Comments on cuddon.net: Python driver v0.11 for CM19a X10 Transceiver

Hi Carlos You need to install pyUSB. You can inst...

2011-12-10T10:28:21.283+11:00

Hi Carlos

You need to install pyUSB. You can install it from the Ubuntu Software centre or from the command line:
sudo apt-get install python-usb

Andrew

Hello everyone, I am running on Ubuntu 11.10; I i...

2011-12-08T16:21:44.414+11:00

Hello everyone,

I am running on Ubuntu 11.10; I installed this driver, after, I blacklisted these
blacklist lirc_atiusb
blacklist ati_remote
then Reboot.
then I try to run the driver as follow:

/CM19A$ sudo ./CM19aDriver.py A1 ON
[sudo] password for carlos:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./CM19aDriver.py", line 106, in
import usb
ImportError: No module named usb

What can I do?

Thanks in advance,
Carlos Gonzalez

The only problem is that I get messages like this:...

2010-10-08T01:46:33.896+11:00

The only problem is that I get messages like this:

kernel: usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'python' sets config #1

if I try to send multiple commands with cron at the same time. This is similar to what I got with the kernel /dev/cm19 driver. So I guess there might be an issue, at least on my system, sending multiple commands to the USB??? I can live with it because there is nothing that has to have simultaneous commands. I just spread them out. But I do wonder why this is happening and if it is just on my system.

Just posting again to tell you the progress I made...

2010-10-05T12:28:26.849+11:00

Just posting again to tell you the progress I made on this. I gave up on the Perl system call to Python. A call from a BASH script or crontab seems to work fine. So I just took the code from the Perl script and recreated it in the CM19 Python script. It works fine and crontab is controlling my automation.

The original Perl script had mapped the house and unit coeds to a single number. I say '2 on' or '18 off' and it is mapped to the house and unit code. I also send the command three time with a 1 second delay between sends. This is all now done in the python module which is call by a simple BASH script that in turn is called by cron.

If anyone can answer why the Perl call did not work I would be interested to know. I spend a lot of time trying to get it to work. I should have just written it in Python to begin with. Python is nice once you get to know it.

Andrew, Thanks. The code does work standalone wh...

2010-10-05T00:31:49.915+11:00

Andrew,

Thanks. The code does work standalone when running the module directly from the console and sending commands to the CM19. This only happens when I call it from this Perl script.

Can the .1 and 1.0 USB libs both be loaded? Would this interfere with anything or would they clash with each other?

Hi Doug This is a libusb problem. It look...

2010-10-04T21:17:27.104+11:00

Hi Doug
This is a libusb problem. It looks like it is trying to load the libusb1.0 backend. Try installing libusb0.1 and see if it works (this is the original libusb library.

Also, try running the Python script on it's own to see if you get any error messages when you are not calling it from your Perl script.

Let me know if you still have problems.

I wanted to run this as a command line module to s...

2010-10-03T15:33:12.933+11:00

I wanted to run this as a command line module to send (not receive) commands to the Cm19. The command line code works fine but now I want to use an existing Perl script to call it. Something like -

system("/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/x10python/CM19a_X10_USB.py $x10command\r\n");

When I do this it complains about not finding many of the Python modules it needs. errors like -

Sat 02 Oct 2010 23:33:44, ERROR, Error loading libusb 1.0 backend
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/usb/backend/libusb10.py", line 588, in get_backend
_lib = _load_library()

Not being a Python programmer I am not sure why this is happening. Any help would be appreciated.

The logging problem is my fault - I left out a fil...

2010-09-21T08:30:34.429+10:00

The logging problem is my fault - I left out a file called logger.py from the archive file. The latest version 2 driver should now work. You can find it here: http://ubuntuone.com/p/GtG/

Version .11 works great for me - you can delete my...

2010-09-17T03:01:14.352+10:00

Version .11 works great for me - you can delete my comments, thank you!

-Greg

Just realized I posted this in the wrong page; I a...

2010-09-17T02:05:36.976+10:00

Just realized I posted this in the wrong page; I am trying to use version .20! Sorry about that, maybe I'll try .11 as I see in the changelog that you added logging in .20 and that seems to be what is failing for me.

-Greg

I know this is more of a general python question, ...

2010-09-17T02:01:32.133+10:00

I know this is more of a general python question, but I'm trying to get this working and I get "ImportError: No module named logger". I've searched UbuntuForums and Google and I can't seem to find anyone else with this issue. I was able to get python-usb installed so I figured it was some basic thing I am missing. Any ideas?

I see info about something called "Logging", but that's not "Logger". So there are web pages that describe "import logging". I tried changing "import logger" to "import logging" but as expected that fails:

File "CM19a_X10_USB.py", line 479, in
log = logger.start_logging("CM19a_X10_USB", LOGFILE)
NameError: name 'logger' is not defined

Thanks for any advice you can give!

-Greg

*my comment above got stripped of a few tags. Dan-...

2010-08-15T09:21:36.698+10:00

*my comment above got stripped of a few tags. Dan-- kill the process with "kill [process id number]."

Thanks for writing this, Andrew--it worked great f...

2010-08-15T09:20:15.266+10:00

Thanks for writing this, Andrew--it worked great for me on an Ubuntu 9.10 server!

@Dan: I ran into the same issue as because I'd tried to run the script twice. Try "ps ax | grep cm" and if the script is running, kill it with "kill ." Then try running it again.

Dan. It sounds like another driver has taken owner...

2010-07-25T15:33:48.913+10:00

Dan. It sounds like another driver has taken ownership of the device. If you are using Ubuntu you will need to blacklist a couple of drivers (See below). I'm not sure whether you need to do this on other Linux distributions.
Let me know if this does not work.

1. Edit the blacklist file
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

2. Add in the follow text and save
# To enable CM19a X10 Transceiver to work
blacklist lirc_atiusb
blacklist ati_remote

3. Reboot so this all takes effect.

I was psyched to find this driver but unfortunatel...

2010-07-22T08:38:15.223+10:00

I was psyched to find this driver but unfortunately I just cannot get it to work. Every time I run the script I get:
"Resource busy
Unable to open the CM19a."
I can't figure out why the device would be busy. When I unplug it, the script correctly detects that the device is unplugged, so I assume that libusb is working correctly.

Any suggestions?

Hi Hackeron I haven't looked at bright/dim for...

2010-06-07T08:57:35.864+10:00

Hi Hackeron
I haven't looked at bright/dim for some time. I'll see if I can find some time over the next few weeks.

I have been working on server version that enables the the connected devices to be controlled remotely via xml-rpc calls. That means you'll be able to control a device using any prog or scripting language that supports xml-rpc (Perl, Ruby, Python etc). And the controlling script doesn't need to be on the same PC as the X10 devices.

Any updates? - i.e. does bright/dim work yet? :)

2010-06-06T09:49:44.959+10:00

Any updates? - i.e. does bright/dim work yet? :)

Pretty much everything is beyond my Python knowled...

2009-12-13T11:46:20.720+11:00

Pretty much everything is beyond my Python knowledge; I can make my way through with Perl, but Python just confuses me. :-) For my environment, I really only use my CM17a simply to turn lights on and off via cron. But I don't know enough Python to, say, take your script and write a wrapper that simply takes "a1 on" as command line arguments and passes them to the appropriate function. Maybe I can find a quick tutorial, or bribe one of my Python-knowing friends....

I was mostly thinking about a daemon since it'd be nice to only initialize the device once, instead of every time the script gets run; but that'd be more a wishlist kind of thing.

I remember when looking at the serial port devices, it was really annoying to write scripts that both listened to incoming signals while sending user-driver outbound signals in the same script, since one of the routines would lock out access to the port so the other couldn't use it. I wonder if USB devices work the same way....

I haven't thought about a user interface yet. ...

2009-12-12T07:34:38.593+11:00

I haven't thought about a user interface yet. The intent was to be a back end.

I have though about running as a daemon but this is well beyond my Python knowledge (Are there any good tutorials/examples out there?).

Currently I use this driver in my own automation program that I automatically load on startup. It runs a continuous loop that checks for events on my network (eg PS3 is turned on) and responds by turning on the TV (infrared) and a lamp(X10). I also have a intranet site that I use to control my AV equipment using this program and my ipod touch and the remote.

I was amazed that when I bought my CM19a that most...

2009-12-12T07:25:24.998+11:00

I was amazed that when I bought my CM19a that most of the software and drivers out there did not support it - the focus still seems to be on the RS232 serial versions rather than USB.

Thank you very much for writing this! I just purc...

2009-12-08T23:10:03.190+11:00

Thank you very much for writing this! I just purchased a CM19A to replace my working CM17A, since I may be moving to a server soon that doesn't have serial ports. I too had to rmmod ati_remote (the other module hadn't loaded) in order for this script to work.

How are you doing regarding a user interface? :-) It would also be nice to maybe have this run as a daemon; that way, a shell-based client can receive commands from the user to send, while a background thread is reading input from remote commands and logging all X10 commands that fly around my house.

Ah, this is excellent! Thank you. I'm using it...

2009-12-08T13:33:20.213+11:00

Ah, this is excellent! Thank you. I'm using it to recover data from a sporadically-working hard drive via a shell script using ddrescue... when the usb device disappears, it gets its power reset via X10. Very helpful.

Great, thanks for the post Michael. I think I had...

2009-10-18T21:32:15.443+11:00

Great, thanks for the post Michael.

I think I had probably already blacklisted those modules.

If you find any bugs please let me know so I can update my code.

Thank you very much for posting this code. I have ...

2009-10-11T07:09:16.148+11:00

Thank you very much for posting this code. I have it working in Ubuntu 9.04, though I had to blacklist the following two modules in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

lirc_atiusb
ati_remote

I am doing some home automation with some X10s, and am now adding a 1-Wire network for sensors. My first use of your code will be to activate a blower on a wood stove depending on the temperature in our loft bedroom.

Thanks again
Michael, Corning, NY, US