Hello,
Not sure if I should start a new thread or continue off the one that ended in July.
Spent a few hours last night trying to get Kodi and Retroarch to write to the MicroSD card. Read plenty of articles on xda and in other areas and it seems fairly simple:
1. Create a sandbox area for the program on the SD Card
2. Point the installs there
For example I have:
/storage/sdcard1/Android/data/com.retroarch/
From my understanding, retroarch should be able to write anything into the com.retroarch folder without permissions, yet no matter how many times I tried it could not save files to this location (save states, saves, configs, etc.). I tried with Kodi and the scraper for Rom Collection Browser (which unfortunately is useless, back to Gamesome) could not put any artwork in it's respective folder.
Am I missing something? Does having the program installed on the SDCard effect this at all?
What I ended up doing is setting up a save folder on the FireTV while loading the roms from the SD Card, not a big deal but between Kodi and the Rom artworks the FireTV is going to fill up fast, I would love to get them over to the SDCard.
Thanks for any suggestions.
I run my Kodi through the sd card switch trick to save my box data filling too quick cause all my data goes to my sdcard, then i create a sandbox inside my Kodi location where all the files are.
Heres the link mate -
http://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-partially-or-entirely-move-kodi-data-to-external-usb-storage/
The only downside ive had with using this method is that when using Ares Wizard to install a few things (not addons) it wont download because its use to the original location so it throws back an error, if i need anything from there i just do it from a firestick & then transfer to the aftv2. For me id sacrifice that for more storage space plus most fire tv owners have more than one device in there household.
Hope this helps mate if so press that thanks button
Kodi can only write to it's own environment on the sdcard.
Create your directories you want to write to under -
/storage/sdcard1/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/
then you can write just fine.
Thanks for the link, I had previously ran across that guide, followed it completely and was unable to open Kodi (it would go to a black screen and then crash back to the home page). I am sure it is something simple that I am missing, I think I will try clearing everything on the card and the FireTV and starting over.
Bevnrick said:
Kodi can only write to it's own environment on the sdcard.
Create your directories you want to write to under -
/storage/sdcard1/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/
then you can write just fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@ Bevnrick - I was never adding that last .kodi folder, maybe that was my issue?
Related
***SOLUTION FOUND! I CAN NOW ACCESS THE FOLDER. SEE POST BELOW.***
Android File Transfer was working great up until a few days ago when it started to bug out, only for when trying to access the Camera folder on my exSD Card.
I can access everything else except when clicking on this folder the message pops up, which makes no sense because my screen isn't locked. (Screenshot attached.)
Could it be that the amount of pictures/videos on the exSD card is too much to handle for AFT? After all, it is a 64GB card...which is a lot of land to cover and load....hmmmm
I've tried this, but no luck.
Note: I'm aware of AirDroid etc...Personally I prefer to be plugged in direct via USB.
iunlock said:
Android File Transfer was working great up until a few days ago when it started to bug out, only for when trying to access the Camera folder on my exSD Card.
I can access everything else except when clicking on this folder the message pops up, which makes no sense because my screen isn't locked. (Screenshot attached.)
Could it be that the amount of pictures/videos on the exSD card is too much to handle for AFT? After all, it is a 64GB card...which is a lot of land to cover and load....hmmmm
I've tried this, but no luck.
Note: I'm aware of AirDroid etc...Personally I prefer to be plugged in direct via USB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really a theme Or app question but I'll give it a swing.
Can you access it on your phone fine?
Did you try using a card reader an see if you can access it that way?
If it's stating locked, it may have set permissions on your folder that inhibit access? Check those in a root explorer an see what they say too
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk 2
Mod, can you move this over to the proper forum. Thanks.
Possible causes / Things I've tried:
I do have some pictures in an App called: KeepSafe, where you have to enter in a pin code to access those pics, so then I was thinking maybe this was causing the problem. So I entered the App and tried connecting, but darn...same old thing. Doesn't work and I keep getting the same error message as the pic I have attached to the original thread.
I have also tried to reboot in Recovery (twrp) and tried to mount the exSD, but still nothing. Here's the message it gave me:
E: Unable to mount '/usbstorage'
This is driving me crazy. Anyone?
cbucz24 said:
Not really a theme Or app question but I'll give it a swing.
Can you access it on your phone fine? - Yes I can access it just fine through ES File Explorer. I've also checked the permissions.
Did you try using a card reader an see if you can access it that way? - I'm sure it'll work fine with a card reader, but that's not my preferred method. It's just frustrating for something to have worked and out of the blue stop.
If it's stating locked, it may have set permissions on your folder that inhibit access? Check those in a root explorer an see what they say too - I've uploaded a screen shot of the message that I'm receiving.
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try moving the KeepSafe files to another directory.
Frank
Update 6/30/14
SUCCESS!
From the gallery on your phone, you can create folders and move (not copy) over pictures/videos and it'll be default save it to your phones internal SD card.
I didn't want to move all 4,000+ pics/vids so I just did it in little batches of 20 here 50 there and made just a few folders.
Then I connected the phone to my computer and accessed the Camera folder and....bam there it OPENS!
My theory:
If you have more than ~50% of your external SD card filled up then chances are your computer (Android File Transfer, for Mac users) will have a hard time trying to access that huge folder that is < 30+GB's ...
Therefore, you just have to lighten up the load on that folder so that it can be accessed with ease...
Pretty straight forward and simple.
Update 6/30/14
***SOLUTION FOUND! I CAN NOW ACCESS THE FOLDER. SEE POST BELOW.***
From the gallery on your phone, you can create folders and move (don't copy) over pictures/videos and it'll by default save it to your phones internal SD card.
I didn't want to move all 4,000+ pics/vids so I just moved about a couple hundred pictures to varies folders.
Then I connected the phone to my computer and accessed the Camera folder and....bam there it OPENS!
My theory:
If you have more than ~50% of your external SD card filled up then chances are your computer (Android File Transfer, for Mac users) will have a hard time trying to access that huge folder that is < 30+GB's ... (Windows wouldn't open it either.)
Therefore, you just have to lighten up the load on that folder so that it can be accessed with ease...
Pretty straight forward and simple. Hope this helps.
iunlock said:
My theory:
If you have more than ~50% of your external SD card filled up then chances are your computer (Android File Transfer, for Mac users) will have a hard time trying to access that huge folder that is < 30+GB's ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is more likely that they thought it very unlikely that there would be more than the old limit of 2,000 files in a directory so they didn't allow for it in the program code.
Frank
Hi all,
I rooted my fire tv. i downgrade firmware and installed CWM, install rbox bootloader, then upgrade pre-rooted firmware by rbox. Now when i check under setting --> system -> about i see 3.61gb free space from 5.49gb available space. I don't have a lot app installed in my rooted fire tv so i didnt think what i have installed would taken up 2gb. Here is what i have installed.
Google play store, kodi, llama, es file explore, busybee box, supersu, chrome, firefox and the whatever was required to gain root access, upgrade and downgrading firmware and whatever app is pre-installed from pre-rooted firmware.
Is there way to check which apps and files are taking up the most space and how do you free up space?
Also, does this sound right that only 3.59gb is left. At one point during my root process when i was pushing update.zip file thru adb to downgrade firmware, it took a very long so i exit out of adb (i simply click on "x" bar to close the connection) and started again but i am not sure maybe i installed update.zip file 2x. How do i check? How do ensure i don't have any unnecessary file on fire tv internal drive.
Thank you
I have 3 FireTVs, all rooted and they have between 3.0G to 3.4G free space so I say your free space is within reasonable range
lowbee said:
I have 3 FireTVs, all rooted and they have between 3.0G to 3.4G free space so I say your free space is within reasonable range
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi thanks for posting back. Makes me feel better but still out of 8gb user only has 3.5gb, not ideal. i wonder where did the 5gb go.
I am curious to hear from others to see how they cleaned up space, if there are any methods.
I'd have to say kodi might be the culprit taking a lot of space with excessive data storage.
Anything similar to xbmc can be a resource hog for storage.
ashsha7877 said:
hi thanks for posting back. Makes me feel better but still out of 8gb user only has 3.5gb, not ideal. i wonder where did the 5gb go.
I am curious to hear from others to see how they cleaned up space, if there are any methods.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't get 8GB of usable space. I think it is only about 5GB. So you are using about 1.5 GB for apps. Not too bad if you are running Kodi.
An easy way to check where files are taking up space is to use the "sdcard analyze" function in esfile explorer. Its under the tools section. Also, with esfile explorer, you can push files from your phone to the firetv pretty easy too. Select whatever file you want to send on your phone, under options choose send, and make sure esfile explorer is open on the firetv too. The firetv prompts you for where you want to save the file.
ashsha7877 said:
Hi all,
I rooted my fire tv. i downgrade firmware and installed CWM, install rbox bootloader, then upgrade pre-rooted firmware by rbox. Now when i check under setting --> system -> about i see 3.61gb free space from 5.49gb available space. I don't have a lot app installed in my rooted fire tv so i didnt think what i have installed would taken up 2gb. Here is what i have installed.
Google play store, kodi, llama, es file explore, busybee box, supersu, chrome, firefox and the whatever was required to gain root access, upgrade and downgrading firmware and whatever app is pre-installed from pre-rooted firmware.
Is there way to check which apps and files are taking up the most space and how do you free up space?
Also, does this sound right that only 3.59gb is left. At one point during my root process when i was pushing update.zip file thru adb to downgrade firmware, it took a very long so i exit out of adb (i simply click on "x" bar to close the connection) and started again but i am not sure maybe i installed update.zip file 2x. How do i check? How do ensure i don't have any unnecessary file on fire tv internal drive.
Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can free up quite a bit by pushing these advanced settings to
<advancedsettings>
<pathsubstitution>
<substitute>
<from>/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/org.xbmc.xbmc/files/.xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails/</from>
<to>/storage/usb/drive1/xbmcthumbnails/</to>
</substitute>
</pathsubstitution>
</advancedsettings>
You need to amend to kodi instread of xbmc if you're running 14.0 or higher AND my external is mounted by adbFire mount drives persistent. If you're using stickmount it would be sda (forget exact path?)
Once pushed and confirmed working, all your thumbnails will dissapear. Just go into userdata/database and delete textures13. Then restart xbmc.
Afterwards I also delete the thumbnails folder on internal. Oh yes...make sure you have a folder on external named xbmcthumbnails.
This should immediately clear about 600 mb and keep in mind you typically add more to your library so the amount it saves long term could be huge.
KLit75 said:
You can free up quite a bit by pushing these advanced settings to
<advancedsettings>
<pathsubstitution>
<substitute>
<from>/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/org.xbmc.xbmc/files/.xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails/</from>
<to>/storage/usb/drive1/xbmcthumbnails/</to>
</substitute>
</pathsubstitution>
</advancedsettings>
You need to amend to kodi instread of xbmc if you're running 14.0 or higher AND my external is mounted by adbFire mount drives persistent. If you're using stickmount it would be sda (forget exact path?)
Once pushed and confirmed working, all your thumbnails will dissapear. Just go into userdata/database and delete textures13. Then restart xbmc.
Afterwards I also delete the thumbnails folder on internal. Oh yes...make sure you have a folder on external named xbmcthumbnails.
This should immediately clear about 600 mb and keep in mind you typically add more to your library so the amount it saves long term could be huge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is that going to make loading thumbnails A LOT SLOWER??
Neo3D said:
Is that going to make loading thumbnails A LOT SLOWER??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's actually a good question. I've been using these so long I don't have a memory of exactly how fast they loaded before. I'll say this--they populate fast enough for me to keep using them. I use usb 3.0. I think it's essential based on how big my library is and the fact I use aeon nox with additional fanart.
But, I'd be very interested in seeing if you or someone else sees a significant lag in load times. You can always delete the xml if you find it slow.
Just an fyi I got these from an xda member awhile back. Since then lots of people have tried them and so far I haven't hear complaints, but I'd still like feedback from someone who can compare.
Another suggestion is to pre-scrape all the necessary support files with a media manager of your choice (e.g. fanart, icon, content info, etc.) and switch to local info only on the scraper for the collection. It depends also on how you have your collection organized from a folder perspective.
I found this to be fastest and lightest on local storage (obviously because the "library" is already built) especially when you have a household of streamers. You have all the content centralized on your NAS already. It's silly for streaming box to build the library and re-download the content each time from the Internet (especially if your like me as a perpetual media player tinkerer).
Edit: For clarity, I mean a "Library manager." Look on the Kodi wiki for links to various clients on your preferred OS.
t3ch42 said:
An easy way to check where files are taking up space is to use the "sdcard analyze" function in esfile explorer. Its under the tools section. Also, with esfile explorer, you can push files from your phone to the firetv pretty easy too. Select whatever file you want to send on your phone, under options choose send, and make sure esfile explorer is open on the firetv too. The firetv prompts you for where you want to save the file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good to know this. Are there any other setup steps required to be able to do this? Or do you just have es file explorer installed and opened on both phone and FTV?
RuKuS4Life said:
Good to know this. Are there any other setup steps required to be able to do this? Or do you just have es file explorer installed and opened on both phone and FTV?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's it. As long as the two are on the aame network, it should pick up the firetv as a target.
To clarify, on the phone, long click the file to send, and select send. The firetv ip adress will show up and allow you to send the file. When the prompt shows up on the firetv(provided that esfile explorer is the active and open app), accept the transfer and select tge location to store the transferred file.
t3ch42 said:
That's it. As long as the two are on the aame network, it should pick up the firetv as a target.
To clarify, on the phone, long click the file to send, and select send. The firetv ip adress will show up and allow you to send the file. When the prompt shows up on the firetv(provided that esfile explorer is the active and open app), accept the transfer and select tge location to store the transferred file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got sdmaid. It recovered about 1.5gb. Get the pro version from google play.
Hi guys,
I've had some failed attempts at installing Kodi via adbFire, and through the process, I noticed the space on my AFTV decreased after every failed attempt. I've finally been able to install Kodi successfully, but I would like to get back that 400MB or so of space that I lost. Are there any apps that I should know about that makes this process easy? Thanks all!
tektronik said:
Hi guys,
I've had some failed attempts at installing Kodi via adbFire, and through the process, I noticed the space on my AFTV decreased after every failed attempt. I've finally been able to install Kodi successfully, but I would like to get back that 400MB or so of space that I lost. Are there any apps that I should know about that makes this process easy? Thanks all!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's odd that it failed yet data obviously something made its way there...I have es file explorer but you could use anything file manager I think. Go to sd card/android/data then see if there's more than 1 xbmc/kodi folders. Maybe you tried installing helix 14.0 and Gotham? But it shouldn't add up to 400mb I don't think???
There are many file cleaning programs. I use sd maid pro but you can find some free apks on playstore.
I use a combo of DU Speed Booster and SD Maid Pro. Together they seem to work the best. I do a cleaning with DU Speed Booster then follow with a cleaning of SD Maid Pro. For some reason they both do not clean the same stuff so regardless of which one I use first, there is still things that are left that can be cleaned by the other app. I always liked SD Maid Pro the best, til I used DU Speed Booster, and in my opinion DU Speed Booster is by bar the best cleaning tool for android.
I use a file manager app to maintain my space and be able to navigate through all my folders, etc. etc. FX File Explorer is awesome for this task. The app does not work with the remote, so you will need to attach a mouse to your Fire TV. Once you sideload and install the app, run it and click on Cleaning Tools. It will then show you what folders are using up most of the storage and its percentage. You can then navigate accordingly and delete what you need. I'm rooted so I do not remember if you also need to be rooted in order to use the cleaning feature. I will include both, the FX.apk and the root permissions apk just in case.
I took screen shots of my Fire TV storage so that you can see how it works. At the moment 98% of my storage being used is located in the Android folder of my /sdcard. If you go into the sub-folders, then you find out that the XBMC folder is using of that storage. Dig in deeper and then you see that the addons and userdata folders of XBMC are the ones using up that storage. (This is normal though)
Here are both links I mentioned above:
If memory serves me right, I'm almost positive you will need to install both. (You will need to be rooted for the 2nd apk)
FX.apk
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u17hn8v5s4ceq1q/FX-root.apk?dl=0
FX-root.apk
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u17hn8v5s4ceq1q/FX-root.apk?dl=0
I'm trying to bind the "Android" folder on my Fire TV 2 to the "Android" folder on my HDD but it doesn't seem to work using the all "directory Bind". Has anyone been able to bind directories on the 4K Fire TV after acheiving Root access?
Edit: OK, I'm stuck. I tried Directory Bind with absolutely no luck. Then I tried Folder Mount but that required a bind of every individual folder. That's just not happening! Lastly I tried Link2SD but this app will not pickup on my USB drive. this really sucks. What's the point of having a 1tb hard drive and root access if I can't bind the damn drive. Hell, even the OUYA doesn't have these issues. WTF Amazon?!
Updated Findings for "Directory Binding"
I guess nobody around here gives a damn that the storage on the Fire TV 2 is seriously gimped. With that said, here are my findings.
NOTE: THIS IS ALL ABOUT THE AFTV2
Directory Bind
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vanpit.android.directorybind
DOES NOT WORK
Folder Mount
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.devasque.fmount
Works with some MAJOR limitations on the Fire TV side of the fence.
* First off, Folder Mount has a issue where you can't add your license for the full version onto your Fire TV. This is due to there being no proper Google Play solution. I've already sent an email to the developer so hopefully that person can help me around the issue.
* Secondly, with the free version of Folder Mount you can bind up to three games. Sadly you cant do the whole "Android" folder as well as "data" and "obb"
* You can however, bind a game's individual folder WITHIN "data" or "obb". The catch is, you need to have a "stub" (to use a term from the Wii hacking scene) folder in the original location.
For example​
Let's use Asphalt 8. The meat of this game (BEFORE binding) is within this location: storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com/gameloft.android.AMAZ.GloftA8AS
the folder is 1.56 GB
- before binding, copy/paste this folder onto your desired location within your external USB hard drive.
- Go back to the original folder and erase everything out of it. By doing this, you are creating the "stub" that the Fire TV needs so it can believe that the files are still in the proper location
- head back to Folder Mount and create a binding, giving proper folder locations and...
- Start game and play.
If you check your internal storage within the Fire TV settings, you can clearly see that the space the game used to occupy has now been freed. This alone would be a perfect solution if it wasn't for one thing. We need a place to stick the original APK files. I tried mapping the ASEC folder. - needless to say, it was a f***ing mess! From what I can see, the ASEC folder is used primarily for apps that have been pushed to the SD card. The moment I tried binding that folder, most the apps pushed to SD was in a "not found" state for Fire OS. If someone could figure out where apps are "installed" to, on the Fire TV 2, I would be willing to test a bind.
Speaking of the SD cards Fire OS does this hocus pocus bulls**t with them. Bind the ASEC folder and you might get 2 or three SD removed apps to show but all others will be "not found". Try binding the entire SD card to a folder of your choice and Fire TV will get VERY "sometimey" with you. Sometimes you might have a card at the capacity of whatever card you have (in my case 4GB for testing). Sometimes it will show that you have a card inserted with NO space available. See what I mean? utter bull****! It's as if the Fire TV reads the physical capacity and locks things there.
One more note. The freggin Fire TV 2 is obsessed with stub folders. It makes things a pain in the ass when you're trying to figure out which folder is the "real" one. At one point I had stubs in three locations. Talk about an annoying patchwork system for file management. Ugh!
I'm done for now. Hopefully this will give someone a starting point for helping this community fix the biggest problem with this Android device. Seriously, the team behind the 4K Fire TV should be kicked in the rear end for this screw up! I get wanting to lock things to some degree but at least let me install as many games from YOUR store that I want and not limit me to 5 really good ones at a time.
Have you tried using ln from an adb shell? Was able to get this working for a single file earlier today with this method, not sure how well it works for directories.
thepacketslinger said:
Have you tried using ln from an adb shell? Was able to get this working for a single file earlier today with this method, not sure how well it works for directories.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haven't tried ADB shell yet. I'd like to see what others can come up with at this point. I'm also waiting for a response from the dev of Folder Mount. Hopefully I'll get a response within a few hours. Otherwise I'll be waiting for someone to bring property Google Play support so that I can use my Folder Mount license.
@lightykd thanks for sharing your findings. The tiny storage of the Amazon FireTV has always been an annoyance. It became a hindrance once I started using an app that downloads media files. FolderMount seems to work for my purposes. It has allowed me to pair the local media folder ("source" in FolderMount terminology) with a matching folder on my SD card ("destination") so that files written to and read from the source are transparently redirected to the destination.
I'm really confused so I'll try to provide details I can recall...
My AFTV gen 1 with OS5 kodi install was a little glitchy so eventually wound up doing a clean install.
This came AFTER MANY attempts to preserve my data.
The last 2 times I tried this I completely wiped every bit of kodi data I had on internal and USB. I installed kodi Jarvis.
The 1st time I scanned sources and it populated fine. But when I exit kodi then relaunch it I'm greeted with what looks like a blank install!
To sum up, it appears like when I exit Kodi it sends Kodi data to my usb BUT there are no settings in place to actually read that data so Kodi is blank.
Last time I made certain to remove everything. Then I took my sources.xml from my other aftv (same setup) and moved it to the problem aftv. I start up kodi, all seems fine--my movies and TV shows are there. I exit and POOF! Its gone again. If I delete my kodi data from usb drive Kodi works again but when I exit it repeats the cycle.
I'm stumped. Any help is appreciated. Thanks
***I think the issue would be resolved if someone could just tell me why data keeps exporting to my usb drive. I keep deleting it but Kodi winds up back on my usb once I exit.
http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Change_data_location_for_Android
This took 5 seconds on google.
Backing up Kodi is as simple as copying over the userdata folder, btw. If you don't know how to copy files, learn to use adb and get to know the filestructure of kodi a bit better using a file explorer on the Fire TV. Or just use a File explorer and copy the userdata folder to a networkdrive (Total commandar f.e. has a lan plugin), or a usb stick, or... If you don't know what a folder is... Try to learn that as well...
harlekinwashere said:
http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Change_data_location_for_Android
This took 5 seconds on google.
Backing up Kodi is as simple as copying over the userdata folder, btw. If you don't know how to copy files, learn to use adb and get to know the filestructure of kodi a bit better using a file explorer on the Fire TV. Or just use a File explorer and copy the userdata folder to a networkdrive (Total commandar f.e. has a lan plugin), or a usb stick, or... If you don't know what a folder is... Try to learn that as well...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I appreciate the help but Ive been using Kodi since Frodo and aftv gen 1 since June 2014. Ive been through numerous kodi versions and never has the aftv just defaulted to moving all the data to usb...
In fact Im pretty sure it doesn't because theres methods available specifically for aftv to properly move data to usb.
I have to take a closer look at my other aftv. Its running the same kodi version.
***Btw my bandaid was to remove my usb stick and copy sources.xml from my other aftv. It works fine but of course not having external storage isnt a good option.