[ROM] Unofficial OpenELEC for MXIII-G & Tronsmart MXIII+

[ilfrance]

I've discovered a little bug, i'm not even sure it depends on the openelec builds, or kodi, or whatever.. When i watch a 3d movie and kodi tries to autoswitch the tv to 3d i get a black screen... has anybody else tried this feature? Does it work for you and so it's a problem with my tv?

[wilro_6276]

Howdy All,

Just put up build "g" - This release includes all the latest package updates for OE - The "official" OE 6.0.1 maintenance release is due shortly, I suspect this build is very close to what it will be - Most significant part of this build is inclusion of the latest amlogic mali (gpu) drivers, temporary removal of the bluetooth drivers (I suspect it impacts the wifi, & BT hasn't worked since switching to codesnake's kernel anyway

These newer amlogic drivers appear to be changes needed for the new S905 based devices, & as I'd hoped also help significantly with our S812 based devices - I will hopefully put up a test build based on OE7 soon, but at this stage, there isn't a whole lot different to the stable build (apart from kodi 16 + newer build chain) - Any stability improvements it introduces for our devices will be backported to my stable build, regardless.

Enjoy!

[al8782]

Howdy All,

Just put up build "g" - This release includes all the latest package updates for OE - The "official" OE 6.0.1 maintenance release is due shortly, I suspect this build is very close to what it will be - Most significant part of this build is inclusion of the latest amlogic mali (gpu) drivers, temporary removal of the bluetooth drivers (I suspect it impacts the wifi, & BT hasn't worked since switching to codesnake's kernel anyway

These newer amlogic drivers appear to be changes needed for the new S905 based devices, & as I'd hoped also help significantly with our S812 based devices - I will hopefully put up a test build based on OE7 soon, but at this stage, there isn't a whole lot different to the stable build (apart from kodi 16 + newer build chain) - Any stability improvements it introduces for our devices will be backported to my stable build, regardless.

Enjoy!

Awesome. Can't wait to get my box to give your build a try. I have a G Box Q running OpenELEC and sometimes when exting an menu option the screen goes blank. It'll stay blank until I pull the plug or it sometimes just reboots itself.

Have you encounter that at all with your build for the MXIII - G?

Thank You

[testbit]

First of all huge thanks for all the work you've put into this! and I will certainly be donating to keep your beer supplies topped up.

I've been using 6.0.0f for about a week now and it runs wonderfully for the most part, though I've experienced a couple of niggles (mostly errors on my part I suspect).

My setup is as follows:-

MXIII-G 2GB/8GB with gigabit ethernet and running build 6.0.0f
I have 2x 3.5 External Desktop HDD drives connected via the two USB ports available on the device. (One drive is 2TB the other 4TB with about 3TB of media across both drives which has been imported to Kodi library)

- HDMI CEC: This feature works out of the box. Turning on the device will turn on the TV automatically, and turning off the TV will turn the device off automatically, which is great but the issue is that I can't figure out how to disable CEC lol! Have checked Settings -> Input devices -> Peripherals, but this is grayed out for me. I was unable to find any setting on the TV to disable this either.

- Occasional Crash: The device seems to crash sometimes after a few hours. Typically it'l have crashed by morning each day. The power LED stays blue but the device is completely unresponsive and unreachable via ping over the network. Power button on the device and remote control doesn't do anything and there is no video output. Only way to recover is power cycling it seems. The kodi log files don't show anything out of the ordinary or any errors at time of the crash, The logging just stops which indicates the time of the crash. This lead me to believe it could be overheating or hardware issue, but the box is always cool to the touch. I've setup some monitoring to email me when the box crashes so I can troubleshoot this further, but any other ideas would be appreciated!

- Video playback: Streaming HD quality videos over the net play flawlessly! but I've noticed if I play a video from my library (on one of the USB HDDs), particularly 720p or 1080p, the video doesn't run smoothly. The system reports 0 dropped and 0 skipped frames, though something is definitely off. For example, certain scenes such as a fire in a fireplace doesn't look smooth, as if there is refresh rate mismatch or it's running at lower FPS or something (I've set match refresh rate to "always match" in Kodi settings). I also have to delay the audio by 0.100 on these videos otherwise it's out of sync. Same files play smoothly and in-sync on other devices and the issue doesn't seem to be present while streaming content. I mean, don't get me wrong it is still absolutely watchable but the issue is definitely noticeable!

Finally, what is the recommended method to upgrade my box to build "g" without losing any of my current setup, library and configuration?

Many thanks!

EDIT: Also any plans to support Tronsmart S95 (amlogic S905) in the future?

EDIT2: I've been unplugging HDMI cable in order to switch the TV off and not the box until I figure out how to disable CEC. Don't suppose this could have something to do with crash? Will test that further - Also my HDDs are formatted 1x NTFS and 1x ext2 but I don't imagine this will cause a problem?

[Ozman]

Howdy All,

Just put up build "g" - This release includes all the latest package updates for OE - The "official" OE 6.0.1 maintenance release is due shortly, I suspect this build is very close to what it will be - Most significant part of this build is inclusion of the latest amlogic mali (gpu) drivers, temporary removal of the bluetooth drivers (I suspect it impacts the wifi, & BT hasn't worked since switching to codesnake's kernel anyway

These newer amlogic drivers appear to be changes needed for the new S905 based devices, & as I'd hoped also help significantly with our S812 based devices - I will hopefully put up a test build based on OE7 soon, but at this stage, there isn't a whole lot different to the stable build (apart from kodi 16 + newer build chain) - Any stability improvements it introduces for our devices will be backported to my stable build, regardless.

Enjoy!

Wilro, you da man! My f build was working very well apart from some very recent movies that I screened - if you catch my drift. Those movies would stutter but that has now disappeared with build g. Yippee!

[wilro_6276]

I've discovered a little bug, i'm not even sure it depends on the openelec builds, or kodi, or whatever.. When i watch a 3d movie and kodi tries to autoswitch the tv to 3d i get a black screen... has anybody else tried this feature? Does it work for you and so it's a problem with my tv?

Hi ilfrance,

Not sure about this - Just had a quick look through all my patches for kodi, & I can't see *anything* mentioned about 3d (I just assumed it works - There are a few different settings related to 3d in kodi, but haven't really looked at it myself. Of course, this could be a quirk in the amlogic drivers (the new one's in build "g" are "fresh off the presses" - only picked them up a couple of days ago, & as they made a noticable improvement with minimal testing, figured it justified a new release .

There is an update for the cec library in OE7 which I will be looking at shortly (not sure it'll be worth backporting yet), which may help further with other people's cec issues as well (I guess I'm lucky here, as my old samsung TV works pretty much 100% with the current drivers, but then it only implements minimal cec support

[wilro_6276]

First of all huge thanks for all the work you've put into this! and I will certainly be donating to keep your beer supplies topped up.

I've been using 6.0.0f for about a week now and it runs wonderfully for the most part, though I've experienced a couple of niggles (mostly errors on my part I suspect).

Yes build "f" has a few prob's I discovered shortly after release - It was my initial build with a large re-base of the build/kernel/bootloader - I've had a bit more time to fine tune it since, however, build "g" also brings with it a new kernel/gpu update, which yet again I've found a few more "niggles" since release this morning (sigh) - There's a lot going on at the moment, which I'm hoping will settle a bit when 6.0.1 is finalised)

My setup is as follows:-

MXIII-G 2GB/8GB with gigabit ethernet and running build 6.0.0f
I have 2x 3.5 External Desktop HDD drives connected via the two USB ports available on the device. (One drive is 2TB the other 4TB with about 3TB of media across both drives which has been imported to Kodi library)

- HDMI CEC: This feature works out of the box. Turning on the device will turn on the TV automatically, and turning off the TV will turn the device off automatically, which is great but the issue is that I can't figure out how to disable CEC lol! Have checked Settings -> Input devices -> Peripherals, but this is grayed out for me. I was unable to find any setting on the TV to disable this either.

I must admit I don't use the USB ports much on this box (everything is on NAS boxes here, with an occasional use of a thumb drive to view pics .

CEC is enabled during boot time & runs independently of kodi (from what I can tell) - It isn't even enabled during the kodi build process (I might try enabling it on my next test build to see what it does) - You can however disable cec in "autostart.sh" :

echo 0 > /sys/devices/virtual/amhdmitx/amhdmitx0/cec_config

(This won't stop it from powering up your TV, but it should stop talking to the TV before kodi itself starts - I haven't personally tested this (just read about it in the forums)

- Occasional Crash: The device seems to crash sometimes after a few hours. Typically it'l have crashed by morning each day. The power LED stays blue but the device is completely unresponsive and unreachable via ping over the network. Power button on the device and remote control doesn't do anything and there is no video output. Only way to recover is power cycling it seems. The kodi log files don't show anything out of the ordinary or any errors at time of the crash, The logging just stops which indicates the time of the crash. This lead me to believe it could be overheating or hardware issue, but the box is always cool to the touch. I've setup some monitoring to email me when the box crashes so I can troubleshoot this further, but any other ideas would be appreciated!

I've been chasing this issue since my earliest builds (it doesn't happen as often now, but still often enough to be annoying - It happens mostly over wireless, when lan cable unplugged, or when the box is left powered on & idle. I suspect it's related to powersaving mode (I have had the box play movies/shows for 12+hrs back to back, without missing a beat, but then 5 minutes after stopping, it's lost it's connection) - Anything you can ID as a possible culprit, would be most helpful in isolating this (never thought of looking at CEC, which I now will - My workaround is to always power down the box when not being used (I have 4 boxes & regularly start watching something in one room, then move to another & resume watching

- Video playback: Streaming HD quality videos over the net play flawlessly! but I've noticed if I play a video from my library (on one of the USB HDDs), particularly 720p or 1080p, the video doesn't run smoothly. The system reports 0 dropped and 0 skipped frames, though something is definitely off. For example, certain scenes such as a fire in a fireplace doesn't look smooth, as if there is refresh rate mismatch or it's running at lower FPS or something (I've set match refresh rate to "always match" in Kodi settings). I also have to delay the audio by 0.100 on these videos otherwise it's out of sync. Same files play smoothly and in-sync on other devices and the issue doesn't seem to be present while streaming content. I mean, don't get me wrong it is still absolutely watchable but the issue is definitely noticeable!

Hmmm this reminds me of my 1st android tv box (old single core), which claimed it could play 2160p (damn shame that neither the network nor usb ports could feed content to it fast enough to play it smoothly - This is a bit strange, as the USB speeds are decent on these boxes (& my BR images playback flawlessly over lan connection or USB) - I use fixed refresh (60hz) on my 55in screen, whereas I've found my smaller ones (32in) look better with matching framerate (they are also much older than the 55in though ,

Finally, what is the recommended method to upgrade my box to build "g" without losing any of my current setup, library and configuration?

I have removed the wipe data option from build "g", so either method should be fine - Moving between builds <= "e" & >="f" are the only ones that absolutely require use of the zip file to upgrade (for the different bootloaders), however, I have found a few funky prob's moving between kerber's & my builds, so they should always be done using the zip method.

Many thanks!

EDIT: Also any plans to support Tronsmart S95 (amlogic S905) in the future?

I've been following Kerber's progress with a couple of S905 based boxes, so it certainly looks like it'll be doable - There are certainly a lot of cheap ones at the moment - Now, justifying actually getting a new one (I already have 4 x S805's & 2 x S812's, yet have 4 TV's is another question - As it stands they bring nothing useful above the S812's for me (I don't have UHD/HD audio/HEVC-10bit) - Wifi 802.11ac might lure me to one though

EDIT2: I've been unplugging HDMI cable in order to switch the TV off and not the box until I figure out how to disable CEC. Don't suppose this could have something to do with crash? Will test that further - Also my HDDs are formatted 1x NTFS and 1x ext2 but I don't imagine this will cause a problem?

[testbit]

Thanks for the quick reply!

I added that line to my autostart.sh and it works flawlessly so far. Powering on the device no longer affects my TV and vice versa Also just upgraded to 6.0.0g without any issues using the toothpick install.

Interestingly the device hasn't crashed in the last 24hr (I've left the TV connected and powered on. Maybe this stops it idling somehow.. or could be coincidence.. will keep you posted). We can also safetly rule out wifi as I don't use it. wired connection only here. I do leave the box powered 24/7 and have not experienced a crash while actively using it, only seems to crash after idling for a few hours.

Will do some more testing regards video playback too and will keep you posted on any developments.

EDIT: Just to be certain I've disabed wifi interface in autostart.sh to stop it scanning.

[winny.uk]

Hi Wilro. Just a quick note to say thanks for providing this build of OE. I loaded 6.0.0F-cs onto my MXIII-G 2G S812 box as I was finding the stock Android 5.1.1 was getting in the way.

Like you I have a shared library in mysql and was having a great deal of success playing movies from my NAS over ethernet. I then switched to Wifi, unplugged the ethernet, and tried to access my TV Shows. At this point the box locked up, so I tried a cold boot. The box loads as far as the Kodi screen and then shuts off. I tried reverting back to ethernet but I just can't get the box to load into Kodi.

I'll give 6.0.0G a try and retrace my steps to see if I can recreate the issue and report back with findings.

[Bigredfan]

I am already on a build with the new bootloader(think it is f)

What is the most effective and easiest way to get everything updated to build g without losing the stuff on my box

[ilfrance]

I am already on a build with the new bootloader(think it is f)

What is the most effective and easiest way to get everything updated to build g without losing the stuff on my box

This is how I do it:
Ssh into the box
cd .update
wget http://5.189.137.29/Openelec/MX3G/oe...arm-6.0.0g.tar
Reboot
Done

[Atreus]

This is how I do it:
Ssh into the box
cd .update
wget http://5.189.137.29/Openelec/MX3G/oe...arm-6.0.0g.tar
Reboot
Done

Flashed build g with the above method and now my ethernet MAC address changes upon restart or reboot. Any ideas to getting it to stop?

EDIT: Nevermind, I reflashed using the toothpick method and its not longer changing.

[wilro_6276]

Thanks for the quick reply!

I added that line to my autostart.sh and it works flawlessly so far. Powering on the device no longer affects my TV and vice versa Also just upgraded to 6.0.0g without any issues using the toothpick install.

Interestingly the device hasn't crashed in the last 24hr (I've left the TV connected and powered on. Maybe this stops it idling somehow.. or could be coincidence.. will keep you posted). We can also safetly rule out wifi as I don't use it. wired connection only here. I do leave the box powered 24/7 and have not experienced a crash while actively using it, only seems to crash after idling for a few hours.

Will do some more testing regards video playback too and will keep you posted on any developments.

EDIT: Just to be certain I've disabed wifi interface in autostart.sh to stop it scanning.

Thanks for the feedback - Apparently there is a wetek play addon which has the ability to enable/disable the amlogic cec function, so I'll have a look at this & incorporate it in my next build if possible (never liked the fact that I could only disable/enable it @ build/boot, as I only have 1 TV that supports it, & only minimally at that - This could possibly help others experiencing problems I have been unable to replicate to date, due to different model/brand TV's supporting/partially supporting the cec specs
Actually, this may explain why my non-cec TV's always appeared to suffer less oddball behaviour than my main TV (I've always blamed the fact that the main TV is a lot bigger than the others, & thus display flaws/glitches are far more obvious

[wilro_6276]

Hi Wilro. Just a quick note to say thanks for providing this build of OE. I loaded 6.0.0F-cs onto my MXIII-G 2G S812 box as I was finding the stock Android 5.1.1 was getting in the way.

Like you I have a shared library in mysql and was having a great deal of success playing movies from my NAS over ethernet. I then switched to Wifi, unplugged the ethernet, and tried to access my TV Shows. At this point the box locked up, so I tried a cold boot. The box loads as far as the Kodi screen and then shuts off. I tried reverting back to ethernet but I just can't get the box to load into Kodi.

I'll give 6.0.0G a try and retrace my steps to see if I can recreate the issue and report back with findings.

Hi winny.uk,

Yes, I've found it's a bit pedantic when switching between connection interfaces - I really need to have a better look at what connman is doing here (We're running V1.23, which has a warning "do not upgrade", despite the latest version being 1.31) - I do the following when switching between wifi/lan connection:
1. enable lan connection in OE, plug in lan cable, reboot
2. disable wireless, reboot

I've found it behaves oddly with both connections enabled, & having the wifi in range + lan cable plugged in.

Not sure why it would hang/shutoff however, normally if it can't connect to the mysql database at bootup, it simply comes up without showing the "Movies" or "TV shows" options in kodi (rebooting again generally resolves this).
I did find that enabling "wake on lan" in kodi causes more problems than it resolves, I instead just do a ping of the nas box in autostart.sh (ie. /bin/ping -c 2 <ip of nas box>) - ymmv however, I don't think kodi recovers very well in certain situations (ie. like if the mysql server goes into sleep mode while kodi is idle) - I've tried various methods to try to get it to recover 'elegantly' in this scenerio, however, I've only achieved partial success thus far - Simplest workaround is to increase the idle timeout on the nas box itself (sigh).

[wilro_6276]

This is how I do it:
Ssh into the box
cd .update
wget http://5.189.137.29/Openelec/MX3G/oe...arm-6.0.0g.tar
Reboot
Done

Flashed build g with the above method and now my ethernet MAC address changes upon restart or reboot. Any ideas to getting it to stop?

EDIT: Nevermind, I reflashed using the toothpick method and its not longer changing.

Yep, I think the take away on this, is if the tar update fails, or you see sporadic behaviour after using the tar update, use the toothpick/zip method. I find this quirk very strange, as the tar update method hasn't changed at all, & is a very simple process, not prone to errors. Thankfully, the toothpick/zip method works everytime (touch wood) - It doesn't appear to be specific just to the MX3G however, I've had this failure occur on all my OE boxes (MXQ, MK808b+ & HD18q).