M8 Freezes. No matter what ROM is installed

[Tyler Durden]

After a long time on CodeSnakes OpenELEC ROM with very few issues, my M8 box started having problems. I have now tried many of the popular ROMs on this forum to no avail. My M8 box consistantly freezes. Is it possible that this is a hardware issue they cannot be solved by different software?

[jopereira]

What kind of freezes? Just stops working? Has freezes from time to time then resumes?

[clarkss12]

Try another power supply

[Tyler Durden]

The box becomes unresponsive to remote control, I am forced to disconnect the power supply and start it up again.

[Tyler Durden]

There does seem to be another symptom on this box. ROMs rarely install properly the first time round, often needing a second or third attempt before installing correctly.

[neomode]

Sounds weird, but exchange the Battery on Remonte.
This Will Help for sure.

Neomode

[jopereira]

Sounds weird, but exchange the Battery on Remonte.
This Will Help for sure.

Weird it is! But you may well be right... . Low quality batteries die slowly and may accept some keystrokes but then voltage gets too low to operate the remote properly.
High quality ones do live longer, but die abruptly.

[SacoPanchez]

My M8 (square unit from OTT, 2GB ROM, old round remote) freezes too. Nothing related to the remote, though, because I am using a USB mouse (with cord, not wireless). Like Tyler Durden, I have also used Codesnake's (or Kerber's) Openelec for over one year, but now I use Megatron's Android v3.
With any of those ROMs, while watching movies under Kodi the video can freeze unpredictably, the audio mutes and the system becomes unresponsive to both remote and mouse. It does not matter whether the file is local (USB disk) or networked (my NAS server). The only remedy consists in disconnecting the power supply. Hopefully, upon reconnection, the system keeps track of the point at which it was forced to stop, and the movie can be immediately resumed from that point.
Watching movies from Android without using Kodi (i.e., under Acestream) results in the very same problems. Perhaps it is a hardware problem, as suggested by Tyles Durden?
Anyone else experiencing these problems?

[cjeman]

It may not be ROM related. I have a Pipo X7S and I too have this issue. It is running Windows 10 and the problem is not predictable at all. I activated the Easy Advanced Settings program and upped the Buffers and other network related things that I could tweak, with no change. This problem does not seem to be network related. The videos on NAS devices on a gigabit backbone, so is the Pipo. Running Kodi 15.2.

I recently moved my M8N onto an AC Bridge, in another room. This is running JustMe's 1.9 ROM and it seems not to have this problem. I will concentrate some more testing on this setup.

I have been searching the various Forums concerning the problem and this is the first one that hits my problem exactly. Let's hope some can help us.

[RISCy Dude]

Try another power supply

I would try clarkss12's suggestion. Just testing the PS for voltage, won't necessarily reveal a problematic PS. If you have another PS that is the same voltage, same amps(can be more, should not be less) and very important, the same Tip Polarity, give it a try.
Many issues on a variety of boxes have been traced to irregular power supplies. "Dirty" power supplies can mess with digital devices in a variety of ways.

Good luck to all.

[jopereira]

I went back to Kodi 14.2 and reconfigured my network settings - can't explain why but my network submask was changed from my original configuration.
No more freezes (remember, my freezes were temporary not permanent).

[RISCy Dude]

Glad you got it working well. From your sig, I see you have some nice A/V gear and a TV big enough to land a plane on.

[SacoPanchez]

Thank you, clarkss12!

It was indeed a problem from the power supply, but not due to the PS itself.

When the PS was plugged on a multiple socket extension the M8 unit showed the unstable behavior described. Upon changing to a wall electrical socket the problem disappeared altogether. Since then it has been running under Kodi 15.2 for over two and a half hours without any issue. Perhaps the unstable behavior was caused by the plugging of too many appliances.

Incidentally, I found similar instabilities in the quality of a Power Line Connection (PLC) Ethernet signal delivered from another multiple socket extension. Again, the unstable behavior disappeared when the PLC unit was plugged to a wall socket.