Hi all,

 

I'm running DietPi on an Orange Pi Zero 3 (H618, sunxi64), which repackages the
Armbian current-sunxi64 kernel. I use a USB DVB-T2 dongle (HanfTek Astrometa
RTL2832P, VID/PID 15f4:0131) with tvheadend for over-the-air TV. After a routine
update the dongle stopped working entirely, and I tracked the root cause down to
missing kernel modules.

 

## Problem

 

Starting from kernel 6.18.x (package linux-image-current-sunxi64 version
26.05.0-trunk-dietpi1 and all subsequent builds through dietpi5), the following
modules are absent from the kernel package:

 

  - dvb_usb_v2
  - dvb-usb-rtl28xxu
  - dvb_core

 

The USB device is correctly detected at bus level (lsusb, dmesg) but no driver
ever binds to it and /dev/dvb is never created. lsmod | grep dvb returns nothing,
and find /lib/modules/$(uname -r) -iname "*dvb*" only shows RC keymap files
(e.g. rc-dvbsky.ko.xz), not the actual DVB subsystem drivers.

 

lsusb output:

  Bus 004 Device 003: ID 15f4:0131 HanfTek Astrometa DVB-T/T2/C FM & DAB receiver [RTL2832P]

 

dmesg shows the device is enumerated but no driver binds:
  usb 4-1: New USB device found, idVendor=15f4, idProduct=0131, bcdDevice= 1.00
  usb 4-1: Product: dvbt2
  usb 4-1: Manufacturer: astrometadvbt2
  (no further DVB-related messages)

 

## Verified affected range

 

I downloaded and inspected each linux-image-current-sunxi64 .deb from the DietPi
apt repo without installing them, extracted with dpkg-deb -x, and searched for
dvb_usb_v2.ko / dvb-usb-rtl28xxu.ko inside lib/modules/*/kernel/drivers/media/usb/dvb-usb-v2/.

 

Results:

 

  26.05.0-trunk-dietpi1 through dietpi5 (kernel 6.18.x)   → DVB modules ABSENT
  26.02.0-trunk-dietpi8 (kernel 6.12.76)  → DVB modules PRESENT
  26.02.0-trunk-dietpi1 through dietpi7  (kernel 6.12.58–6.12.74) → PRESENT
  25.11.0-trunk-dietpi1 through dietpi3  (kernel 6.12.43–6.12.57) → PRESENT

 

The regression is introduced exactly at the 26.02→26.05 branch transition
(kernel 6.12→6.18).

 

## Kernel config comparison (confirmed)

 

In kernel 6.12.76 (/boot/config-6.12.76-current-sunxi64), the full DVB-USB
subsystem is present and compiled as modules, including:

 

  CONFIG_DVB_CORE=m
  CONFIG_DVB_USB_V2=m
  CONFIG_DVB_USB_RTL28XXU=m
  CONFIG_DVB_USB=m
  (plus ~40 additional DVB USB driver modules)

 

In kernel 6.18.29 (extracted from linux-image-current-sunxi64_26.05.0-trunk-dietpi5_arm64.deb),
grep for DVB_USB and DVB_CORE returns NO output at all — the options are not
present in the config file, not even as "# CONFIG_DVB_USB_V2 is not set".

 

This confirms the entire DVB-USB subsystem was dropped from the sunxi64-current
kernel config when the 6.18.x branch was opened, not selectively disabled.

 

## Hardware

 

  Board:           Orange Pi Zero 3 (Allwinner H618, sun50i-h618)
  Dongle:          HanfTek Astrometa DVB-T/T2/C FM & DAB receiver [RTL2832P]
                          VID/PID 15f4:0131
  Kernel broken:   6.18.29-current-sunxi64
                               GCC 13.3.0 (aarch64-linux-gnu), build date 2026-03-05
  Kernel working:  6.12.76-current-sunxi64

 

USB device descriptor (from lsusb -v):
  idVendor           0x15f4 HanfTek
  idProduct          0x0131 Astrometa DVB-T/T2/C FM & DAB receiver [RTL2832P]
  bcdDevice            1.00
  iManufacturer           1 astrometadvbt2
  iProduct                2 dvbt2
  bNumConfigurations      1
  bNumInterfaces          2
  MaxPower              500mA

 

## Workaround

 

Downgrading to linux-image-current-sunxi64=26.02.0-trunk-dietpi8 restores DVB
support. Package pinned with apt-mark hold to prevent auto-upgrade.

 

Note: the downgrade via apt-get install --allow-downgrades correctly swapped
the kernel image and initrd, but did NOT regenerate the /boot/dtb-<version>/
directory nor update the /boot/dtb symlink — it was left pointing to the now-removed
newer kernel's dtb directory, causing a boot failure. The dtb files had to be
manually copied from /usr/lib/linux-image-6.12.76-current-sunxi64/allwinner/ and
the symlink fixed by hand. This may be worth a separate look at the postinst/postrm
scripts for the kernel downgrade case on sunxi64.

 

## Requested fix

 

Please re-enable CONFIG_DVB_USB_V2=m, CONFIG_DVB_USB_RTL28XXU=m, CONFIG_DVB_CORE=m
and their dependencies in linux-sunxi64-current.config for the 6.18.x branch.
These were present throughout the entire 6.12.x series and there is no apparent
reason to drop them.

 

Thanks for the great work on Armbian!

moved to off-topic

neither a supported device nor about Armbian.