[Q] Regular XBMC crash - Fire TV Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello All,
I was wondering if anyone experience regular crash with XBMC when loading several videos back to back? Say for instant, I would finish watching 4 episodes and load up the fifth video, XBMC crash back to the FTV home-screen. I tested out loading any five videos and it does the same. Seem like XBMC is not releasing the memory back to android and just crash.
But then again, I have no idea either but just speculating.

Mine does this also, hopefully 13.2 has the fix.
Sent from my Nexus 7²

Related

XBMC Maintenance

Good Morning,
I have been running XBMC on my fire tv for about 2 months now and everything has been running smoothly.
I am on Gotham 13.2.
Recenlty though, my streams have become sluggish and distorted.
The picture will break up and sometimes stop.
The cache is running at about 60mb, and there is over 2gb of storage left on the box.
Is there anything i should be doing on a regular basis to help the system run better ?
How does everyone shut xbmc down when not in use ?, i just use the FTV launcher to take it to the normal screen and it goes to sleep from there ?
Thanks
Pete

[Q] Buffering Issue

Got the Amazon fire TV one week back and its not rooted, but Installed XBMC.
When I try to watch a video on you tube after 5 to 10 minutes, it starts buffering and the video doesnt play afterwards, I have to go back and open it againa, and forward it to the original place and watch it, again after 5 minutes samethign happens..
Same with XBMC, after 5 minutes video buffers, but after couple of minutes if click play button video resumes, but after couple of minutes buffering starts...
I watch youtube on my laptop or chromecast, it works perfectly , so i dont think there is any problem with wifi. Also I have download speeds of 20MBPS +
Is it because of faulty device or anythign else. Yestereday i cleared youtube apps data, still the problem continues.. Please suggest me how can I resolve it??
TIA
I can't help but blame and jab qualcomm with a stick when it comes to Fire TV problems.
Especially Fire TV is stuck with older v5x instead of v66.
I have my own video issues where it fails entirely.
After long enough,videos completely refuse to work (error ocurred) on YouTube and many others until I restart with ctrl+alt+delete hotkeys.
I haven't seen it happen in quite a while though since modding several minor aspects with various performance tweaks.
I talked to staples, they are sending me a new device, but looking at the problems that people have, the new device may not solve the problem... Lets see..

Netflix, WatchESPN get stuck at 99% and needs reboot to watch.

Hello,
I have a newest pre rooted rom on my FireTV with XBMC running the newest Netflix app (White Icon with red letters).
I am using FiredTV for a launcher and tend to use XBMC, Netflix, WatchESPN, and Slingplayer Tablet. I have been having a problem where the video won't play on certain apps and the circle keep spinning.
XBMC always works for videos. However NETFLIX, WatchESPN will get stuck especially if the FireTV has shut off. I need to reboot the FireTV to get these apps to work again. Shutting down the app and reopening it has no effect.
Also SlingPlayer will load SD quality but once I put HQ quality it won't show any video. A reboot is needed to fix it.
Anyone have this problems also?
Is there a way to get the FireTV to reboot daily automatically?
exit/close your xbmc before using espn or netflix app
yazyazoo said:
Hello,
I have a newest pre rooted rom on my FireTV with XBMC running the newest Netflix app (White Icon with red letters).
I am using FiredTV for a launcher and tend to use XBMC, Netflix, WatchESPN, and Slingplayer Tablet. I have been having a problem where the video won't play on certain apps and the circle keep spinning.
XBMC always works for videos. However NETFLIX, WatchESPN will get stuck especially if the FireTV has shut off. I need to reboot the FireTV to get these apps to work again. Shutting down the app and reopening it has no effect.
Also SlingPlayer will load SD quality but once I put HQ quality it won't show any video. A reboot is needed to fix it.
Anyone have this problems also?
Is there a way to get the FireTV to reboot daily automatically?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok I will try that tonight!
yazyazoo said:
ok I will try that tonight!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup that solved my problem by closing XBMC.
closing xbmc (actually running spmc) works for netflix....but i am still having issues with sling tv. i get stuck on buffering until i reboot the fire tv. anyone else seeing this?
Slingtv software is still in very beta stages. Firetv app doesnt get updated as much as the android and pc versions.
On firetv.
Slingtv regularly closes sometimes.
When that issue is happening test it on android and check if the same is happening. sometimes the service just laggeds down as a whole.
Slingtv is working better for me with latest update and on USB/HDD. also slingtv requires is disk space intensive.

[Q] Subtitles cause video playback stutter in kodi/xbmc

Hi all
Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this issue. Sometimes when subtitles are enabled in kodi, the video very noticeably stutters on my AFTV. It doesn't happen all the time, but will happen eventually and once it does, it will stay like that until I restart the Fire TV OR sometimes only fix is to restart my Ubuntu file server.
I read over at the kodi forums that peeps on lower CPU boxes have this issue, but there was no solution and the post was from 2 years ago.
This happens to me on SPMC, Gotham and latest Helix. It's a fairly recent issue (last 2 months) as I never noticed it when I first got the AFTV back in July. I also tried both nfs and smb and fiddling with buffer and cache sizes.
It's either a server issue or an AFTV/kodi issue and I can't work out why and what to do. I'm running latest pre-rooted firmware.
Any others with this issue and any solutions?
Cheers
Well in case anyone else is experiencing this, I found a solution that works for me. SPMC 13.4.0 seems to be working flawlessly. The previous version was not. Hope that helps someone somewhere.

Thinking of Returning My Shield TV. Please Help

I'm getting ready to cancel my cable and are going to stream most of my content. I have a 1st generation chromecast that I have had for years. It performs pretty well, but since I will be streaming more of my content, I wanted a remote (other than my phone) and a UI. Nearly every review I read said that Shield is easily the most powerful and capable streaming box. I've had mine for about a week now and are having serious doubts. I hope that some of you can help.
First off, I knew going in that there are not as many Android TV apps as there are Roku channels. I also knew that apps could be sideloaded, so I didn't consider this that big of an issue. However, I'm noticing more and more that sideloading apps is pointless. I sideloaded the Cinemax app. After installing it, I can't do anything. I guess since it was made for a touchscreen, I can't use the arrows on the remote to select anything. I also tried sideloading the Charter Spectrum app. Same thing, I can't select anything. Even though this is not Nvidia's fault, I also can't use HBO GO, as Charter Spectrum allows me to sign in on an android mobile device, but not an Android TV, which makes absolutely no sense to me. I know that I can use my phone and cast to the Shield, which brings me to my next problem.
It seems that when I cast to the Shield using my phone, the stream is not smooth. It kind of stutters every few seconds. My internet speed is not great, but I don't have this problem when streaming to my old chromecast. I have tried them back to back with the same results. Also, on my last attempt to cast HBO Go on the Shield, along with stuttering, it paused itself. I went to my phone and hit play again. A few minutes later, the same thing. I thought it may be my internet connection, but I switched the cast over to the old chromecast and never experienced a single problem.
The remote seems to freeze up pretty often as well. If I watch something for a few minutes and then try to use the remote, it is unresponsive for several seconds, if not a minute.
I don't know if it is a problem with the apps or the Nvidia. Although it hasn't done it in the past day or 2, the Netflix app was freezing after only a few seconds of opening. In the middle of scrolling titles, the app would freeze and the entire Shield would seem to freeze with it. No buttons on the remote would work for several minutes. The FXNow app was also acting up. When browsing movie titles, some thumbnails would not show up and when clicking other titles, it brought up a different movie than the thumbnail. The Youtube app seems extremely slow to open. After clicking the app on the homescreen, I watch the spinning wheel for at least 10 to 15 seconds before the app opens.
Lastly, I was a little disappointed in the voice search. I used the microphone to search for a movie that I knew was streaming on one of my apps. However, it only showed me results to buy the movie on Google play. I had hoped that it would browse your apps to see if it was available free before showing results to buy.
I know this post is extremely long, but I am hoping some of you can help fix these issues. I have a hard time believing that a device as powerful as the Shield suffers from these simple problems. Most of which, the 5 year old chromecast still performs well.
I would either install full android or return the shield. Me personally, I have been running full android for over a year and will never go back to stock.
What are the benefits of running full android? I imagine you gain access to the full play store, but will apps actually work?
Yes. Full Android lets you run both normal and TV apps. There are a few that may not work, but I haven't run into any major problems so far. One other thing - to get the full use out of it, you will need a mouse and keyboard such as the Logitech K400.
I just run the stock nvidia android TV rom but I have a wireless mouse attached. That lets me run the majority of sideloaded apps that require touchscreen input, but I get to keep the custom shield programs and apps that make use of the regular remote. It's the best solution for me.
I have had mine for 4 weeks and love it for several reasons:
- I use youtube TV and YoutTube TV is not supported on Roku
- It is fast (I do not have the problem you describe with YouTube)
- I like my 4K picture
Other people love the Shield because of Kodi, but I do not use Kodi, so I cannot comment about it.
Having said that, if you are not using YouTube TV, Kodi, do not get into gaming, and/or do not care to run stock Android, I think you are better off with a Roku 4K and you will be fine. You can probably get 2 Roku 4Ks for the price of a Shield and it will have all the channels you ever want.
Again, for me it was YouTubeTV, Netflix, Amazon, HBO GO (works great for me), WatchESPN, Hulu, Vudu. Hulu does not support profiles in Android TV yet, but everything else works great and fast for me.

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