init() function does get called.
    
    The fix is to set the flag which forces reinitialization if we did in fact
    call ts_bus_ctrl().
    
    This problem has been seen on the HVR-1300, HVR-3000, and HVR-4000, and is
    likely occuring on other designs as well where ts_bus_ctrl() actually strobes
    the reset pin on the demodulator.
    
    Note that this patch should supercede any patches submitted for the
    1300/3000/4000 which remove the code that removes GPIO code in
    cx8802_dvb_advise_acquire(), which have been circulating by users for some
    time now...
    
    Canonical tracking this issue in Launchpad 439163:
    
    Thanks to Jon Sayers from Hauppauge and Florent Audebert from Anevia S.A. for
    providing hardware to test/debug with.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarDevin Heitmueller <dheitmueller@kernellabs.com>
    Cc: Jon Sayers <j.sayers@hauppauge.co.uk>
    Cc: Florent Audebert <florent.audebert@anevia.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarMauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@redhat.com>
    2d196931
dvb_frontend.c 59.4 KB