Develop Bugs

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.

[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.
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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.

got a rooted FireTV? want to run plex media ***SERVER***?

lil'debi to the rescue.
https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/148330-ouya-owners-rejoice-pms-at-the-push-of-a-button/
previous experiments/disasters (but also some very helpful links)
https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/69588-plex-for-archlinux-available/page-3#entry805149

I use to run plex connect on Apple tv 3 awhile back and it was great except you needed a static ip and when my Mac lost network connection nothing would work on the Apple tv.
But running plex on fire tv would be useful for devices that don't have kodi.
there are 2 potential issues
1. I have no idea how to automate the script on ran on Mac on my aftv
2. I updated ATV3 to an ios 8 equivalent and I'm not sure plex connect still works. (There was a trick that got Apple trailers to launch plex)
Personally, that's the only benefit I see in plex. It was my goto before xbmc but I just stopped using it.
Really more of a commentary than a question. But if anyone can tell me how I might use this for plex connect please chime in. It was actually pretty cool when I ran it on atv. Or any other benefit I might be missing...

[Q] Fire TV Stick & playing MKV files

Hi folks
Got a Fire TV Stick there and have XBMC/Kodi sideloaded. I also have a QNAP NAS which is hardwired to my Virgin Superhub 2 router. When I play most of my MKV's, which are stored on the NAS, the playback is kinda sluggish/low frame rate.
Is there anything I can do to sort this for smooth playback? Does the stick just not have the power to play the MKVs? Is it the network?

takkischitt said:
Hi folks
Got a Fire TV Stick there and have XBMC/Kodi sideloaded. I also have a QNAP NAS which is hardwired to my Virgin Superhub 2 router. When I play most of my MKV's, which are stored on the NAS, the playback is kinda sluggish/low frame rate.
Is there anything I can do to sort this for smooth playback? Does the stick just not have the power to play the MKVs? Is it the network?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine plays mkv from smb shares with no problems. Are these really large files? Id suspect its a network issue. How good is the signal in the room with the stick? Maybe do a speedtest or if possible move the stick to a tv closer to the router.

KLit75 said:
Mine plays mkv from smb shares with no problems. Are these really large files? Id suspect its a network issue. How good is the signal in the room with the stick? Maybe do a speedtest or if possible move the stick to a tv closer to the router.
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Click to collapse
They range from 2-4GB in size. The router is right beside the TV, so dont think it would be a range issue. I'll check the router setting this evening to see if I can maybe change the signal frequency to get faster speeds.
But the Fire TV Stick should play MKV files smoothly, even if they're around 4GB?

Press O on a Keyboard in Kodi, while a video is playing to see both the CPU stress (in percentages), as well as the cache fill rate, dropped frames, ...
You guys are all treating this problem like you were banging on a black box. Just use the obvious diagnostic tools baked into the platforms. Act like you weren't part of the Smartphone generation that is seen as being too dumb to do any kind of problem solving using diagnostics. Start by RTFM.

harlekinrains said:
Press O on a Keyboard in Kodi, while a video is playing to see both the CPU stress (in percentages), as well as the cache fill rate, dropped frames, ...
You guys are all treating this problem like you were banging on a black box. Just use the obvious diagnostic tools baked into the platforms. Act like you weren't part of the Smartphone generation that is seen as being too dumb to do any kind of problem solving using diagnostics. Start by RTFM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This may be dumb, but how do you press O without a keyboard?

The little problems you have to solve...
Because I've leaned myself out of the window in other topics so recently - I'll just name the solution in here -
If you have an Android Phone (or tablet), or an iPhone (or iPad), or access to someone who has - install the FIre TV Remote App (or any similar app) on it and it will provide you with an on screen keyboard that can also be used to send "O" to Kodi.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amazon.storm.lightning.client.aosp&hl=en
In fact - amazon notifies you, that this App exists in the setup process of the Fire TV if I am not mistaken.
If you have only access to a PC, or Mac - there are other solutions out there. Look for them in the Kodi Wiki (xbev).
---------- Post added at 05:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:13 PM ----------
edit: it is even possible to send the O command via adb -
adb shell input text o
Next time, you try to find one of the solutions yourself, promised? Maybe even share them. Like if this place would be something else, different to a consumer product support infrastructure.

harlekinrains said:
The little problems you have to solve...
Because I've leaned myself out of the window in other topics so recently - I'll just name the solution in here -
If you have an Android Phone (or tablet), or an iPhone (or iPad), or access to someone who has - install the FIre TV Remote App (or any similar app) on it and it will provide you with an on screen keyboard that can also be used to send "O" to Kodi.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amazon.storm.lightning.client.aosp&hl=en
In fact - amazon notifies you, that this App exists in the setup process of the Fire TV if I am not mistaken.
If you have only access to a PC, or Mac - there are other solutions out there. Look for them in the Kodi Wiki (xbev).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Many thanks for the info. I completely forgot about the app, as I've just been using the remote. I'll give that a whirl later to see what it says.

AFTV ver.1 Video Playback micro stutters (local media files over network)

Ok So I have an AFTV ver. 1 Running Fire OS 5.0.5 and Kodi 16.0. and all of my media files will micro stutter (doesn't matter if the file is High Bitrate or not) my settings are as follows:
I have Audio Pass through enabled with Resample rate set to Low (my receiver can handle DD and DTS and the sound comes out as expected)
I have also set in video settings set display to match source refresh rate (i have tried both "Always" and "On Start/Stop")
For the Most Part the video files play fine, but every so often the file will micro stutter. All of my files are h.264 mkv's (either blu-ray rips or HD TV shows) The TV shows seem to do it the worst. I have searched the web for answers and can't figure it out. One theory that I have is that the AFTV can't output and any other refresh rate than 60hz so that is causing a problem with things that were filmed in 23.97fps or 29.97fps. If anyone has any advice for me I would really be thankful.
I may be making a big deal out of nothing, but coming from a WD TV Live box I didn't have any problems like this, don't get me wrong I wont be going back to the WD now that I have the speed of KODI, but I just want to know if its a limitation of the Hardware.
Edit I have come to the acceptance that it is a limit of the hardware. I grabbed my roommates FTV ver 2 (also updated to Fire OS 5.0.5 and running KODI 16.0 and configured it the exact same way) ran the same files and they played flawlessly. Looks like I will be upgrading.

jdawg0024 said:
Ok So I have an AFTV ver. 1 Running Fire OS 5.0.5 and Kodi 16.0. and all of my media files will micro stutter (doesn't matter if the file is High Bitrate or not) my settings are as follows:
I have Audio Pass through enabled with Resample rate set to Low (my receiver can handle DD and DTS and the sound comes out as expected)
I have also set in video settings set display to match source refresh rate (i have tried both "Always" and "On Start/Stop")
For the Most Part the video files play fine, but every so often the file will micro stutter. All of my files are h.264 mkv's (either blu-ray rips or HD TV shows) The TV shows seem to do it the worst. I have searched the web for answers and can't figure it out. One theory that I have is that the AFTV can't output and any other refresh rate than 60hz so that is causing a problem with things that were filmed in 23.97fps or 29.97fps. If anyone has any advice for me I would really be thankful.
I may be making a big deal out of nothing, but coming from a WD TV Live box I didn't have any problems like this, don't get me wrong I wont be going back to the WD now that I have the speed of KODI, but I just want to know if its a limitation of the Hardware.
Edit I have come to the acceptance that it is a limit of the hardware. I grabbed my roommates FTV ver 2 (also updated to Fire OS 5.0.5 and running KODI 16.0 and configured it the exact same way) ran the same files and they played flawlessly. Looks like I will be upgrading.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the exact same issue running the aftv1, but using plex not kodi. I'll try my aftv2 like you to see if it makes a difference. It shouldn't [emoji2]

Try turning off rate switching. AFAIK Android does not yet support this.

jmerrilljr2 said:
Try turning off rate switching. AFAIK Android does not yet support this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried rate switching on and off. Same problem. Doesn't happen on the FTV 2

I have no idea what is going on with your set-up but I can tell you that I have 4 FireTv1 units in my home and I can watch different content from my NAS without any issues at all.
I do not think we should be blaming the hardware......... just saying

bula1ca said:
I have no idea what is going on with your set-up but I can tell you that I have 4 FireTv1 units in my home and I can watch different content from my NAS without any issues at all.
I do not think we should be blaming the hardware....I am just saying
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you mind posting your video and audio settings? Also what version Kodi are you running?

jdawg0024 said:
Would you mind posting your video and audio settings? Also what version Kodi are you running?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will post them when I get home tonight but honestly I do not remember doing anything special other then install zero cache. BTW have you ever use Raw Maintenance to clean cache etc. I will recommend using it once a week at least. BTW I am on v16 at the moment just updated few days back from v15.2

bula1ca said:
I will post them when I get home tonight but honestly I do not remember doing anything special other then install zero cache. BTW have you ever use Raw Maintenance to clean cache etc. I will recommend using it once a week at least. BTW I am on v16 at the moment just updated few days back from v15.2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have zero cached enabled already and I will try to clean the cache

jdawg0024 said:
I have zero cached enabled already and I will try to clean the cache
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do a search on youtube on how to install Raw Maintenance, it has three options Clear Cache, Deletes Thumbnails and Purge Packages

bula1ca said:
Do a search on youtube on how to install Raw Maintenance, it has three options Clear Cache, Deletes Thumbnails and Purge Packages
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All that can be done from the maintenance tool add-on. Under general maintenance.

bula1ca said:
I have no idea what is going on with your set-up but I can tell you that I have 4 FireTv1 units in my home and I can watch different content from my NAS without any issues at all.
I do not think we should be blaming the hardware......... just saying
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about your video encoding settings, what file formats, codecs you use that work well...

Thanks for all of the suggestions, but I have purchased a Fire TV gen 2 and it has fixed all my problems. I have it set up the exact same way as the gen 1 and everything plays great

jdawg0024 said:
Thanks for all of the suggestions, but I have purchased a Fire TV gen 2 and it has fixed all my problems. I have it set up the exact same way as the gen 1 and everything plays great
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, you didn't "fix" the problem at all, you circumvented it by buying another piece of hardware [emoji6]

ldeveraux said:
What about your video encoding settings, what file formats, codecs you use that work well...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, been busy with my kids for the last few days. I did not change any of the video encoding settings from what I remember.

bula1ca said:
Sorry, been busy with my kids for the last few days. I did not change any of the video encoding settings from what I remember.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I meant the files you're playing, not the FireTV. I think it may be a combination of video/audio encoding and the FireTV1 not playing well. What container and audio/video codec for your video files? What does MediaInfo output on them? This may be the key to understanding how best to store media for the device...

ldeveraux said:
Well, you didn't "fix" the problem at all, you circumvented it by buying another piece of hardware [emoji6]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are correct, I did not fix the problem with my FTV gen 1. Over the past couple of days I had the FTV 1, FTV 2, and the Fire Stick (was setting up the stick for a friend). Both the FTV 1 and Fire Stick showed the same issues while trying to play large bitrate files. They would stutter. (not to the point that the file was unwatchable, but it was bad enough.) The FTV 2 however plays the same video file smoothly.

jdawg0024 said:
You are correct, I did not fix the problem with my FTV gen 1. Over the past couple of days I had the FTV 1, FTV 2, and the Fire Stick (was setting up the stick for a friend). Both the FTV 1 and Fire Stick showed the same issues while trying to play large bitrate files. They would stutter. (not to the point that the file was unwatchable, but it was bad enough.) The FTV 2 however plays the same video file smoothly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about the stick? Is that Stick1 or Stick2? I mean, your results aren't surprising, it would be cool to figure out exactly why.

ldeveraux said:
What about the stick? Is that Stick1 or Stick2? I mean, your results aren't surprising, it would be cool to figure out exactly why.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is the firestick 1 and I am not surprised that it had a little stutter problem. I was more surprised about the Fire TV 1 that had a problem. It streams Netflix and Hulu just fine. I know that may be comparing apples to oranges