Develop Bugs

[Q] Ouya File Server

Can anyone point me to any kind of file server for the Ouya? CIFS would be ideal but I can handle NFS or FTP too.
I've done my research here and in other forums and am not seeing any clear answer. What I want to do is to be able to remotely copy and delete files to and from the USB key attached to my Ouya.

Why not use ssh for that ?
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dexter84 said:
Why not use ssh for that ?
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Okay. I see guides for rooting and installing Busybox. I'm not hugely familiar with Busybox. Does Busybox provide an SSH *server* so I can ssh into the Ouya? I *am* familiar with ssh file transfers on my other servers.
I've seen other requests for an SSH server on the Ouya but no clear answers.

Once you root ouya install something like this:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=web.oss.sshsftpDaemon
Set it up and leave it running. You will be able to use any ssh client (like putty) to log into ouya and exec any command you need including copying or moving files.
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dexter84 said:
Once you root ouya install something like this:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=web.oss.sshsftpDaemon
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Click to collapse
Okay, I thought about that. Early on with my first Android phone I installed a similar app so I could log into my phone from my workstation and play with it. But I'd need to somehow get the APK from Google Play and then sideload it. How do you extract an APK from the store?
Edit:
Actually, searching not too hard turns up things like:
https://code.google.com/p/droidsshd/
And other sshd APK files. But they all do need access to a shell.

Found a solution.
After reading an Ouya review today, the reviewer was all gaga about using AirDroid to manage your Ouya. I had played with this class of "web desktop" apps years ago with my first Android phone. You run the app and then connect to your Android device with your browser. The app gives you a desktop that lets you manipulate your device.
Unfortunately AirDroid is a paid app and costs $1.99 a month. The free version is limited to 100MB of transfers per month which just isn't enough if you're transferring game images for your Ouya emulators.
So instead I found 3CX DroidDesktop which does what I need to do. Here it is on Google Play:
DroidDesktop on Google Play
But of course we can't use Google Play on our Ouya so here is where you can download an APK:
DroidDesktop at android-appstore
Now I thought there used to be a sideloading menu on the Ouya. I guess the last update did away with it. But fortunately the guy who did Mupen64PlusAE (one of the emulators) released FilePwn:
FilePwn on OuyaForum
Which lets you surf the Ouya file system and install packages. Install it through the normal Ouya method. Looks like it's free (as in beer free.)
DroidDesktop isn't a perfect solution. You have to specifically run it when you want to perform file management and the way the Ouya is setup an app takes over the machine and I have no idea how to switch away and do the multitasking I know Android is capable of. But it works and does *not* require rooting. I was able to surf to my USB key and copy and delete files from a Windows workstation.
Edit:
Whoops. FilePwn was *not* released by PaulsCode.com but by littleguy77. Paul just gave him a thumbs-up. My bad.

I like ftpdroid and it runs in the background.

tennisbgc said:
I like ftpdroid and it runs in the background.
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I'll give it shot.

tennisbgc said:
I like ftpdroid and it runs in the background.
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Click to collapse
It took me a bit to figure out how to get the APK to sideload FTPDroid. I ended up using APK Extractor:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sylark.apkextractor&hl=en
on my Nexus 7 to get the file. But now after sideloading when I run FTPDroid, it drops right back to the Ouya menu. I'm having the same issue with ES File Explorer. Both are apps that are supposed to run on the Ouya just fine.
Does anyone have any ideas? Is this some issue running Google Play apps on the Ouya?

tennisbgc said:
I like ftpdroid and it runs in the background.
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Click to collapse
when i launch ftpdroid on my ouya it crashes immediately

krzee said:
when i launch ftpdroid on my ouya it crashes immediately
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Click to collapse
Cant say ive run into this problem. Are you rooted?

Have you tried samba filesharing from google app store? I use it on all of my devices but have not tried it out on ouya.
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I use it https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.funkyfresh.samba
And work fine !
Envoyé depuis mon Galaxy Nexus avec Tapatalk 4

I use dropbox & copy to get files to the Ouya.
It's a little more roundabout, but i can download files at work, put them in the @ouya folder in copy, then download when i get home.

I use StockPlus Room that have CIFs support + Mount Manager (free and paid options) and conect to my Time Capsule 3T, and forget the memory limitations on OUYA.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Nice skeleton solution!!!
I've used [and am using] the servers ultimate pro
but I'll keep this one as a backup

ES File Explorer
I've tried nearly all the set-ups above but the one I find most reliable uses ES File Explorer. No need for root or anything else.
Sideload ES File Explorer
Open ES File Explorer
Go to Remote Manager, under tools
Go to Settings (for remote manager)
Turn off 'Close on exit'
Set root directory as your external USB drive connected to the OUYA
Exit settings, and turn on WLAN
I then use an Filezilla to transfer all my downloaded files from my Desktop directly to the correct folder locations on the USB drive connected to the OUYA. I get really solid speeds on the transfer between the two devices.
I can then leave the OUYA in XBMC mode, while being able to transfer any downloads very quickly to the USB drive whenever I want.
Note: I found this worked best when OUYA was connected via wi-fi. Ethernet was problematic

chadley78 said:
I've tried nearly all the set-ups above but the one I find most reliable uses ES File Explorer. No need for root or anything else.
Sideload ES File Explorer
Open ES File Explorer
Go to Remote Manager, under tools
Go to Settings (for remote manager)
Turn off 'Close on exit'
Set root directory as your external USB drive connected to the OUYA
Exit settings, and turn on WLAN
I then use an Filezilla to transfer all my downloaded files from my Desktop directly to the correct folder locations on the USB drive connected to the OUYA. I get really solid speeds on the transfer between the two devices.
I can then leave the OUYA in XBMC mode, while being able to transfer any downloads very quickly to the USB drive whenever I want.
Note: I found this worked best when OUYA was connected via wi-fi. Ethernet was problematic
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I still prefer ftpdroid cause it launches in the background at startup.

chadley78 said:
I've tried nearly all the set-ups above but the one I find most reliable uses ES File Explorer. No need for root or anything else.
Sideload ES File Explorer
Open ES File Explorer
Go to Remote Manager, under tools
Go to Settings (for remote manager)
Turn off 'Close on exit'
Set root directory as your external USB drive connected to the OUYA
Exit settings, and turn on WLAN
I then use an Filezilla to transfer all my downloaded files from my Desktop directly to the correct folder locations on the USB drive connected to the OUYA. I get really solid speeds on the transfer between the two devices.
I can then leave the OUYA in XBMC mode, while being able to transfer any downloads very quickly to the USB drive whenever I want.
Note: I found this worked best when OUYA was connected via wi-fi. Ethernet was problematic
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried this, but the remote manager keeps closing the connection. i've unchecked the 'close on exit' box, but it still closes after a while.
any ideas on what might be causing this?

[Q] Custom Background for firetv question help please ??

Hi all,
Running kodi/Helix 14.0 sideloaded on my non-rooted fireTV.... With no other extras or addons apart from my network attached HD.
Using IkonoTV as my launcher.
all updates blocked via opendns.
I just wanted to know if it was possible to change the background wallpaper on the main screen...
I know I have to go to System/Settings and then to appearance then go to skin tab and then to settings....then the tab for "Background Options" then "enable custom Background".
Once I have done this I then go to "Background Path:" and this is where I get stuck..... It's been a real pig... because the only two options I have are "External Storage" and "Root Filesystem". It's impossible for me to be able to change either of these directorys to anything else. And believe me, I've tried.
I've tried adding my photos "under the main photo tab" on the main screen held on my external storage HD and I have no problem with that...
Is the reason I cannot change the background because my firetv is not rooted, (root is not possible, due to when it was produced).
I would really appreciate any advice or help on this, as I'm googled out, and I've given up looking at the amount of tube vids telling me how to install kodi...
Is it possible for me to use adbfire to add images to the firetv somehow?
Weird thing is, nearly all of the folders I have looked in within "external storage" and "root filesystem" are empty...
One good thing is that I managed to find a tube video showing how to update kodi on a firetv without loosing ones settings using adbfire, as I wanted to update to 14.2.
Thanks chaps for reading my help request... as I seem to be all out of luck at the moment. (wish it was as easy to change the wallpaper on my firetv as it is on my laptop).

Install ES file explorer on fire tv via adb. Link it to your dropbox or Google drive account. Copy photos to your cloud account using your PC. Access from fire TV using ES file explorer and download to folder of your choice.

D33H said:
Install ES file explorer on fire tv via adb. Link it to your dropbox or Google drive account. Copy photos to your cloud account using your PC. Access from fire TV using ES file explorer and download to folder of your choice.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the info D33H...... cheers mate..
I have to admit, I did eventually manage to get it done by using adbfire, by changing the push folder to "sdcard" and pushing my photos that way.... not ideal as I would like them in a particular folder of my choice, but at least kodi can now see my images in "external storage"....
But I like the idea of using ES file explorer, so I might try it that way as well.
On a sidenote, is it possible to run kodi without ones internet on,..... I've tried but i only get a flashing orange light,.... would this be happening, because i have set a 4 digit code on my firetv.. (to stop anyone from making unnecessary purchases by mistake).
I only ask because if my internet goes down it would be nice to still be able to use kodi.

Making backup of user addons/user data, favorite tv shows, etc

Hey all I have a rooted fire tv. How would I backup my info? What would I back it up too? I have usb drives. Thanks.

thegameksk said:
Hey all I have a rooted fire tv. How would I backup my info? What would I back it up too? I have usb drives. Thanks.
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Click to collapse
From your Q, I am assuming you are asking about backing up your Kodi data. If you are:
The folder that needs to be backed up is residing at /sdcard/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files. In that you will see a folder called ".kodi" that has all your settings and addons. This folder needs to be backed up.
If you have attached a USB to your FTV and your firmware on the FTV is allowing you see that attached USB (located at /sdcard/extUsb), you can use multiple ways to copy the folder. You can use an app like ES File Explorer or one of the apps like Fire TV utility or ADBFire (I could be wrong on the names, I don't use them. I believe they have a forum thread where you can post Qs). You can also use native shell commands and not use any external app to copy to USB, but I would not recommend it if you are not familiar with scripting. Using apps would be much simpler.
If you are on a firmware on your FTV that does not have native USB support, you will probably need to use an app like "USB OTG Helper" or "StickMount" or other apps to mount your USB first before you can start using its storage. Maybe the ADBFire or Fire TV Utility has mounting features, you will need to look into those apps for that.
EDIT: You can also backup your folder to your computer if you have ADB installed on your computer and can connect to your FTV through ADB. Depending on your choice, someone can give you more detailed steps.

The only thing I see there is advanced settings in the .kodi folder.

You need to show hidden files. Get yourself a copy of es file explorer. Copy add ons and user data to where you want to keep them.

I have a Fire TV and i'm upgrading to a NVIDIA Shield. All I need to do is copy the file I backed up to the same directory and I will have all of my original settings and repos back?

backup
thegameksk said:
I have a Fire TV and i'm upgrading to a NVIDIA Shield. All I need to do is copy the file I backed up to the same directory and I will have all of my original settings and repos back?
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Click to collapse
Worked from my ouya to AFTV...Have a try!

MOUNT command fails in FTV2

I used to able to mount (using either NFS or CIFS) a shared folder on my NAS (Western Digital MyCloud) on FTV 1.
IP of the NAS: 192.168.5.6
Mountpoint on FTV: /mnt/obb/WD
I could use either of the following commands on FTV 1:
busybox mount -v -o udp,async,nolock,noatime,nodiratime,soft,intr,vers=3,rsize=65536,wsize=65536 -t nfs "192.168.5.6:/nfs/Devices" "/mnt/obb/WD" (NFS)
busybox mount -v -o noperm,unc="\\192.168.5.6\Devices",username=public,password=public -t cifs none "/mnt/obb/WD" (CIFS)
On the new FTV2, rooted, with Busybox and running RBox's latest ROM, both the above commands (running under SU) gives me an error "Device Not Found"... I searched and found that folks talk about these 3 things that might affect the mounting..
1. Related to SELINUX.. (I have tried "setenforce permissive", but that does not fix it)
2. Related to new permission paradigm on Android 5.1 where writes to external devices is prohibited by default. Not sure how it would affect mounting, but.....
3. ROM has no CIFS/NFS modules loaded.
Another data point, I can navigate to my shared folder on NAS using ES File Explorer, though. I also tried mounting to a different location "/mnt/sdcard/WD" instead of in "/mnt/obb", but that doesn't work either.
I have another FTV in a different room (first generation rooted FTV running the last pre-rooted ROM from RBox for FTV 1) and the above commands run fine. So my guess it has to do something with Lollipop... But I am not sure about the reason and I don't know how to go about fixing it. Any ideas would be very welcome. Thanks.

It will probably be the write permissions on lollypop mate, if say for instance I wanted to download something to my sd card (internal,external or usb device) via kids it won't write! But if I download it within inside the kodi files by making a new folder & set the download there it will download, & then I can transfer it to my internal, external or usb device. This is probably why you can't use your Nas in that directory? I don't know how or what Nas is properly (I'm thinking its a storage sharing unit which can be pushed or received?) Try what I said & maybe you might have some luck doing it this way?
Hope this helps, If so press that thanks button.

@dbdoshi
AFTV2 don't support any Network File Systems on kernel level (if I'm right understand from kernel source)

Ok, I guess the support for NFS or CIFS is not there in FTV2. I ran "cat /proc/filesystems" and I don't see NFS or NFS4 or CIFS... On the older FTV1, I do see them in the filesystems file. Wow. Any workarounds?
I even tried mounting using CIFS to a test shared folder my Windows 10 laptop and thats a no go too..
This is for Kodi. I move all its files to the NAS to run it and save the space on FTV. I have now started to use SDCard1 location to accomplish it as NAS does not seem to be an option in FTV2. But the strange thing is, if I add a source in Kodi using "Network File System (NFS)" option, I can navigate to my NAS fine.. Any way to know the command Kodi uses when you add a source like that?

ES File Explorer (for example) can see network shares too

Sorry to revive this old thread but I'm running into the same problem. I want to mount my network share to the fire tv 2 but neither cifs nor nfs worked... It used to work fine with my old firetv.
Any work arounds?

This is a very old thread, but I am bummed I can't run a network file server on my ftv2 stick and have to resort to using DLNA which just isn't quite the same.

access connected USB flash drive over network?

I have a USB flash drive attached to my Fire Stick TV (2nd Gen). I use it to store movie & music files, which I can play from the Fire Stick using VLC for Android. Works great.
Question: Is there any way that I can access that flash drive via my home network? I would like to be able to copy files to it from my computer. Currently, I have to do it via "sneakernet".
Any advice is much appreciated.

johnnyzero2 said:
I have a USB flash drive attached to my Fire Stick TV (2nd Gen). I use it to store movie & music files, which I can play from the Fire Stick using VLC for Android. Works great.
Question: Is there any way that I can access that flash drive via my home network? I would like to be able to copy files to it from my computer. Currently, I have to do it via "sneakernet".
Any advice is much appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do "adb connect firestickIP".
adb ls /storage
The USB stick is mounted in /storage (something like /storage/3E91-AF2A). Use "adb push file target-path" to copy files to the USB stick.

Thank you.
I was hoping there might be some way to make the attached flash drive visible/accessible as a standard network share. My goal is to use Windows' File Explorer for file management on that drive, just like the other shared storage devices on my network.
I will try your suggestion of using ADB, although using a command-line interface for file management is not ideal. I found a few different Windows programs that will supposedly provide a File Explorer-like GUI for doing Android file management via ADB (ADB Browser, ADB Explorer, Device File Explorer, etc. ) . Maybe one of those will do the job.
Alternatively, I may try installing a SAMBA server ("LAN Drive") or FTP server ("FTP Server") on the Fire Stick; although neither app has very good reviews.
After trying all this stuff, I will definitely post the results here.

johnnyzero2 said:
Thank you.
I was hoping there might be some way to make the attached flash drive visible/accessible as a standard network share. My goal is to use Windows' File Explorer for file management on that drive, just like the other shared storage devices on my network.
I will try your suggestion of using ADB, although using a command-line interface for file management is not ideal. I found a few different Windows programs that will supposedly provide a File Explorer-like GUI for doing Android file management via ADB (ADB Browser, ADB Explorer, Device File Explorer, etc. ) . Maybe one of those will do the job.
Alternatively, I may try installing a SAMBA server ("LAN Drive") or FTP server ("FTP Server") on the Fire Stick; although neither app has very good reviews.
After trying all this stuff, I will definitely post the results here.
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Click to collapse
Some file managers (Solid Explorer, ES File Explorer) include FTP servers. I don't know if their FTP server provides access to the USB drive, though. There are likely other file managers that also include FTP servers.

dcarvil said:
Some file managers (Solid Explorer, ES File Explorer) include FTP servers. I don't know if their FTP server provides access to the USB drive, though. There are likely other file managers that also include FTP servers.
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Click to collapse
Excellent advice - that will definitely do it for me. Thank you so much.
I wasn't aware that there were Android file managers with a built-in FTP server. I've always used FX File Manager, and it doesn't have that feature.
I tried both ES & Solid, and both worked fine for my purposes. I decided to go with Solid because the UI is slightly better, it allows you to add an FTP Server shortcut to your Android home screen, and it just seemed a little more... solid.. Definitely don't mind paying $1.99 for the full, ad-free version.
Problem solved - thanks again!