remoshockFrequently asked Questions and answers
⚠️ Risks
Is playing with electricity dangerous?
Yes, it is. Please see Warning.
Should I play with electricity?
No, you should not. Please see Warning.
🔧 About the project
Where can I find documentation and source code?
- Documentation: https://remoshock.github.io
- Source Code: https://github.com/remoshock/remoshock
How do I report bugs, feature requests and patches?
Please use the GitHub issue tracker at https://github.com/remoshock/remoshock.
✔️ Requirements
Will remoshock work on Microsoft Windows?
remoshock works on Linux only. Ubuntu 2022.04 is used for testing.
Which receivers are supported?
- PAC collars (compatible with ATX and DTX remote, tested with ACX)
- Petrainer
- Patpet T150
- Wodondog "Dog Shock Collar"
Please see Receivers for details and photos.
What transmitter hardware do I need?
You need a SDR (software defined radio) device, that
- is able to transmit (most SDRs are receivers only)
- is able to operate on the required frequency (27.195 MHz for PAC)
- is supported by the software Universal Radio Hacker
According to Wikipedia both HackRF and LimeSDR fulfill those requirements. HackRF is used for testing
🔍 Troubleshooting
I am getting strange hardware error messages from my SDR transmitter
Examples for error message:
[CRITICAL::urh_cli.py::on_fatal_device_error_occurred] failed to start tx mode [ERROR::Device.py::log_retcode] HackRF-SETUP [ERROR::Device.py::log_retcode] HackRF-SETUP: HACKRF_ERROR_NOT_FOUND (-5) [ERROR::Device.py::log_retcode] HackRF-SET_SAMPLE_RATE to 2M: HACKRF_ERROR_LIBUSB (-1000)
Please avoid USB hubs and USB extension cables, but connect your SDR directly to your computer. At least USB 2 hubs are known to be too slow to sustain the bit-stream.
Please make sure that your computer is connected to the power network (i. e. don't run your notebook on battery only). A throttled CPU might be too slow to generate the bit-stream for the SDR.
If you run Linux inside of a Virtual Machine on a slow computer, you might experience the same performance problems. VirtualBox only supports USB 1.x in the default installation.
Please see https://www.eltima.com/article/virtualbox-usb-passthrough/ on how to install and enable USB Passthrough support for VirtualBox.
Access to HackRF only works as root
Access to the HackRF hardware only works as root. remoshock crashes with either a segmentation fault or the following error message:
[ERROR::Device.py::log_retcode] HackRF-SETUP: HACKRF_ERROR_NOT_FOUND (-5)
The hackrf_info fails with the following error as a normal user:
hackrf_open() failed: Access denied (insufficient permissions) (-1000)
In order to access the hardware as normal user, a udev rule is needed. Please create the file /etc/udev/rules.d/53-hackrf.rules with the content from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mossmann/hackrf/master/host/libhackrf/53-hackrf.rules
Furthermore please make sure that the user in the group plugdev.
It is not working, why?
Please add the parameter --verbose. It will enable debug logging.
I am in a VirtualBox VM and lsusb does not find my SDR transmitter
Please see https://www.eltima.com/article/virtualbox-usb-passthrough/ on how to install and enable USB Passthrough support for VirtualBox.
In short:
-
apt install virtualbox-ext-pack - add yourself to the vboxuser group
- on the USB settings pages of the virutal machine select USB 3.0 controller and add a filter to allow access to the SDR device
Which setup is used for testing?
I use Ubuntu 2022.04 with a HackRF transmitter, a PAC ACX collar and a brandless Wodondog collar.