[Q] Updating Kodi library on FireTV - Fire TV Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Running Kodi, everything is great EXCEPT
I still have SABnzbd and Sickbeard running on my old OpenElec box. (Also my Plex server). I have it set to update Kodi when a new show is downloaded, but it seems that Kodi is not receptive unless it is the running application. Is there anyway I can have FireTV continue to run Kodi, even if I am watching Amazon Prime?
Right now, I have it set to scan the for new files upon start, but that takes a while, and I want to watch Brooklyn 99 NOW dammit
I think the answer is leaving Kodi running when I am not using the FireTV, but someone might have a better option.

If you still have OpenElec running all the time on another box, just setup MySQL & Library Auto Update on it, and sync your AFTV install library to it. This way no library updates are ever required on the client machines.
The "same version" warning is more about builds than forks. I use it + path substitutions with several 13.2 variants (also tested with Kodi RC3) and it works quite well as long as the database server doesn't sleep
This type of setup also makes browsing XBMC/Kodi library on AFTV much snappier

I was thinking the oposite
I have the stick and its always on...even with the tv off.
Im going nuts trying to get my library with the shortcuts on home page

Related

Got a FTV and PVR problem hopefully you can help?

I have a FTV rooted with many sideloaded apps including xbmc launcher, XPosed and many more. I am running 13.1 xbmc. It runs everything great! It runs everything very smoothly! I really love my modded FTV! I just have one issue I need your help with. I have one channel from within LIVE TV that will not open and play correctly! I have WMC and ServerWMC as my back end on my desktop. WMC on my desktop opens and plays every channel perfectly. Even the XBMC on the same desktop as WMC will open up every channel properly and playback flawlessly. But, on my wired ethernet connected FTV client with 13.1 I have one Live TV channel that will not open properly. It starts with a blank screen with audio playing. Then after about thirty seconds in, the audio will stop too. Then if I open up full screen I get a scrambled mess of a picture. It isn't even a scrambled mess of the live tv picture. It looks like some other XBMC screen! It will only happen on the same one channel. Every other channel opens up quickly and plays flawless 1080p. I have mediacodec disabled as mentioned in other threads, but it still happens on this channel about 90% of the time.
The PVR developer had me disable the automatic deletion of the temp ServerWMC files so I could try to play the muxed files through my SMB share. I recreated the problem and then tried to play the files from the temp ServerWMC file thru my shares. Even when I try to play these .TS and .WTV files thru the share I get the same scrambled mess. I did this same thing with a channel that works perfect and the files played just as if watching from the Live TV menu. If I play the problem .TS and .WTV files on my XBMC on my desktop with WMC they play perfect. He can't figure it out so of course I can't either. There has to be something just not decoding these files from this one channel on the FTV correctly. It is wierd that it will work some 10% of the time!!! I have also tried 13.2, ouya SPMC with the same results. If any of you smart people out there have any ideas I am ready to listen. Luckily it is not a major network channel like ABC or CBS so this is definitely not a deal breaker, but would be great for all the channels to work! Cheers.
apazrjon said:
I have a FTV rooted with many sideloaded apps including xbmc launcher, XPosed and many more. I am running 13.1 xbmc. It runs everything great! It runs everything very smoothly! I really love my modded FTV! I just have one issue I need your help with. I have one channel from within LIVE TV that will not open and play correctly! I have WMC and ServerWMC as my back end on my desktop. WMC on my desktop opens and plays every channel perfectly. Even the XBMC on the same desktop as WMC will open up every channel properly and playback flawlessly. But, on my wired ethernet connected FTV client with 13.1 I have one Live TV channel that will not open properly. It starts with a blank screen with audio playing. Then after about thirty seconds in, the audio will stop too. Then if I open up full screen I get a scrambled mess of a picture. It isn't even a scrambled mess of the live tv picture. It looks like some other XBMC screen! It will only happen on the same one channel. Every other channel opens up quickly and plays flawless 1080p. I have mediacodec disabled as mentioned in other threads, but it still happens on this channel about 90% of the time.
The PVR developer had me disable the automatic deletion of the temp ServerWMC files so I could try to play the muxed files through my SMB share. I recreated the problem and then tried to play the files from the temp ServerWMC file thru my shares. Even when I try to play these .TS and .WTV files thru the share I get the same scrambled mess. I did this same thing with a channel that works perfect and the files played just as if watching from the Live TV menu. If I play the problem .TS and .WTV files on my XBMC on my desktop with WMC they play perfect. He can't figure it out so of course I can't either. There has to be something just not decoding these files from this one channel on the FTV correctly. It is wierd that it will work some 10% of the time!!! I have also tried 13.2, ouya SPMC with the same results. If any of you smart people out there have any ideas I am ready to listen. Luckily it is not a major network channel like ABC or CBS so this is definitely not a deal breaker, but would be great for all the channels to work! Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know little to nothing about these PVR formats, but I'll throw this out there. Since you say it works 10% of the time, perhaps it's related to the current state of the Fire TV. Meaning, which apps are still in memory. I know the Netflix app has major issues if XBMC is, for example, paused on a video and still in memory.
See if force quitting all other apps and rebooting makes it play more reliably.
AFTVnews.com said:
I know little to nothing about these PVR formats, but I'll throw this out there. Since you say it works 10% of the time, perhaps it's related to the current state of the Fire TV. Meaning, which apps are still in memory. I know the Netflix app has major issues if XBMC is, for example, paused on a video and still in memory.
See if force quitting all other apps and rebooting makes it play more reliably.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I went ahead a tried your suggestion of force closing all my other android apps on my FTV and rebooting. You know what it seems to have helped! I have been able to open up that one troublesome Live Tv channel over ten times in a row since then. It is so weird that it only effects one Live TV channel out of the bunch. I really appreciate your suggestion. Seems to be a good temp fix for now!!!!!!
If anyone has any ideas on a permanent fix I am still all ears! Cheers and thanks for your time!
apazrjon said:
I went ahead a tried your suggestion of force closing all my other android apps on my FTV and rebooting. You know what it seems to have helped! I have been able to open up that one troublesome Live Tv channel over ten times in a row since then. It is so weird that it only effects one Live TV channel out of the bunch. I really appreciate your suggestion. Seems to be a good temp fix for now!!!!!!
If anyone has any ideas on a permanent fix I am still all ears! Cheers and thanks for your time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great to hear. Glad I could help!
The Fire TV seems to handle resources a bit inefficiently. I've found that usually when an app is "on and off" working, it's because something is running in the background.
Again, I don't know much about those file formats, but perhaps that one channel is just more difficult to decode then the rest (e.g., higher bitrate or more action). Since force quitting apps worked, it seems like the Fire TV isn't powerful enough for that stream. I think your only permanent fix will be to either reduce that channels quality some how, or find (sideload) an app that can decode it more efficiently.

firetv xbmc mysql issues

Having some interesting issues with my firetv with xbmc that I never had when using an apple tv with xbmc.
I run a mysql server. It is running and XBMC Attaches to it perfectly.
But my issues are that as follows
1. Watched state disappears if fire tv is rebooted
2. cannot resume my movies from where I left off
3. some posters revert to poster I don't even have.
Wondering if anyone has anything I can try to see where the problem is.
Mysql runs on my mac pro, with the xbmc media files store on the hard drives there.
My fire tv uses sources.xml which has all my sources mapped.
Content settings don't stay on my setup for type of content.
My main concern is it is as if the database for xvmc is wiped every time I reboot the fire tv...
This never happened on openelec with my apple tv 1st gen running 13.2 and never happened when on eden on apple tv 1st gen original os, and never happened on xbmc 13.2 on an android mx2 box I had.
Everything was working with resume, watched state, etc on the other systems that ran 13.2, so not sure why the fire tv is doing it.
Fire tv is rooted, updates blocked, boots into XBMC using the xbmc launcher.
Advanced settings file has all the settings and I know it is using it because I have checked and it is using it.
I am at a loss as to why it seems as if my database is constantly resetting on mysql....

[Q] FTV : XBMC / SPMC :: Video playback stops in seconds (Workaround available)

Friends,
I just got a new AFTV and trying to run XBMC but playback is just not working. I have a Gigabit wired connection and most MKVs start playing quickly with sound, but then stop in few seconds. Some run for 25 seconds and others (usually the larger MKVs) freeze and then quit under 10 seconds. Tried disabling hardware acceleration completely as well as with/without below network settings but nothing worked -
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<readbufferfactor>10</readbufferfactor>
<cachemembuffersize>52428800</cachemembuffersize>
Did a factory reset of FTV and ran XBMC with default settings and just 1 video file but didn't help. The same files (shared in Drobo) work great on my HTPC (XBMC). Tried Kodi Alpha and SPMC with video acceleration changes as well but no go.
Here is the log with mediacodec off and then on. All other apps work very well and it's otherwise smooth so want to keep it but I got it primarily for XBMC.
Thanks for any suggestions / pointers.
10/28/2014 Update: See the last post for workaround.
Am I missing something obvious? With so many people successfully running XBMC on FTV there must be something odd in my environment.
Only thing I can think of is maybe a network issue playing off your drobo that the aftv doesn't like. Do files play properly from a local folder copied onto the aftv?
Other than that, there is a known issue with one particular firmware and xbmv, but I don't think that's the case here, Check aftvnews.com for a post about it.
Last suggestion would be to check http://kodi.wiki/view/Amazon_Fire_TV and follow everything there. It was fairly trivial to get it working, so it's odd it's not working for you.
Good luck.
eskay993 said:
Only thing I can think of is maybe a network issue playing off your drobo that the aftv doesn't like. Do files play properly from a local folder copied onto the aftv?
Other than that, there is a known issue with one particular firmware and xbmv, but I don't think that's the case here, Check aftvnews.com for a post about it.
Last suggestion would be to check http://kodi.wiki/view/Amazon_Fire_TV and follow everything there. It was fairly trivial to get it working, so it's odd it's not working for you.
Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks eskay. I too thought it might be Drobo or network related due to the below error in the log -
ERROR: virtual unsigned int XFILE::CSmbFile::Read(void*, int64_t) - Error( -1, 110, Connection timed out )
Installing nfs 1.2.8 as we speak. If that doesn't work will try USB drive and report.
I think I found the problem. Couldn't get NFS to work on Drobo yet but XBMC on FTV works perfectly when I share a directory from my HTPC. So, it's clear that Drobo is the culprit. The HTPC share uses SMB too (Windows 8.1) so it's not specifically to SMB, maybe Drobo's implementation of SMB ...
Couldn't get NFS to work with XBMC on FTV Sad Installed NFS on Drobo 5N and my HTPC can see the directories shared from XBMC (Windows) but not XBMC on FTV. It can see the shared directory (/mnt/DroboFS/Shares/Public) not the files/folders under it. Possobly a bug in NFS code in XBMC for Android and that makes me wonder whether it's really Drobo, or XBMC for Android on FTV ...
An update in case anyone else encounters the same problem with this combination of FTV / Drobo 5N/ Netgear Nighthawk. I couldn't resolve SMB issue and nfs didn't work with XBMC on FTV properly either. I tried SFTP but it was too slow and was buffering too frequently.
I then installed lighttpd with simple directory listing on Drobo and set up XBMC to use HTTP Directory and it worked perfectly. Playback is smooth and I can skip to next chapter without any noticeable delay. Only issue is that I can't delete the files on Drobo. I am going to try WebDAV next but it's not a big issue as I can always remove the watched files from my HTPC, which connects using SMB.
I can watch 3D BluRay ISOs with just acceleration set to "software" and that shows FTV's processing power! Overall I am very happy with XBMC on FTV.

Fire TV as playback device (without internet)?

I know the unit wasn't designed for this, but in theory can a Fire TV or even Fire TV Stick be used to just play back locally stored content?
I'm on the fence to get one of these for my home use (especially seeing it run Kodi/XMBC), but if I could use it for work presentations or backyard projectors, I'd be sold in a heartbeat! To be clear, these are situations in which there is no WiFi signal or device streaming to it... rather, I'd like to have locally stored media that it can play back in either Kodi or the Android version of VLC. Having a nice little device and remote seems far simpler and enjoyable versus hooking up my honking laptop to do those things.
Thoughts?
I was going to just pick up a Stick today for the $24 sale price and figure it out myself, but it appears I was too late. Am I better off with something else?
It should work as a local player with apps like MX Player, Kodi and VLC. Just that the stick has a few gbs of storage that can be used to store movies and to add movies you need to do it wirelessly or through adbfire. The Fire TV box can use HDs which can help with having the movies there. But if a portable player is what you want just use your phone with movies in a microsd, install mx player or Kodi and use a HDMI to microusb cable. That way you always have your player with you and only need that 6 dlls cable.
solorzano_felipe said:
It should work as a local player with apps like MX Player, Kodi and VLC. Just that the stick has a few gbs of storage that can be used to store movies and to add movies you need to do it wirelessly or through adbfire. The Fire TV box can use HDs which can help with having the movies there. But if a portable player is what you want just use your phone with movies in a microsd, install mx player or Kodi and use a HDMI to microusb cable. That way you always have your player with you and only need that 6 dlls cable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Might want to double check that.... In theory you are correct, but in personal experience no internet means no loading of the home menu, meaning can't run anything at all. This may have changed or there may be a way around it, not 100% sure.
Solorzano, the idea is to have a dedicated player, not use my phone. That's why I originally dismissed the idea of a Chromecast... Sometimes I set up these boxes at fundraising events and hand all the hardware over to someone else to project. I'm often handling other technicalities of the event, or not even on location once they play it! I've been using my laptop to feed the presentation until now, but I'd rather not dedicate my laptop to the cause each time.
I'm actually leaning more towards one of those Kit-Kat quad core media boxes from china for this reason. They have USB ports (multiple ones!) and are much faster than the Fire TV Stick, maybe even faster than the Fire TV Box, for half the price. Only catch is that I won't be able to stream Amazon content if I ever wanted to do that at home (looking to make this a dual-purpose work and home purchase), but I think its a better suited device for everything else I want to do.
Thanks guys!
I posted a similar question elsewhere here, one responder stated that if you have Firestarter installed then you can go to that home screen and use apps, even though you can't go to the standard FireTV home screen. I haven't tried it yet, I'm not home where my Stick is.
Regarding a "standard" Android box, I have a Matricom G-box Q, I can watch Amazon videos with it using the Amazon Instant app. It basically takes you to the Amazon Instant home page (I have this defaulted to use Chrome), then when you select a video just choose the Amazon Instant app for playback. I seem to remember it was a little weird to install, something like: I installed it, I ran it, and then during the first run it asks if you want to install the app again, if you do it seems to work.
Terry T, yes with firestarter you can get to kodi. You can also go to the settings manage apps way of launching provided parental control is not on. The pin is verified on Amazons server. However, assuming you at least have wifi with an internet outtage you can also launch Kodi with firestarter, wukong remote or Apps Shortcut for FireTV. These methods bypass the parental PIN number
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Thanks guys! Next question: If I go with the Stick version, which lacks expandable storage or USB storage, is there a relatively easy way to load files onto the internal memory? For example, if I need to play a specific mp4 file at an event, can I sideload it over Wifi at home first, then show up the event and play it with kodi?
Yes, sideload ES File Explorer. You can cut or copy (long press, then the file is selected and options are at the bottom of the screen) from either a shared drive on your network or from a cloud source like Dropbox to the Stick. You will have to tell Kodi or whatever video player you are using where you saved the file.

FireTV Stick and Plex

Stupidly bought a FireTV Stick with the intention of putting it in the offpsrings room so they can watch stuff from my Plex server in their own rooms.
Installed Plex, it wants to activate, £3.99, fair enough, bought it, it then says I can't watch stuff until I activate it, so I try again and it just errors..
Plex forums are about as much use as a fart in a cullender, so ended up here..
Any root or custom ROM options for the stick so it actually becomes useful?
Same LAN network correct?
I've noticed that if Plex uses a WAN address it behaves differently and nags for money. If your on a local network and you've attached to the correct server than you should be good to go.
Maybe you've already done this but make sure you are connected to the correct server and on your local network. And also if the content is HD make sure you are using h.264 encoding. I've noticed the firetv stick struggles with MPEG2 HD.
I've got my Plex server locally with a static as well as the FireTV stick having a static IP, the problem lies in the fact that you cant get Plex to work for more than a minute, says it needs activating, charges you the £3.99 then when you try to play something it again says it needs activating, try to activate it a second time and it errors...
Might have to go down the sideloading Kodi or similar although I would prefer something that just launched straight in rather than having to go into Settings, Apps, Manage Apps then fire kodu up from there, hence the request for some sort of custom ROM...
Trig0r said:
I've got my Plex server locally with a static as well as the FireTV stick having a static IP, the problem lies in the fact that you cant get Plex to work for more than a minute, says it needs activating, charges you the £3.99 then when you try to play something it again says it needs activating, try to activate it a second time and it errors...
Might have to go down the sideloading Kodi or similar although I would prefer something that just launched straight in rather than having to go into Settings, Apps, Manage Apps then fire kodu up from there, hence the request for some sort of custom ROM...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've never had that problem, ate you in the uk? Works gangbusters in the us. I'm also plexpass, so maybe that's why...
Trig0r said:
I've got my Plex server locally with a static as well as the FireTV stick having a static IP, the problem lies in the fact that you cant get Plex to work for more than a minute, says it needs activating, charges you the £3.99 then when you try to play something it again says it needs activating, try to activate it a second time and it errors...
Might have to go down the sideloading Kodi or similar although I would prefer something that just launched straight in rather than having to go into Settings, Apps, Manage Apps then fire kodu up from there, hence the request for some sort of custom ROM...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't say much about plex. I tried it. It was good to very good, depending on my device, but kodi is better in my opinion. However, if that tedious navigation in getting to the app is really your only issue, you can use llama to put it right on the recent section, or boot right to it. Adbfire makes the setup simple. There's also firestarter that allows side loaded apps on the home screen.
I've been using Plex for years and I'm pretty regular on the forums, and I agree, the issue with the repeated activation requirement doesn't seem to fix itself. Here is the most complete thread on the subject (http://forums.plex.tv/discussion/151349/app-already-purchased-but-still-prompting-for-activation/p1), I seem to remember that the main suggestions are (1) do a factory reset on the stick, (2) contact Amazon, and (3) PM one of the Plex devs with your amazon account name and maybe the receipt info from the app purchase (I don't remember the details of that). Like ldeveraux I have a Plexpass membership, that seems to provide the magic to avoid the issue (but I'm not promoting the purchase, the price now is kind of high).
Kodi+PlexBMC+Amber Skin works very well and looks similar to Plex Home Theater, sideloading is pretty easy (http://sideloadfiretv.com/sideload-apps-amazon-fire-tv-windows), and I think it's just a better solution to avoid any issues with surround sound.
Firestarter (http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire-tv/themes-apps/app-root-home-launcher-replacement-app-t3118135) is an awesome app to easily access your sideloaded apps.
Ahh, llama might sort me out then if I can boot the stick straight to Kodi/XBMC, dont have a Plexpass here which might be why its working for you guys and not me..

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