Develop Bugs

[Q] Fire TV in UK

I have an Amazon Fire TV imported from the US,,, Is it possible to use my UK Prime Instant Video account? I can link it up to my UK account (the apps seems to reflect this) but I seem to be seing US Movie/TV content. Also no way to set timezone to UK.
Any views?

(sorry m8 I'd never noticed the default list of TZs was so dang restricted...)

ipxsystems said:
I have an Amazon Fire TV imported from the US,,, Is it possible to use my UK Prime Instant Video account? I can link it up to my UK account (the apps seems to reflect this) but I seem to be seing US Movie/TV content. Also no way to set timezone to UK.
Any views?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi buddy i'm in the same boat as you.... If you figure out how to change the time let me know.

imtiajmeah said:
Hi buddy i'm in the same boat as you.... If you figure out how to change the time let me know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the Netherlands, got this problem as well. Opened the Amazon settings apk, and those few time zones are hardcoded in the app/xml, so looks that amazon doesn't have any outside US plans for now.
Sideloaded a default Android Setting apk, but switching time zones didn't stick, same as via adb shell setprop persist.sys.timezone, so think we'll need to wait for root access to make it stick.

I installed "Time Zone Changer" from the playstore, worked for me, +2 GMT, even after reboot.

ipxsystems said:
I have an Amazon Fire TV imported from the US,,, Is it possible to use my UK Prime Instant Video account? I can link it up to my UK account (the apps seems to reflect this) but I seem to be seing US Movie/TV content. Also no way to set timezone to UK.
Any views?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi there,
So are you saying that you have an amazon.co.uk account, but the Fire TV prime movies on your box are the USA movies? (I think that means you get about 2x as many choices AFAIK... which is fantastic. So is that true?
Also, how about NetFlix, is that UK or USA content?
tx
Mark.

..

JJ-KwiK said:
Everything on the FireTV is region restricted to the US. Including Prime, Netflix and Hulu. If you try from any other region, like UK or Canada as an example, you'll get an error msg when you try to load a video. The only way to get around the error is to use a VPN. So far, vpn apk's, like Hola, don't work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Holy crap, so why are some people buying it in the UK on eBay... Some sellers saying it's UK ready...
Perhaps we'll get lucky with an Android TV announcement at Google IO.
Mark
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Here is my experience so far...
If you use a service like SmartDNS or Unblock-US, you can watch Netflix from anywhere in the world using your UK Netflix account. No need for VPNs. The services costs an extra $5 a month but worth it. Works great on all devices, including my Fire TV.
The service also works a treat for Hulu, but the Fire TV app is for Hulu. This needs a US credit card to subscribe.
For Amazon Instant Video (the pay to rent/buy service), you need a US Amazon.com account and a US credit card. You can use a service like US Unlocked (not to be confused with Unblock-US mentioned above ) which lets you register for a virtual US credit card with a US billing address and works great on Amazon and Vudu. Been using it a few years, but it does require a huge leap of faith to sign up for it - you need to send bank details etc for initial setup. I haven't had any issues so far, but appreciate many won't want to do this.
You can probably also get Amazon.com vouchers but have not tried this for Instant Video . Lots of sites sell them
The kick in the teeth for me is Amazon Prime and not having access to the UK service. On the Fire TV it's not an app that you launch so to speak, it's integrated into the menus. Everything that is served is the US content. Unlike Netflix, which uses the same app to server different content based on your region, Amazon has different apps for each region.
So to get UK Prime content, we need a UK version of the app sideloaded. At least that's my conclusion. The best version would be the Google TV apk (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amazon.avod) and there are some discussion around about ripping it, but I don't think anyone succeeded. We would also need it to be the UK version of the app.
As an example, on PS3, to get UK Prime, I need the app from the US PSN store, and for US Prime you need the one from the US PSN store.
The other challenge is sideloading it. I tried sideloading this Amazon Instant APK just as a test, and I got an error saying com.amazon.avod already installed, which is the main Prime app on the Fire TV. Someone much smarter than me would need to figure out how to change the name of the app/package so it can be installed alongside each other. Even if you could, this app won't work anyway to get UK content (or even work at all with a remote), but it's one step closer if we can get two versions of the Amazon app installed side by side.
Hope that helps someone somewhere It's still a great piece of kit - only thing I'm missing is UK Prime.
Cheers

eskay993 said:
Here is my experience so far...
If you use a service like SmartDNS or Unblock-US, you can watch Netflix from anywhere in the world using your UK Netflix account. No need for VPNs. The services costs an extra $5 a month but worth it. Works great on all devices, including my Fire TV.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does Netflix UK work for you? Mine (also using Unblock Us) does show the content, and can navigate, but will refuse to play movies. It will start loading but then stalls after about 40% loading.
adb logcat gives java cert errors.

JPDeckers said:
Does Netflix UK work for you? Mine (also using Unblock Us) does show the content, and can navigate, but will refuse to play movies. It will start loading but then stalls after about 40% loading.
adb logcat gives java cert errors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm you're right. I've been mostly watching US and only tested accessing UK content, not playing. Tried playing and it stalls at 40%.
As a test, I tried a different Netflix apk that I found and it works fine in terms of playing the movie, but this apk is designed for touchscreen and a bit crappy to use with the Fire TV remote.
So, either it's a bug with v1.0.1 of Netflix which comes with the Fire TV, or it' an extra region check they've added, which sucks. I suspect it's just a bug/restriction of this old version.
If we can find a version Netflix apk that works well with a remote, then this would be solved. Unfortunately most results that come up are for touch screens.
Sooo close to being the perfect box! Hopefully someone can figure out a way round it.
Cheers
UPDATE: Netflix UK now works for me as I mention below.

Unfortunately I haven't found a way around this. I am in the UK and bought a Fire TV whilst in the US. When returning none of the videos play, none of the applications load (apart from the ones I've sideloaded).
It is still useful, as I put XBMC on there but it would be great to be able to use an Amazon Prime UK account or even just set the timezone without faffing about.

boxst said:
Unfortunately I haven't found a way around this. I am in the UK and bought a Fire TV whilst in the US. When returning none of the videos play, none of the applications load (apart from the ones I've sideloaded).
It is still useful, as I put XBMC on there but it would be great to be able to use an Amazon Prime UK account or even just set the timezone without faffing about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Plex works i use it everyday on fire tv,even with the things that dont work yet in the uk for the price and gta games working great it is a brilliant box.

JPDeckers said:
Does Netflix UK work for you? Mine (also using Unblock Us) does show the content, and can navigate, but will refuse to play movies. It will start loading but then stalls after about 40% loading.
adb logcat gives java cert errors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure if it's something I inadvertently did, or something that changed server side at Netflix/Amazon, but Netflix UK now works on my Fire TV! I tried US, Mexico and UK and all movies and TV shows play (no longer get stuck at 40%). Worth trying it again if you were having trouble before.
All that's left now is for the new Netflix client (coming soon later in the year) and for a way to get Amazon UK, and I'm sorted!

eskay993 said:
Not sure if it's something I inadvertently did, or something that changed server side at Netflix/Amazon, but Netflix UK now works on my Fire TV!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed, somewhere around the last firmware update, Netflix started working! Uninstalled the sideloaded version, because this client is actually usable. Now wait for the updated one, but already really helps in usability.

Netflix outside of US?

I'm in Australia and have Netflix working fine on my Roku 3 using a DNS service. But I'm not sure how to install Netflix on the Fire TV. I can't install from the Fire TV app store, as it says I'm in the wrong region (tried with hola in by browser too, but still the same deal).
I sideloaded the standard Netflix app from the play store, but I can't make selections because it's a touch based app, unless there's a workaround for this I don't know about? Also read though, that the quality is limited in this app.
I thought maybe the GTV Netflix app may work? I can't find an apk to test this though.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Im in Bermuda and when i first tried installing netflix i got the wrong region message as well. After i put in my DNS i was able to get it. Dont know why but it worked. Have you tried getting it from the amazon website? You can choose to "deliver" it to your device. You may get lucky.

Thanks for the reply. I've managed to register US amazon.com account, previously amazon was telling me my account was registered on amazon.com.au - so I will try changing the account details on the FireTV tonight and see how it goes.

No problem getting Netflix app on the device after I have a US Amazon account.

Just got a new "old" fire TV. Should I root it?

I've got 4-5 AFTV's set up in my house running XBMC Gotham with a custom skin connected to my LAN serving content off of my NAS. Family loves it.
Want to put one in the car. So...
No network connection
XBMC Gotham
2TB HDD connected to USB port
Can this be done? IE use a FTV without a network connection?, connect a 2TB drive? (I can connect huge drives to my in-house, non-rooted FTV's)
Should I root this box or let it update and will it act like the ones I have in house? I put FiredTV app on the ones in the house to jump to a menu where I can quickly start XBMC. Is there a better way with rooting?
Is there a good resource I should go to to find out about these things?
Thanks for the help.
Roveer

Not sure about this,
but I would think that it will work fine without network connection if you only use the XBMC/Kodi app.
So no root required.

Without a network connection, I think you just get the KFTV Launcher with a lot of blank spots. That is, no complaining popups or crashes.
Even without root, you can use FireStarter to launch Kodi automatically. Root would give you more options as far as using Kodi / SPMC as a launcher replacement, more drive mounting options, and Google Play store.
How are you mounting and reading data off of the hard drive? How is it formatted? I'm only networked, but hooked up a USB 32GB SSD to replace the internal storage. I see that you can use a FAT32 formatted drive for Kodi, but files larger than 4GB need to be in a split RAR archive.
Depending on what firmware the AFTV is on already, or whether it was allowed to update, that may determine whether you can successfully root. Here's the AFTVnews Rooting Starter's Guide.
If you can root, I would do it. You regain control of your device, nothing happens without your approval, and you gain abilities to install and alter things to improve the device that you own.
Also, you may want to look into updating Kodi, as yours is a few versions behind (13 vs. 15.2 stable) - just make sure your skins and add-ons have been updated for use with Isengard.

I would root it and unlock the BL to make it more useful when/if amazon stops adding cool stuff to it.

So I started following the guide that was posted, did all the domain blocking and was having good success. Got to the registration part and the FTV would NOT accept my id & pw. I did some searching and it seems like this device is not registered in Amazon's system. It was strange that when I first booted it it was displaying setup instructions in both english and dutch so I'm guessing this was some sort of export device. I've emailed Amazon support with my MAC address's (as suggested in another post of others having the same problem), and I'll see what I get back. Now, if someone here knows something that I don't, please share.
Thanks,
Roveer

roveer said:
So I started following the guide that was posted, did all the domain blocking and was having good success. Got to the registration part and the FTV would NOT accept my id & pw. I did some searching and it seems like this device is not registered in Amazon's system. It was strange that when I first booted it it was displaying setup instructions in both english and dutch so I'm guessing this was some sort of export device. I've emailed Amazon support with my MAC address's (as suggested in another post of others having the same problem), and I'll see what I get back. Now, if someone here knows something that I don't, please share.
Thanks,
Roveer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's German, not dutch. There is no American/Intl version, they are all the same. But I believe the ones that shipped with the software that presented german and english aren't rootable. @AFTVnews.com is that correct?

German aTV´s had been delivered with a non-rootable firmware from the beginning. I have one aTV of the first batch (day 1 order) and couldn´t root it due to being preprogrammed with the newest firmware at this time which was already the first unrootable version.

When I started the setup it asked me which language and displayed english and dutch but I guess it was in german. I went back to the ebay listing and found that it did not say it was rootable like I had said so I must have been mistaken. Doesn't really matter to me as I'm going to sideload kodi and can use firedtv as my kind of launcher. It doesn't always work, but the family is used to this configuration. I'm going to try and root it just in case I made some sort of mistake. But at this point I can't get past the id/pw stage so I'm going to need Amazon's help. The responded to my email saying I have to call or chat to get further help.
Roveer

rbox said:
It's German, not dutch. There is no American/Intl version, they are all the same. But I believe the ones that shipped with the software that presented german and english aren't rootable. @AFTVnews.com is that correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct. Version 51.1.3.0 was the first software version to include german language option and those are not rootable.
Seeing a language prompt when you first power on a Fire TV is the best way to know if it's not rootable without having to go through the initial setup and get to the home screen to check the software version.

AFTVnews.com said:
Correct. Version 51.1.3.0 was the first software version to include german language option and those are not rootable.
Seeing a language prompt when you first power on a Fire TV is the best way to know if it's not rootable without having to go through the initial setup and get to the home screen to check the software version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So this particular unit which came out of a sealed box refused to register. It just kept saying Sign-in failed. A search of the web produced others with the same problem and a resolution of Amazon having to register the device in their system. Tech support was unwilling to trouble shoot beyond making me do a reset and decided to send me a new unit. When I went back to the eBay auction that I bought it from they had changed the listing and it no longer sayd "rootable". Fortunatly eBay showed me in my purchase history that the listing had been changed and saves the original listing. It clearly said that the unit was rootable. The seller gave me 10 bucks back. I could have fought, I could have returned it, but that would just cause more frustration.
So my hope of getting a rootable unit is pretty much gone. Maybe I'll grab one when everyone wants a 4k gen2. For what I'm trying to do, I can live with a non rootable which is what I have on all my other TV's.
Roveer

Bypass amazon registration?

Hi all,
looking at doing some tv sticks pre loaded with kodi for a few friends and family. I've noticed that each one has to have an amazon account registered to it before you can start using it. I was wondering is there any way to bypass this or is it best to make a bogus account and use that?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Regards

As far as I know, you can't bypass it. Fire TV needs an Amazon account. You can create a new account if you don't want to use an existing account.

What i do is register it under my own account and add everything then go to
settings/my account/amazon account/deregester
Then the person just has to register an amazon account and everything will still be on the stick

@hawkwind666 - I tried that and it didn't seem to work. I am setting up a few sticks for family members as gifts. I only know one of their Amazon accounts and wanted to others to be a surprise. For the one I knew I set it up using my ID and the. Deregistered and signed in as him. When I did Ikono TV was gone and therefore the KODI shortcut.

dogandpig said:
@hawkwind666 - I tried that and it didn't seem to work. I am setting up a few sticks for family members as gifts. I only know one of their Amazon accounts and wanted to others to be a surprise. For the one I knew I set it up using my ID and the. Deregistered and signed in as him. When I did Ikono TV was gone and therefore the KODI shortcut.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Icon will disappear as soon as you deregister unit because Ikono app was purchased under your account. The only way to fix this is to purchase Ikono for each account and then set it up, no way around this.

Use Firestarter to launch Kodi if you want to use a different account after side-loading. Otherwise sign in with the persons account before using the ikono/llama method, else a dummy account (you'll have to enter an address and set it as the one-click default before free apps can be downloaded on the account - no payment info required.)

bwfcfan88 said:
Hi all,
looking at doing some tv sticks pre loaded with kodi for a few friends and family. I've noticed that each one has to have an amazon account registered to it before you can start using it. I was wondering is there any way to bypass this or is it best to make a bogus account and use that?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the big AFTV, if ordered from Amazon, comes already tied to your account. When I fired up my new Fire 7 this weekend, the data for my account was automatically retrieved when I started the tab and hooked to wifi.

85gallon said:
On the big AFTV, if ordered from Amazon, comes already tied to your account. When I fired up my new Fire 7 this weekend, the data for my account was automatically retrieved when I started the tab and hooked to wifi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't believe this applies to the Fire TV or Sticks. However, it is a prompted option when ordering any of their tablets, having ordered both a tablet and a Fire TV in the past month.

Lol. said:
I don't believe this applies to the Fire TV or Sticks. However, it is a prompted option when ordering any of their tablets, having ordered both a tablet and a Fire TV in the past month.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry. I meant to say that my Fire TV was also tied to my account when I got it several months ago. Same with my Fire 7 I just got. The user name and account info were already in both.
I am sure they just tied the serial number to my account when it shipped so when I fired each of them up, they phoned home and did a lookup of the serial and populated my data in each device.

85gallon said:
I'm sorry. I meant to say that my Fire TV was also tied to my account when I got it several months ago. Same with my Fire 7 I just got. The user name and account info were already in both.
I am sure they just tied the serial number to my account when it shipped so when I fired each of them up, they phoned home and did a lookup of the serial and populated my data in each device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's odd, my Fire TV (4k) didn't, it prompted me to login or register on first boot. It wasn't bought from Amazon but it was new, maybe thats why. The Fire tablets though, they do give an option while purchasing to automatically link it to your account, I think it may be checked by default.

Lol. said:
That's odd, my Fire TV (4k) didn't, it prompted me to login or register on first boot. It wasn't bought from Amazon but it was new, maybe thats why. The Fire tablets though, they do give an option while purchasing to automatically link it to your account, I think it may be checked by default.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It will only be linked to your account if you buy it direct from Amazon.

bula1ca said:
It will only be linked to your account if you buy it direct from Amazon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was my point. They scan the serial when they (Amazon) ship it to the end customer. Of course it won't be linked if you pick one up at Bestbuy. Both my Fire TV and Fire 7 were both bought on that EVIL 'one click' they have so I can't comment on a check box as mentioned a few posts up.

The problem is that you need to enable ADB debugging to sideload apps, and you need to enter the settings to enable ADB debugging, and you need to enter Fire TV Home to get to the settings. So, unfortunately, you need to log in with a (bogus) account at least once to get to the Fire TV home screen.
After that, though, it's an entirely different matter. Once you sideloaded Firestarter you can set it up to autostart and get to your apps without logging in at all. After a few seconds on the "log in or create account" prompt, Firestarter will kick in with its own launcher from where you can directly launch Kodi or any other app that isn't directly tied to your Amazon account.

85gallon said:
That was my point. They scan the serial when they (Amazon) ship it to the end customer. Of course it won't be linked if you pick one up at Bestbuy. Both my Fire TV and Fire 7 were both bought on that EVIL 'one click' they have so I can't comment on a check box as mentioned a few posts up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That'll be why :laugh: I nearly missed the prompt myself, I don't trust myself with one-click.

85gallon said:
On the big AFTV, if ordered from Amazon, comes already tied to your account. When I fired up my new Fire 7 this weekend, the data for my account was automatically retrieved when I started the tab and hooked to wifi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In order to not have the fire tv or stick tied to your account when ordering direct from Amazon,... at checkout, select that its a "gift". You'll still be able to order it and have it shipped to you but it won't be tied to anyones account.

I am unable to log in using my Amazon logins? Says it can not be registered. I bought it already loaded with a Kodi type app. Any suggestions?

Got the same problem with my stick i bought it from eBay but when i got it plugged in and connected to my Wi-Fi but when comes to the update it say unable to now i download the fire tv app and when i launch it the settings button states sleep , fire tv settings and app remote settings, when i click on the sleep button and then wake it up it takes me to the registration prompt but it won't let me login using my amazon account or to create please is there anyone who got past this stage.

kelvinpacquette said:
Got the same problem with my stick i bought it from eBay but when i got it plugged in and connected to my Wi-Fi but when comes to the update it say unable to now i download the fire tv app and when i launch it the settings button states sleep , fire tv settings and app remote settings, when i click on the sleep button and then wake it up it takes me to the registration prompt but it won't let me login using my amazon account or to create please is there anyone who got past this stage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah , these are faulty sticks and need to be returned , i tried everything even using the ethernet , my situation was a little different, when i got to registration screen the stick refused to update , and would display the update error . i even tried numerous factory reset . Nothing worked , send it back for a replacement

Comcast/Xfinity Related Aps

Hi folks not sure if this has been discussed or where I should put this, long story short I am trying to use the Nickalodeon apk on
my Amazon Fire TV as we canceled it from Comcast, but they have not notified Nick so via my phone or online we can still access it.
However, when I installed the apk on the Fire TV and go through the approval process via my phone, Comcast/Xfinity does not show
up as a provider since I guess, they know we are installing it on an Amazon device. So has anyone discuss this for other apps
where Comcast will not allow you to verify your account and is there any work around?
Thanks
Mike