Develop Bugs

[Q] anyone got CEC working?

Before I had a firetv I used a raspberry pi which I controlled via my tv remote. very usefull, especially for my girlfriend. does someone know how to enable CEC on my fire tv?
thanks

It is enabled by default. The only thing that it does is to switch on your tv when you switch on your fire tv. And change the input source of your tv.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

Fgarcor said:
It is enabled by default. The only thing that it does is to switch on your tv when you switch on your fire tv. And change the input source of your tv.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. It allows control over CEC if your TV is cool enough. I was able to use arrow keys and select over CEC. I think back even worked.

hmm my LG TV doesn't see my firetv.. or does it only work when xmbc is started?

gvrman said:
hmm my LG TV doesn't see my firetv.. or does it only work when xmbc is started?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CEC is nothing to do with XBMC. If it works depends really on your TV. I just got lucky that my Toshiba supported it. But it is very limited and not really a good choice for control.

Actually CEC could be so much better than it is. Problem is every manufacturer calls it something else, and only enables certain features. And the limits don't just apply to any one device.
My whole entertainment system has CEC capable devices. My TV, my AVR, my PS4, chromecast, and when I had a HTPC it also had CEC via RCAware and event ghost. When I used a HTPC, everything revolved around it. If it was sleeping, all devices would be powered off, if it was awake, I could setup event ghost to tell it which devices to wake. Event ghost gave the user the control to create scripts/programs, and pick and choose what devices should do what. Device manufacturers don't give us that choice, in the limited controls they enable.
My samsung UN55D8000 TV won't automatically turn on other devices when it's turned on, because samsung doesn't think people should do that. Instead they want you to go through a bunch of menu's and manually select a device and then it turns in on via CEC. But they allow the TV to send power off commands to all CEC devices when the TV is powered off.
If you play to a chromecast from your phone/tablet, it will automatically turn on your TV and switch to the correct input. But it won't turn on my AVR that it is plugged in to.
It all comes done to the manufacturers, and how them implement it, and what control and/or features they allow the consumers to use. I wish someone would create a standalone device that can be programmed to do what you want (like my RCAware and event ghost combo), but without the need of a host OS.

[q] help with assigning button on Sony remote

So to my surprise, my regular sony tv remote (IR) is able to control my AFTV out of the box. i originally thought i would need to buy a USB IR blaster for this. However, my guess is the Bravia sync is playing the part here. I seem to be able to replicate most things (directional pad, select, return) but don't think i have a button on here that can do the Home button or the Contextual (Hamburger menu) button.
Is there a way to configure this somehow?

barrist said:
So to my surprise, my regular sony tv remote (IR) is able to control my AFTV out of the box. i originally thought i would need to buy a USB IR blaster for this. However, my guess is the Bravia sync is playing the part here. I seem to be able to replicate most things (directional pad, select, return) but don't think i have a button on here that can do the Home button or the Contextual (Hamburger menu) button.
Is there a way to configure this somehow?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
I have a Bravia also and my Sony remote controls the Fire TV. You're correct that the Bravia Sync (CEC) is doing the job.
On my Sony remote the blue "Home" button works as the Context (hamburger) button, at least in XBMC it does.
I can't find a button that replicates the Fire TV "Home" button though, and I don't believe there's an way to configure this.
Does yours work ok all of the time? For me, after a while the FireTV seems to break all my CEC communication, so my TV stops controlling my audio system and doesn't see any connected devices, only pulling the power from the FireTV will fix this, but then after a while (sometimes hours, sometimes a couple of days) it breaks again.
It's using the HDMI cable/slot that my WDTV Live SMP was using and that never had a problem so I don't think it's the HDMI cable at fault.

helicon9 said:
Hi,
I have a Bravia also and my Sony remote controls the Fire TV. You're correct that the Bravia Sync (CEC) is doing the job.
On my Sony remote the blue "Home" button works as the Context (hamburger) button, at least in XBMC it does.
I can't find a button that replicates the Fire TV "Home" button though, and I don't believe there's an way to configure this.
Does yours work ok all of the time? For me, after a while the FireTV seems to break all my CEC communication, so my TV stops controlling my audio system and doesn't see any connected devices, only pulling the power from the FireTV will fix this, but then after a while (sometimes hours, sometimes a couple of days) it breaks again.
It's using the HDMI cable/slot that my WDTV Live SMP was using and that never had a problem so I don't think it's the HDMI cable at fault.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah i figured out that i needed to change some settings to allow the remote to replicate the "hamburger" button.
I find it a bit laggy (understandable) compared to the amazon remote, and the lack of a Home button makes me think I'll eventually just use two remotes, sacrificing a bit of convenience that way. I haven't had the issue you've had yet though; i've only had it a few days though. My setup is pretty simple though, just my tv hooked up to the AFTV.

Bought a Harmony Hub to control my FireTV, but I'm hitting some issues. Anyone else?

I bought the Harmony Hub in order to have a single-remote solution for my home theater setup. The Harmony Hub can control things via Bluetooth, which is why it can control the FireTV even though it's missing an infreared port.
So I set up a Watch TV activity that powers on my TV and my receiver, and then controls the FireTV with the playback and directional buttons. Everything works great until I turn the activity off. and then back on. When everything powers back on, the remote has lost its ability to control the FireTV. it can still control the TV and receiver, however.
To fix it, I have to open up the Harmony smartphone app, issue a single command to the FireTV (which forces some sort of re-pairing) and then the remote works great again.
Does anyone else have this issue?
My Firetv is rooted, btw, so if any possible solutions require root I can do that.

You need to setup two activities:
1. Watch TV (the FireTV should not be included in this activity.)
2. Watch Five TV.
Open "My Harmony App" on your computer. Go to Add Device/Amazon/FIre TV. Then create a new Activity. The presets on your remote and your phone or tablet do everything you need except there is no Home Button. You can map an unused button (using the "My Harmony" software) to Home. I used the "Red".
This works flawlessly for me. If I am watching TV and and I hit Watch Fire TV, the cable box turns off, and the input on my receiver switches. Then I hit enter to wake up the FireTV. Works the opposite way, too.

Thanks! Your reply helped me figure out the problem: I didn't have the "ENTER" command mapped to a button, so no button I hit would wake up the Fire TV. I'm working now!

Amazon Fire TV turns on BY ITSELF! Is there a ghost in my machine?

My Amazon Fire TV goes to sleep just fine, but several times a week, the Amazon Fire TV will turn on by itself! This is annoying because it also turns our Samsung TV on as well.
Any ideas on how to fix this? Is there a ghost in my machine? LOL

i have no idea bout the fire tv (stick) cause its close sourced and you cant access the bootloader/system software to fix that, and i dont own one to figure it out myself. But what tv are you using, many tvs have advanced hdmi settings where you can disable remote control using hdmi and thereby only enable a/v using hdmi. I dont know if your television set has such a setting but my lg tv has something like that, i have disabled this to listen to music using my stereo from the blu ray player (over upnp/dlna) without the tv switched on...
have a look at your tv user guid for example, or thell us the tv model so we could check.
If there is no way doing that by tv just unplug your tv or use a hdmi switch with an remote control between the fire box and the tv to workaround...
i wish you much suggest on this issue, i can imagine that this is a pain in the ass.
By the way dose your fire stick has a separated power supply, if so you could also switch this one on and off wireless...
regards treaki

treaki said:
i have no idea bout the fire tv (stick) cause its close sourced and you cant access the bootloader/system software to fix that, and i dont own one to figure it out myself. But what tv are you using, many tvs have advanced hdmi settings where you can disable remote control using hdmi and thereby only enable a/v using hdmi. I dont know if your television set has such a setting but my lg tv has something like that, i have disabled this to listen to music using my stereo from the blu ray player (over upnp/dlna) without the tv switched on...
have a look at your tv user guid for example, or thell us the tv model so we could check.
If there is no way doing that by tv just unplug your tv or use a hdmi switch with an remote control between the fire box and the tv to workaround...
i wish you much suggest on this issue, i can imagine that this is a pain in the ass.
By the way dose your fire stick has a separated power supply, if so you could also switch this one on and off wireless...
regards treaki
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I have the regular Amazon Fire TV, not the stick. But, I'll see if my TV will let me disable the remote "on" feature.

It should. I remember that my TV would turn on in the middle of the night. Lol creepy. Since then I had disabled the option on my TV.

Whew I'm glad I'm not the only one!
I don't get why this stupid Fire TV does that?

I'm relatively new to Firestick but mine randomly turns on the TV and changes the input back to the HDMI port into which the Firestick is plugged. It has done it 3 times this evening ! That is AFTER I changed the input BACK to the cable system each time. It is definitely demanding attention !

Both of my Fire TVs (1 and 2) do this, and it's not repeatable. In my case, it happens at the moment when SPMC is supposed to suspend, but not every time. I'd love to have it work so I can hit one button on my Fire TV remote and have it start up my TV and reciever, but I can't get it to work, so I've disabled HDMI CEC on the Fire TV 2. I'll do more testing on my Fire TV 1 soon.

I have a two fire sticks, Samsung TVs, and both are setup to turn on when I push home button on the fire remote. The main TV is recently turning on, it gets 1000 times the usage. It is now doing it when watching other things or while playing online games - not cool! I’ll check back soon since this thread has been sitting

Our Firestick has also started to turn the TV on by itself and also when we are watching other mediums. This is not cool Amazon. You need to get ahold of this.

Turn off CEC in your tv settings

No great solution so far
It seems like there ought to be a way to solve this problem without simply dumbing-down our TVs and disabling a pretty darn convenient convenience feature.

Unless you really need the firestick to be able to turn the TV off and on, you can go into settings on the firestick and select display and sound, then you see something called "HDMI CEC Device Control, and turn it off. This may or may not work. We just found it.

So I just started having this issue. But it happening when the TV is on another input say my cable box. I'll be watching cable and then the Amazon fire TV will switch inputs. When I use my Amazon control and I am watching cable and hit a button, the Amazon tv would switch input which was great. But now no one is going the Amazon remote and the into is being swapped. Just started happening this month has to be some update Amazon made.

So I have the same issue. I have both a firestick and a Chromecast. I want to keep anynet enabled so that Chromecast can turn on and off the TV through voice command with Google home. It comes in handy when the kids are up early on Saturday and I don't feel like leaving bed, I'll ask Google to turn on the TV and put Netflix for them lol.
Anyhow my solution was to power the firestick from the USB port found on the tv. So when. The TV is off firestick is off ...no more random TV on's

I recently began having this issue as well on my firestick. I have had CEC turned on for months and it has not been an issue until a couple of days ago. I have noticed that my firestick has booted to Netflix each time it turns on by itself. Netflix has been the last app used, so tonight I am trying to back out of every app; especially Netflix, to see if that has anything to do with my random boot ups.

This issue don't happen on Apple TV.
But power down your amazon fire each time. (press select + play at same time for 5 seconds).

fire stick auto starting
Just curious, did this work? I noticed that it is doing in only when the last thing i watched was netflix also. so im thinking it's actually a netflix app issue. what did you find out by backing out of netflix before turning off? did the firestick autostart at all after you backed out?
XtraMed said:
I recently began having this issue as well on my firestick. I have had CEC turned on for months and it has not been an issue until a couple of days ago. I have noticed that my firestick has booted to Netflix each time it turns on by itself. Netflix has been the last app used, so tonight I am trying to back out of every app; especially Netflix, to see if that has anything to do with my random boot ups.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

It's not rebooting. It's was NEVER turned off.
The solution is too power off the device. Yes it's an extra step to inconvenient your busy life but it is what it is.

I just got the second generation fire stick after Thanksgiving, which I'm using on an older Mitsubishi dlp. It changes the tv's input at will. I also have a PS3, which has always acted in a similar manner. More specifically, the playstation turns itself right back on after I press the power button to turn it off. Both are pretty annoying.

Just turn off the CEC in Settings > Sounds & Display. With CEC enabled every time AMAZON Fire TV wakes up or Switches to Home it would Switch the TV on or Switch the TV Source ... very annoying. New Fire TV OS allows you to turn this feature off

Any way to send custom CEC commands?

When I press the home button while the firetv is asleep it will fire off a tv-on hdmi CEC command.
Anyway to send volup/voldown/tv off commands ?

I was gonna make the same post a few days ago, but then I realized my TV remote does everything the other way through CEC. Arrows, OK, Play, Pause, Next, Skip, Exit all work through CEC on the Fire Stick in all apps. Just no voice.
Still interested in this too tho, just in case.

TimmyP said:
I was gonna make the same post a few days ago, but then I realized my TV remote does everything the other way through CEC. Arrows, OK, Play, Pause, Next, Skip, Exit all work through CEC on the Fire Stick in all apps. Just no voice.
Still interested in this too tho, just in case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My fire remote is way more responsive. This way would be preferable for me

I understand. I was just trying to give you the best response I could. If I could use the FireTV remote like this, I would do it too. (makes an ok controller for SNES RPGS)

There is the sideclick which I think amazon makes too. Attaches to you remote and gives you ir tv control