OpenELEC for s82, M8, MXIII, Tronsmart S89

[wpb]

my question is, is it safe at this point to upgrade? I noted in the thread that users have issues with remotes following an upgrade
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I have two of these box one elite and with H, I can safely use both remotes interchangeable with any issues

I was the primary one posting about problems with the remote on the Russian (@Kerber) builds.

To be clear, if your remote works great under 5.0.3, it should work great under 5.0.5. My problem with remotes was consistent under *all* versions. Once I implemented @MikeD's recommended fix, it would work just as well under any version.

In short, there is no issue in upgrading, not in my experience. In fact, I noticed that my CPU usage during some videos went down in the 5.0.5 version (the main difference here being the 14.2 Kodi BETA vs 5.0.3 which as the 4.1 Kodi Release).

Regarding the H -vs- B boxes, as long as your remotes have been interchangeable, you are not suffering from the same issue I had raised earlier, so I would not worry about a thing in upgrading.

About the CEC issue, if you look up above, I posted a solution to this. My solution was far a Sharp TV, but once you find your Samsung code, your solution will work identical. It's very easy, basically just a single line with some XML tags around it!

Good luck!

[wpb]

I would install the original Android rom and transfer the /etc/remote.conf to your PC. Then install openelec again and do the same. Those two files should be different if your remote doesn't work in OE but in Android. If they are different you could place the one from Android in /storage/.conf in OE and reboot. Maybe the remote works then.
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If they are identical I really don't know why they don't work.
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And I want to make clear that I've never said that all S82/S89 remotes have to work. I've just said that until now you're the only one who got problems with that.

@MikeD your solution worked great, very good explanation and very helpful.

My point was that you had told me that "everyone" else is working fine and I'm the only one with problems, negating my points earlier that my S89 boxes came with remotes that were not supported, despite the S89 remotes looking *identical* to yours (as seen in my posts).

Now we're on the same page. Based on my recent orders, these manufacturers are producing boxes with identical (or nearly identical) remotes by appearance. Despite the appearance, that have different IR sequences, it seems. I've got two batches so far, onebatch of S82 (M8) and one batch S89. So this may be of help to someone that stumbles on this thread, especially your solution of copying the old remote.conf from the original ROM.

For anyone stumbling on this post, my original was located here:
/system/etc/remote.conf
As @MikeD stated, you'll copy to OpenElec here:
/storage/.config/remote.conf

One more thing. @MikeD, correct me if I am wrong, but I think that the remote.conf may be mutually exclusive. Unlike XBMC keymaps (xml) where you can load several files without an issue, it seems that only one remote.conf may be supported? The reason I say that, I haven't been able to get working remote (by default in OE) AND the original ROM's remote to work concurrently. Once I add the remote.conf, the OE remote is gone.

Thanks again for your assist on this!

[MikeD]

No, only one remote.conf is supported. In OpenELEC the original is placed in /etc/remote.conf. If one is found in storage/.config on boot this will be used instead.
I don't know if remote.conf could be configured to support more than one RC. I don't found a guide or something that defines the structure of this file.

So the problem is if you use another remote.conf to control OpenELEC it can't be waken up with the same RC because it gets only loaded on boot. In standby you have to use RC from original /etc/remote.conf.
This is a bit annoying but I could assign only ir code of power button from original remote to my harmony. So I have to use one button to shut down and another to wake up the box. But it's better to stick with original RC with small amount of buttons.

[wpb]

No, only one remote.conf is supported. In OpenELEC the original is placed in /etc/remote.conf. If one is found in storage/.config on boot this will be used instead.

Excellent info, thank you.

This is too obvious to work, but I have to ask .. if we replaced the etc/remote.conf with the one that works (instead of adding it to /storage/.config/remote.conf ), would this solve the problem of the new remote.conf not waking the box?

Ah, after attempting this, I see that OE system is a compressed, read-only file system. Therefore, to overwrite /etc/remote.conf, I'd have to copy the image, decompress, modify the file, re-compress, and re-mount the altered version.

At least it's good to know, thanks again @MikeD.

[killajay89]

i cant update to 5.0.5 on my beelink M8 not even on fresh install all it gives me is a black screen when fresh installing it can somebody give me instructions on how to update from 5.0.3 to 5.0.5 or the right files to flash

[MikeD]

If you have a working openelec it should be sufficient to install the update zip file in recovery. Don't wipe anything and reboot. Worked for me from 5.0.3 to 5.0.5 S82 version.

Also when I did a fresh install I used update zip and made factory reset. Never had luck with normal zip file. Always got verification error. But this seems to happen randomly because I also got that with update zip files sometimes.

[MikeD]

Excellent info, thank you.

This is too obvious to work, but I have to ask .. if we replaced the etc/remote.conf with the one that works (instead of adding it to /storage/.config/remote.conf ), would this solve the problem of the new remote.conf not waking the box?

Ah, after attempting this, I see that OE system is a compressed, read-only file system. Therefore, to overwrite /etc/remote.conf, I'd have to copy the image, decompress, modify the file, re-compress, and re-mount the altered version.

At least it's good to know, thanks again @MikeD.

Yeah, I know. It's read-only. So only way would be to compile it by yourself from source code with another remote.conf. If I have time to I will install a Linux distribution and try it with my config.

I don't really know but I think it's not possible to extract and recompress the install files.

[dankec]

If you have a working openelec it should be sufficient to install the update zip file in recovery. Don't wipe anything and reboot. Worked for me from 5.0.3 to 5.0.5 S82 version.

Also when I did a fresh install I used update zip and made factory reset. Never had luck with normal zip file. Always got verification error. But this seems to happen randomly because I also got that with update zip files sometimes.

I have working 5.0.3 on s82b and wanted to go to 5.0.5. Did update from zip/sd card but it ends with black screen, so I went back to 5.0.3. with the same method...

It's crucial for me to preserve settings...

Any solution?

[MikeD]

Maybe you could try wiping cache after installing update. But I hadn't to do that. Also try installing two times in a row. Another option would be to make an openelec backup and restore it after a fresh install of 5.0.5.

[dankec]

Maybe you could try wiping cache after installing update. But I hadn't to do that. Also try installing two times in a row. Another option would be to make an openelec backup and restore it after a fresh install of 5.0.5.

One question, there's two versions of 5.0.5: one from 3rd of march and the other from 5th. Which did you install?

[MikeD]

I've installed this one (06 March) as I said few posts earlier:

http://amlinux.ru/image/5.0.5/OpenELEC-Amlogic.S82.arm-5.0.5-update.zip

[dankec]

I've installed this one (06 March) as I said few posts earlier:
http://amlinux.ru/image/5.0.5/OpenEL...0.5-update.zip

I found it, thanks.
Did you use vermillion's procedure?

"I did have black screen at boot but this worked for me:
copy mx3 openelec to sd card with the recovery.img but without the " factory_update_param.aml " I used (OpenELEC-Amlogic.MX3.arm-devel-20150113192703-r20272-g0481f0c-update) but I thing any mx3 version should work.
Place in MXIII and boot using toothpick method
In recovery select factory reset
once complete, select update from external sd card and select the openelec mx3 file.
Then reboot system
MXIII should now boot.
Now flash the s82 version using all three files and let it do it all automatically.
It should now boot up."

Is there a possibility to loose settings with that method?

[MikeD]

No, I just installed the S82 version from recovery without wiping anything.
In his method he made a factory reset so you will lose all your settings if you do that.

BTW: He just installs mx3 version before s82. These two files (recovery.img and factory_update_param.aml) are optional and don't have to be used. If you have recovery.img in root of sdcard your box will boot into this recovery instead of recovery on flash which will be installed with every rom (open a image zip and you see recovery.img).
The other file is just for automatic flashing. If you open this file with text editor you see that it defines which zip image should be flashed on start of recovery. If this zip isn't found it doesn't do anything.

Be sure to use latest recovery (extract from latest openelec) to install zip. Maybe you have an old version in root of sd and that could cause problems too.

[vermillion]

In my case to get out of black screen and back to working Openelec I had to factory reset. I tried to do it without but Openelec would not fully boot. This was all on a MXIII 2G so black screen boots on other devices may need differing methods.
PS you may be able to restore your settings by using ftp to replace your userdata folder in .kodi/userdata/ with a backup if you have one. I have not tried this so it would be at your own risk..

[Ichijoe]

I have a MXIII branded to HausBell dont know if this means anything, Its a 2GB ram version.
I have downloaded a bunch of the OPENELEC images with the name MX3 in the file name. NONE will work. I get boot logo for about 4 secs and then black screen. the box just does nothing. I can then recovery and reflash to a working stock or another rom.
I even tested : OpenELEC-Amlogic.S82.arm <--- bad move after flashing this image the system folder seemed to have moved. anything I did after that would = ERROR 7 and abort the install.
I then used USB BURNER TOOL to reflash the box to a stock M82_108k4.img , That was fine. right after it flashed it rebooted.

So my list
OpenELEC-Amlogic.MX3.arm-4.97.2 to OpenELEC-Amlogic.MX3.arm-5.0.3
I have tested and all result in a blackscreen after the boot logo

anyone know whats up

Stupid question time... Are you a 100% sure that its a 2G, and not a 1G version?
Does your Device have both 802.11a, and Bluetooth 4.0? If so the its definitely the 2G version.
If not... Then its just the 1G version.