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[HowTo] Native FrontRow without any illegal hacks? It is easy :)

Kyrie1965

By Kyrie1965,
in Tutorials (The Genius Bar)

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ppan76
ppan76
Posted
Posted
to get it working with your keyboard ( all generic keyboards ) you can follow "Case 2" on this guide. you just edit the IOUSBFamily.kext and it works. For example with the openfrontrow.app you find with google. for some more detailed instructions you can visit my blog post.

 

regards, tom.

 

 

What about laptop keyboards?

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Sion
Sion
Posted
Posted

I have the Front bow installed on my Hacintosh.

 

However,I can not play my music or podcast.

 

For example,When I choose the podcasts,what I get is "There are no podcasts in your iTune library"

 

Did anyone encountered the similar situation?

 

It is just weird...

 

Any advice will be appreciated.

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Kaspers
Kaspers
Posted
Posted
to get it working with your keyboard ( all generic keyboards ) you can follow "Case 2" on this guide. you just edit the IOUSBFamily.kext and it works. For example with the openfrontrow.app you find with google. for some more detailed instructions you can visit my blog post.

 

regards, tom.

 

Case 1 works here.

Your the man.. :)

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68030
68030
Posted
Posted (edited)

hm, interesting, i had a working 10.4.8 install before i tried to install front row :P

 

once i did install 1.2.1 i got 4 entries in system preferences that would crash as soon

as i tried opening them:

- security

- display

- keyboard / mouse

- sound

 

so then i went for the update of 1.3

installed that via pacifist, editet the kext to fit my mouse prod & vendor id, tested

kextload (and it show a working & valid message). then rebooted.

and now i barely get to see osx, once the screen is fully loaded with dock and all,

the screen turns black for a second, then blue and has this rotating circle on it.

after that it goes, at times, back for another second to the regular desktop or -

in most cases, to the blue screen, then the rotating circle appears, then blue screen,

then rotating circle... you get the drift.

 

this is a wee bit annoying to say the least :thumbsup_anim:. besides i can only run osx now in

safe mode, booting with -x. otherwise i get this neverending blue screen routine.

 

tia for any clues

 

/edit

ok, finally got rid of that annoying blue screen stuff and fixed the system preferences

too. to get rid of the blue screen i manually removed the frontrowpass.kext from the

extensions folder and the frontrow.app from coreservices, erasing the kextcaches

after that. then sort of "reinstalled" the 1.21 version i had lying around, following it

with the 1.3 and using the andrew escobar method. downloaded the 10.4.8 intel

update (205 mb DOH for the two small bits i actually needed - the bezel-ones),

installed those two via pacifist, rebootet et voila my system preferences work again

without crashing or closing (as before, yay). though the prefs are still lacking the

options for frontrow. hmmm

 

so what remains to do is actually get front row running :P

 

/edit 2

i tried to implement the frontrowpass.kext again, no more of the endless rebooting,

but still. the kextload test says it is valid and working, but still the frontrowpass.kext

doesn't show up in extensions in the system profiler - and naturally front row doesn't

work. also there's no entries in sound and keyboard hinting at a successful install of

it. DOH. what am i missing?

Edited by 68030
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68030
68030
Posted
Posted (edited)

ok double post, i know. but still.

i finally got it to work. judging by what the sys profiler tells me, i'm running front row 1.21,

so i'm not entirely sure if i do feel lucky and want to risk installing the 1.3 :poster_oops:

 

so now i followed this link: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?sto...006110314322775

and did what they said i should, well sort of:

 

first i got the plist-editor they have linked in there

and that is a help, because if my xml is not too far off, some of the kexts i have edited should

not have been working before i got my hands on them in the first place due to more closing

then opening tags.

anyway, my system is an asus p5w dh deluxe, with an e6600 cpu, an apple usb keyboard and

a microsoft intellimouse (pos, but that's just my opinion). so at first i tried editing the frontrow-

pass.kext to add the vendor id, etc.. but that never worked. "no remote detected" or similar.

 

so i did some investigating on my own in terminal:

 

ioreg -l -w 0 | grep -i usb

 

that puts out quite a bunch of text... go look for something with your mouse-name in it. for me

this was it:

 

| | | +-o Microsoft IntelliMouse® Explorer@1d100000 <class IOUSBDevice, registered, matched, active, busy 0, retain count 26>

| | | | | "IOUserClientClass" = "IOUSBDeviceUserClient"

| | | | | "USB Product Name" = "Microsoft IntelliMouse? Explorer"

| | | | | "USB Vendor Name" = "Microsoft"

| | | | | "IOCFPlugInTypes" = {"9dc7b780-9ec0-11d4-a54f-000a27052861"="IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBLib.bundle"}

| | | | | "USB Address" = 2

 

crosscheck with what the system profiler tells you regarding your usb setup (especially what is

listed as mouse, might give you a hint what to look in that huge output of the above command.

 

see in the next to last line "IOUSBFamily.kext/...."? that is what got me looking at that. so i knew

that it must be somewhere in that kext. so then i followed what was labeled "CASE 2" in the *link*

mentioned above although i *DO NOT* have a logitech mouse and also am not using their driver,

but a microsoft intellimouse. i did the same edits in IOUSBFamily.kext -> IOUSBHIDDriver.kext

they said to do. saved all that, even did do the "get info" change owner stuff that way, and later

verified all of that via the terminal:

 

sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext

sudo kextload -v /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext

sudo kextload -t /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext

 

that told me that this kext is finally ok and valid. an earlier edit with texteditor in another file of

that kext got me no keyboard and usb on boot - quite annoying, that.

 

so then only the Extensions.kextcache and .mkext remained to be deleted and off to a reboot.

and lo and behold... i hesitantly snooped around system preferences for keyboard / mouse

and for the first time all day today got to see front row listed there.. same in sound, so then i

just had to do the magic hotkey combo and ... well it worked.

 

the only one thing i can tell you is.. this was quite a pain in the a** to get this thing running,

but the satisfaction after almost 8hrs of fiddling is quite something :P. i guess it'll be faster

next time hehe

of course this one is running with the frontrowpass.kext deleted, because it is no longer needed

Edited by 68030
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ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ
ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ
Posted
Posted (edited)

 

I used the same link, and im on a mac pro. No matter wht i do i cant get it to work. Ive got both a logitech mx1000 and an apple pro mouse so ive tried both cases from the website. Nothing happens, no keyboard short cut or sound options for frontrow. Ive also tried the front row from my install disc and the newest from the apple website.

 

Anyone got any ideas?

 

Thanks

 

EDIT- Upon performing case two from the link this shows up in system profiler:

IOUSBHIDDriver:

 

Version: 2.6.0

Last Modified: 17/08/2006 03:11

Get Info String: 2.6.0, Copyright © 2000-2006 Apple Computer Inc., All Rights Reserved

Location: /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBHIDDriver.kext

kext Version: 2.6.0

Load Address: 0x562000

Valid: Yes

Authentic: Yes

Dependencies: Incomplete

Dependency Errors:

com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily: No valid version of this dependency can be found

Integrity: Kext is modified

Edited by Smoothy Boothy
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ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ
Posted
Posted (edited)
I think you need a wired mouse.

 

Well that thought crossed my mind which is why i used case 1 aswell for a wired pro mouse. Getting annoying now. :(

 

EDIT- well i dug out my mighty mouse and front row worked! But i dnt use the mighty mouse, is there anyway to get it to use the apple wired keyboard as the HIDRemote?

 

EDIT2- Even if wireless mice dnt work i still shouldnt be getting the kext error. I can understand bluetooth mice not working but when the mouse has its own dongle it should work because its just looking for present hardware which the dongle is, or have i got the complete wrong end of the stick?

Edited by Smoothy Boothy
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68030
68030
Posted
Posted

i got a kext error too at one point, like i said above. it would go into the eternal blue

screen cycle afterwards. that is after i checked the kext with kextload -t and got the

error, but nevertheless rebooted the machine.

could it be that you messed up with the editing of the kext? i know i did - somehow.

i just don't know what went wrong. i only know i did the same thing again, taking a

clean (as in unaltered) kext and used the plist editor on it... that worked for me.

 

i'm not sure about what you mean with the dongle, but that might not be enough to

do the trick, like it's more of a converter sort of (if you get my drift - unless i'm totally

off the mark here)

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ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ
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Posted (edited)
i got a kext error too at one point, like i said above. it would go into the eternal blue

screen cycle afterwards. that is after i checked the kext with kextload -t and got the

error, but nevertheless rebooted the machine.

could it be that you messed up with the editing of the kext? i know i did - somehow.

i just don't know what went wrong. i only know i did the same thing again, taking a

clean (as in unaltered) kext and used the plist editor on it... that worked for me.

 

i'm not sure about what you mean with the dongle, but that might not be enough to

do the trick, like it's more of a converter sort of (if you get my drift - unless i'm totally

off the mark here)

 

68030 could you possibly send me a 'clean' kext? or your working 'case 2' kext?

 

I think your right about the dongle being a converter, as it converts the wireless RF to physical instructions, but the whole point of this hack is tricking the program (front row) into thinking that a plugging in usb device is a remote control.

Edited by Smoothy Boothy
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Jeezoflip
Jeezoflip
Posted
Posted

ah, i finally got it to work after all this time. But i have to keep the mouse plugged in as usb. I usually have it plugged into a usb to ps/2 converter because a) i dont have a lot of usb slots in the black of my comp, and B) when i use the usb mouse interface on mac, its kinda of, not laggy, but less sensitive. So even if i change the tracker speed in sys prefs, its still like that. So if i want to use front row, i have to plug my mouse in usb. Anyway around that?

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ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ
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Posted
ah, i finally got it to work after all this time. But i have to keep the mouse plugged in as usb. I usually have it plugged into a usb to ps/2 converter because a) i dont have a lot of usb slots in the black of my comp, and :) when i use the usb mouse interface on mac, its kinda of, not laggy, but less sensitive. So even if i change the tracker speed in sys prefs, its still like that. So if i want to use front row, i have to plug my mouse in usb. Anyway around that?

 

I dont believe there is. This hack tricks front row into lanching by making it think that your usb mouse is the apple remote/reciever.

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68030
68030
Posted
Posted
68030 could you possibly send me a 'clean' kext? or your working 'case 2' kext?

 

I think your right about the dongle being a converter, as it converts the wireless RF to physical instructions, but the whole point of this hack is tricking the program (front row) into thinking that a plugging in usb device is a remote control.

 

hey,

of course i could do that, but that kext should be on the install disk (dvd or whatever) anyway,

so you may as well take it from there. also for convenient editing i really suggest to get the

plist editor.. it's a nifty little tool - and makes the editing biz real easy (link on macosxhints page).

 

on another note i managed to get front row 1.3 to run on my other machine as well, pentium m

760 on asus ct479 adapter on asus p4gd1 (i915 pcie) with gf6600 (qe/ci work, single screen

only - not that i mind though). the problem with this 2nd install was that i am using a cherry

keyboard and a noname brand mouse, both usb, on it. in 'about this mac' there was no name

given for either, it appeared rather pathetically and just gave a product id and vendor id, not

even showing whether it was a mouse or a keyboard:

i got

prod id: 0x0001 (for both actually!!!)

vendor id: 0x046a and 0x062a

 

so i used enabler to install the fr 1.3 update, patch didn't work. i then copied frontrow.app

from /sys.../lib.../coreservices to applications folder - no problems in sys preferences this

time though (sound, keyboard/mouse, security not crashing after install).

so then i took the so far untouched IOUSBFamily.kext of that install and went according to

case 2 (using plist editor):

 

"Unfold Root -> IOKitPersonalities. Select Generic Keyboard, then click on New Child button.

Change the New item key to HIDRemoteControl, select it (HIDRemoteControl) and change

its class from string to boolean (value = true)."

 

rebooted et voila, front row is running.

 

only annoying thing is that i cannot really play dvds with it. even in windowed mode, the

dvd player app gives me 100% cpu load and i get a slideshow.. that is on a 2ghz pentium m

that *should* be able to handle that. but that must be some other problem, possibly sse3

emulation or something (seeing how it can handle fullscreen divx video in quicktime rather

easy with way less cpu load %)

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ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ
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Posted (edited)

Yeh, i would appreciate if you would attach the edited one. Is it possible to just edit the AppleIRController.kext. It has the productID and vendorID so couldnt you just put the ones of your mouse/keyboard in there?

 

EDIT- Well tried that and it didnt work for my mouse

Edited by Smoothy Boothy
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Well ive given up with the mathod from that site, cannot get it to work, either no front row or no front row or keyboard or mouse. I tried using the frontrowpass.kext which i cant get to work either! When i try to load it up i get this error: kextload: /Users/Smoothy/System/Library/Extensions/FrontRowPass.kext: no such bundle file exists

can't add kernel extension System/Library/Extensions/FrontRowPass.kext (file access/permissions) (run kextload on this kext with -t for diagnostic output). Whts funny is that it isnt in my user library, its in /system/library/extensions. Does anybody know how to get a full vendor id from an apple keyboard? Mine ends in ac (apple computer) and the decimal value is like 157 much smaller than any others ive converted. Thanks in advance for any help!

 

EDIT: Well in the first post the guy missed out a /. So i added that, it loaded but i still cannot load front row. Argh

 

EDIT 2: After many stressful hours i finally got front row to work. I have a logitech mx1000 which is wireless. I edited /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBHIDDriver.kext/Info.plist. I added 

<key>HIDRemoteControl</key>
<true/>

to the plist using text editor, so it looked like this 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key>
<string>English</string>
<key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
<string>IOUSBHIDDriver</string>
<key>CFBundleGetInfoString</key>
<string>2.6.0, Copyright © 2000-2006 Apple Computer Inc., All Rights Reserved</string>
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string>com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver</string>
<key>CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion</key>
<string>6.0</string>
<key>CFBundleName</key>
<string>I/O Kit Driver for USB HID  Devices</string>
<key>CFBundlePackageType</key>
<string>KEXT</string>
<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>2.6.0</string>
<key>CFBundleSignature</key>
<string>????</string>
<key>CFBundleVersion</key>
<string>2.6.0</string>
<key>IOKitPersonalities</key>
<dict>
	<key>Generic Keyboard</key>
	<dict>
		<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
		<string>com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver</string>
		<key>HIDDefaultBehavior</key>
		<string></string>
		<key>IOClass</key>
		<string>IOUSBHIDDriver</string>
		<key>IOProviderClass</key>
		<string>IOUSBInterface</string>
		<key>bInterfaceClass</key>
		<integer>3</integer>
		<key>bInterfaceProtocol</key>
		<integer>1</integer>
		<key>bInterfaceSubClass</key>
		<integer>1</integer>
		<key>HIDRemoteControl</key>
		<true/>
	</dict>
</dict>
<key>OSBundleCompatibleVersion</key>
<string>1.8</string>
<key>OSBundleLibraries</key>
<dict>
	<key>com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily</key>
	<string>1.3</string>
	<key>com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily</key>
	<string>2.6.0</string>
	<key>com.apple.kernel.libkern</key>
	<string>6.0</string>
</dict>
<key>OSBundleRequired</key>
<string>Console</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Drag the plist to the desktop, edit it, save it and drag it back. I Then used 

 sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBHIDDriver.kext

i also used a kextload but i dont think it was needed. Then i deleted the extensions.kextcache and extensions.mkext and rebooted. I have the latest verion of front row and have the logitech control center installed.

I use Remote Buddy with the receiver stated on the iospirit website and an apple remote. Its like frontrow was made for the mac pro.

Edited by Smoothy Boothy
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idividebyzero
idividebyzero
Posted
Posted

Well I had an MX 1000 with logitech drivers installed plus a DiNovo bluetooth keyboard (which isnt supported in OSX but works if you pair it in windows, I just cant use the special buttons) and I tried all the methods here to get front row to work and it never did. I decided to just give up since its not a huge deal to have it working.

 

Well I uninstalled the MX1000 drivers since after I updated quicktime the mouse drivers seemed to be killed. After I uninstalled guess what showed up in the keyboard short cuts? Front Row. Good thing I never reverted the kexts.

 

I guess in order to get the USBHIDdriver thing to work you cant have logitech drivers installed.

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user2
user2
Posted
Posted
Well ive given up with the mathod from that site, cannot get it to work, either no front row or no front row or keyboard or mouse. I tried using the frontrowpass.kext which i cant get to work either! When i try to load it up i get this error: kextload: /Users/Smoothy/System/Library/Extensions/FrontRowPass.kext: no such bundle file exists

can't add kernel extension System/Library/Extensions/FrontRowPass.kext (file access/permissions) (run kextload on this kext with -t for diagnostic output). Whts funny is that it isnt in my user library, its in /system/library/extensions. Does anybody know how to get a full vendor id from an apple keyboard? Mine ends in ac (apple computer) and the decimal value is like 157 much smaller than any others ive converted. Thanks in advance for any help!

 

EDIT: Well in the first post the guy missed out a /. So i added that, it loaded but i still cannot load front row. Argh

 

EDIT 2: After many stressful hours i finally got front row to work. I have a logitech mx1000 which is wireless. I edited /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBHIDDriver.kext/Info.plist. I added 

<key>HIDRemoteControl</key>
<true/>

to the plist using text editor, so it looked like this 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key>
<string>English</string>
<key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
<string>IOUSBHIDDriver</string>
<key>CFBundleGetInfoString</key>
<string>2.6.0, Copyright © 2000-2006 Apple Computer Inc., All Rights Reserved</string>
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string>com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver</string>
<key>CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion</key>
<string>6.0</string>
<key>CFBundleName</key>
<string>I/O Kit Driver for USB HID  Devices</string>
<key>CFBundlePackageType</key>
<string>KEXT</string>
<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>2.6.0</string>
<key>CFBundleSignature</key>
<string>????</string>
<key>CFBundleVersion</key>
<string>2.6.0</string>
<key>IOKitPersonalities</key>
<dict>
	<key>Generic Keyboard</key>
	<dict>
		<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
		<string>com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver</string>
		<key>HIDDefaultBehavior</key>
		<string></string>
		<key>IOClass</key>
		<string>IOUSBHIDDriver</string>
		<key>IOProviderClass</key>
		<string>IOUSBInterface</string>
		<key>bInterfaceClass</key>
		<integer>3</integer>
		<key>bInterfaceProtocol</key>
		<integer>1</integer>
		<key>bInterfaceSubClass</key>
		<integer>1</integer>
		<key>HIDRemoteControl</key>
		<true/>
	</dict>
</dict>
<key>OSBundleCompatibleVersion</key>
<string>1.8</string>
<key>OSBundleLibraries</key>
<dict>
	<key>com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily</key>
	<string>1.3</string>
	<key>com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily</key>
	<string>2.6.0</string>
	<key>com.apple.kernel.libkern</key>
	<string>6.0</string>
</dict>
<key>OSBundleRequired</key>
<string>Console</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Drag the plist to the desktop, edit it, save it and drag it back. I Then used 

 sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBHIDDriver.kext

i also used a kextload but i dont think it was needed. Then i deleted the extensions.kextcache and extensions.mkext and rebooted. I have the latest verion of front row and have the logitech control center installed.

I use Remote Buddy with the receiver stated on the iospirit website and an apple remote. Its like frontrow was made for the mac pro.

 

 

Hats off to you for this one. I edited the IOUSBHIDDriver.kext as you suggested, added the device and vendor id of my ehome ir receiver to AppleIRController.kext and FrontRow is working perfectly with my Apple branded remote. Although, I still had to install Mira for it to work.

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ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ
ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ
Posted
Posted
Hats off to you for this one. I edited the IOUSBHIDDriver.kext as you suggested, added the device and vendor id of my ehome ir receiver to AppleIRController.kext and FrontRow is working perfectly with my Apple branded remote. Although, I still had to install Mira for it to work.

 

I use remote buddy so i didnt need to change the AppleIRController.kext. You should download the demo, its great!

 

idividebyzero i have the logitech drivers installed with front row working.

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