V1.20 Ubuntu Noble Release Doesn't find RTL-SDR v4 as a source

[jnorrid]

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Hardware

• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz
• RAM: 32GB
• GPU: MSI NVIDIA 1080
• SDR: Local RTL-SDR V4 - Drivers installed correctly and rtl_test functions fine.

Software

• Operating System: Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble) Fully updated as of today (08/25/2024)
• SDR++: 1.20 for Ubuntu Noble (24.04) pulled from repo releases page on 08/25/2024

Bug Description I followed all instructions to install the RTL-SDR V4 drivers including blacklisting prior versions of the driver. I can confirm that the RTL-SDR V4 dongle is properly functioning with rtl_test as well as with GQRX on this machine. When I install SDR++ from the releases page for 1.20 using the Ubuntu Noble .deb file, the application comes up fine, however, the RTL-SDR does NOT show up as an available source - it is simply not in the pick list.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Install RTL-SDR V4 drivers on a clean machine including proper blacklisting of prior drivers.
2. Reboot the system so that all changes take effect.
3. Install and run SDR++ from the 1.20 releases page for Ubuntu Noble after connecting the dongle and running rtl_test.

Only If SDR++ fails to lauch or the SDR fails to start: Run SDR++ from a command line window with special parameters:

• On Windows, open a terminal and cd to SDR++'s directory and run .\sdrpp.exe -c (if running SDR++ version 1.0.4 or older, use -s instead, though you should probably update SDR++ instead...)
• On Linux: Open a terminal and run sdrpp -c
• On MacOS: Open a terminal and run /path/to/the/SDR++.app/Contents/MacOS/sdrpp -c Then, post the entire logs from start to after the issue. DOT NOT truncate to where you think the error is...

Screenshots Add any screenshot that is relevant to the bug (GUI error messages, strange behavior, graphics glitch, etc...).

Additional info I am wondering if the RTL-SDR V4 was somehow left out of the soapysdr plugins for this build, just a wild guess. Again, GQRX works fine and I am able to tune, get waterfalls, enable hardware AGC, etc. so I know that this is not a Linux driver issue.

[AlexandreRouma]

show the logs

[AlexandreRouma]

And also exactly which drivers did you install, link to them. Without checking I bet it's a varient of the osmocomm ones that have a different major version which won't link to SDR++ because it was compiled for the version that ships with the OS.

[jnorrid]

I built the drivers per the "Getting Started With Linux" section of the RTL-SDR V4 online documentation here: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-quick-start-guide/

The relevant "Getting Started With Linux" section explains the process. Based on the GH link in this procedure, the source for the drivers gets cloned locally from: https://github.com/rtlsdrblog/rtl-sdr-blog

After removing (dpkg --purge <name of deb file) and re-installing, now everything works and RTL-SDR shows up. I am going to try this on a couple other machines in my shop and will come back if any issues. Only thing I can think is that Noble is a TERRIBLE release and I had several packages that were stuck in phasing for update. Between attempts today, I performed a sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade for all of my repos, so perhaps there was a package in there that was malfunctioning. NOBLE has been the most unreliable LTS release I have seen in 12 years. Thank you for your patience.

[AlexandreRouma]

I'll assume this was a messed up install, probably because the drivers were installed on top of the existing ones. I haven't gotten any other reports of issues on Noble in the few months that the deb has been available.