# kobject_add failed for lirc_serial.0 with -EEXIST

## g8ecj

It all started to appear having rebooted after some 4-5 weeks of painless operation. A resync to stable x86 was done on 23rd June and tonight (2nd July) was the first reboot since then.

I'm running X86 stable with  2.6.20-gentoo-r8 (same problem with an older 2.6.19-gentoo-r5).

First symtoms were as follows:

```

WARNING: /etc/modprobe.conf line 130: ignoring bad line starting with 'pre-install'

WARNING: /etc/modprobe.conf line 192: ignoring bad line starting with 'probeall'

WARNING: /etc/modprobe.conf line 205: ignoring bad line starting with 'probeall'

```

and I notice that  I can't load the lirc_serial module. The lirc_dev module is OK and a test with the lirc_mceusb2 module (which also depends on the lirc_dev module) seems to be OK. Can't say I've ever noticed modprobe.conf - the commands in it seem more appropriate to modules.conf but the 'update-modules' app doesn't seem entirely happy about creating it as that throws the error

```

 * Updating /etc/modprobe.conf by hand ...

 * Warning: could not generate /etc/modprobe.conf!                                                                    [ !! ]

 * Updating modules.dep ...                                                                                           [ ok ]

```

and then creates it anyway

The error below appears when I try to manually load lirc_serial

```

Jul  2 21:33:40 zeus kobject_add failed for lirc_serial.0 with -EEXIST, don't try to register things with the same name in the same directory.

Jul  2 21:33:40 zeus [<c026a692>] kobject_add+0x112/0x190

Jul  2 21:33:40 zeus [<c02b0789>] device_add+0x99/0x530

Jul  2 21:33:40 zeus [<c026e28b>] snprintf+0x2b/0x30

Jul  2 21:33:40 zeus [<c02b498c>] platform_device_add+0x10c/0x180

Jul  2 21:33:40 zeus [<f8f1903d>] init_module+0x3d/0x325 [lirc_serial]

Jul  2 21:33:40 zeus [<c0148626>] __vunmap+0x76/0x130

Jul  2 21:33:40 zeus [<c0190fca>] sysfs_create_group+0xaa/0x100

Jul  2 21:33:40 zeus [<c01313de>] sys_init_module+0x16e/0x1820

Jul  2 21:33:40 zeus [<c0102d49>] sysenter_past_esp+0x56/0x79

Jul  2 21:33:40 zeus =======================

```

I've tried downgrading from lirc-0.8.2-pre2 to lirc-0.8.1 but no difference (and it had been working fine!).

Any clues as I can't change channels on my STB now  :Sad: 

-- 

Robin

----------

## g8ecj

OK - I've sorted the modules.conf (2.4 kernel) and modprobe.conf (2.6 kernel) issues. Lots of very old documentation!!

I still can't load the lirc_serial module due to the errors I'm getting from the kernel itself (I assume).

-- 

Robin

----------

## g8ecj

SOLVED:

A combination of the modprobe.conf file not stopping the serial driver in the monolithic kernel and rebooting to a 2.6.19 kernel with 0.8.2 lirc package caused the problems.

Now back on 2.6.20 kernel and 0.8.2 lirc with a corrected /etc/conf.d file (was /dev/lirc/0, now /dev/lirc created by the driver) and the correct modprobe data and all is well with the world again   :Very Happy: 

I shall also be more careful of where /usr/src/linux is linked to as well in future!!

-- 

Robin

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## luispa

Had same problem after update to 2.6.21-gentoo-r4. In my case problem was udev loading kernel serial modules before lirc_serial, so occupying ttyS0 (I use this one for lirc).  I need the kernel serial driver for the second port, so the solution of not loading kernel driver is not valid.

Found solution in topic  lirc_serial not working with new udev [SOLVED]

```
 1. emerge setserial 

 2. Uncomment this line in /etc/modules.d/lirc 

 

     pre-install lirc_serial setserial /dev/ttyS0 uart none

```

Regards,

Luis

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