SOLVED: rtl_433 exits immediately - DVB driver conflict

[Cyle Sprick]

I was getting "rtl_433 process is not running" errors with weewx 5.1.0. 

The issue: DVB-TV drivers (dvb_usb_rtl28xxu) were claiming my RTL-SDR before rtl_433 could access it. 

The symptom was that the rtl_433 process was stopping immediately as shown in the /var/log/syslog file.

Even though lsmod showed rtl2832_sdr loaded, rtl_test found no devices. 

Claude AI helped me solve this.

Solution: Blacklist the DVB drivers in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rtl-sdr.conf 

# Blacklist DVB drivers to allow rtl-sdr access 

blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu 

blacklist dvb_usb_rtl2832u 

blacklist dvb_usb_v2 

blacklist rtl_2832 

blacklist rtl_2830

And added -d 0 to my weewx.conf file in the SDR section:

[SDR] 

driver = user.sdr 

# Add the device specification: 

cmd = rtl_433 -d 0 -M utc -F json -R 32 -R 40 

# -d 0 specifies the first RTL-SDR device

After reboot, everything works perfectly. 

Environment: Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS, kernel 6.8.0-87-generic, rtl_433 23.11

Hope this helps someone and adds some more real content for future benefit to the community.