UPDATE - Marschmallow - Wasser Firmware for Beelink R89

[grummel2005]

any experiences with orbsmart s92 with this new firmware? i have the possibility to get one used and used with my former s92 firmwares until 3.02 and had been nearly happy - only a few things had been running not so good, but this had been from hardware-side, but for the kids it should be okai
so is 4.0.10 running on orbsmart s92?
thx

[BTR11]

Note to All This is Wassers Thread on the BEELINK device. Not the rkm or the tronsmart or any other device. Please try and not post other devices issues in his thread its for the Beelink device. If the firmware doesnt work on your device Open a Thread in your device section and ask the question. You will notice Wasser responding to questions and concerns regarding issues on the device this software made for.

Wasser let us know if you want the thread cleaned of Hijack posts... Great work.

100% agree with you. Title´s thread is very clear and may be restrictive from the perspective of the author/creator.

Wasser v.4.0.10 for Beelink R89 it´s great; the only main problem that remain it´s P2P apps and/or torrent are not able to cache the downloads to external SD card nor USB drives, only can be done to Internal memory or to the RAM memory.
I had reported before a "sopcast" app not working, but that´s the latest version 1.2.8 and 1.2.4, but an older version v1.1.0 on wasser MM roms works ok; so in this case it´s an app issue not from the firmware; so sopcast v1.10 it´s fine with wasser v.4.0.10.

Thanks Wasser.

[scooter2014]

Guys the question was for Wasser.Although I see your comments Its his thread 😁

[Gormar]

Wasser v.4.0.10 for Beelink R89 it´s great; the only main problem that remain it´s P2P apps and/or torrent are not able to cache the downloads to external SD card nor USB drives, only can be done to Internal memory or to the RAM memory.

Which P2P or torrent app do you use? And what do you mean by "cache"?

I use tTorrent and It can write to SD or USB drives with no problems. As I stated before in Android MM you have to give write permition to every SD card/USB drive used for every app using it. Maybe you have some old application which can not work properly under MM.

[BTR11]

Which P2P or torrent app do you use? And what do you mean by "cache"?

I use Acestream app which is the base for the P2P & plexus addon to work into Kodi; this acestream app can be setup to write (the temporaries files) to the disk (SD card or USB drives) for a better performance and do not risk the eMMC or nand flash (internal memory); this operation of writing the temporaries files of the P2P apps, it´s that they had called "caching to disk"; alternatively these apps can do the same operations of writing the temporaries files of the torrent stream to RAM.
And with Sopcast app, that the old version (v1.1.0) is working fine, this app work as well with the addons P2P and Plexus into Kodi; this app has the advantage that the live stream can be recorded; so this can not be done to SD card or USB sticks, only to the internal memory on MM or wasser´s MM firmware.

I use tTorrent and It can write to SD or USB drives with no problems. As I stated before in Android MM you have to give write permition to every SD card/USB drive used for every app using it. Maybe you have some old application which can not work properly under MM.

That´s good to know; I do not use that app, but the torrent that I use ar this type of P"P or sopcast to stream some live content, not to download specific files off-line, not real-time content; I had defined the the permission and stablish the root directory of each device, but unfortunately those P2P apps cannot find the SD card or USB directory to write on it.

[Gormar]

I use Acestream app (...),
And with Sopcast app (...)

Sorry I'm not an expert in Kodi but I think when you use external application to interact with KODI when you want to allow it access to SD card or USB drive you have to use each such application directly (not from KODI plugins). After granting such permissions you should be able to use KODI and these plugins with no problem. It is so because when you use KODI and its plugins then system will ask about giving KODI write permition to SD card or USB drive. For application working in background it might be impossible to send any notification to you about this problem.

Besides if I would have choise where to cache parts of file I would choose RAM. With chunks of torrent as small as 128KiB even for SD Card USB drive it might generate quite high wear. These devices utilise "convential" flash memories similar to internal eMMC where single erasable block of data can be as big as few MibiBytes (MiB).
On the other hand I think that torrents aren't so much dangerous for flash memory because their data should be written in big chunks which goes to different drive location (block). Writing some new data to the same block over and over is the most damaging for flash memory because of big erase problem mentioned above..

[avelza]

Brilliant ROM, Wasser, thanks a lot
a minor issue: the R89 w 4.0.10 wouldn't go to sleep, although it was supposed to be fixed a couple versions ago. Is it a regression bug, or am I missong anything?
Thanks!

[Gormar]

Brilliant ROM, Wasser, thanks a lot
a minor issue: the R89 w 4.0.10 wouldn't go to sleep

I can confirm that few times I was baffled why my device didn't go to sleep when I left if for more than two minutes. But it was only occasional. It might have something to do with running application. Right now I'm not able to replicate this problem.
Even if my Android TV Box automaticaly goes to sleep I preffer to press power button on remote to do it myself.

[BTR11]

Sorry I'm not an expert in Kodi but I think when you use external application to interact with KODI when you want to allow it access to SD card or USB drive you have to use each such application directly (not from KODI plugins). After granting such permissions you should be able to use KODI and these plugins with no problem. It is so because when you use KODI and its plugins then system will ask about giving KODI write permition to SD card or USB drive. For application working in background it might be impossible to send any notification to you about this problem.

These apps writing to an external storage unit (SD card or USB pen drive) works without a problem on kitkat and lollipop fimwares, from wasser or from others devs, but this task can not be accomplished on wasser marsmallow firmwares; on MM there is a real problem may be from the implementation of permissions system and the strange / weird name of those external storage units on wasser MM that can not be accessed or are not allowed from these apps that works from the background to write to that storage space defined by the user (properly defined). Even the "sopcast" (stream over peer to peer) that only works writing to the RAM, the path defined to record the stream can not be found or accessed or reached; IMHO, this is a "bug" on MM wasser version.
Just one more data to support that; I have a Samsung cell phone with MM 6.0.1, and just for testing purpose I had installed sopcast v1.1.0 and I can record without problem to external SD card, so MM as OS is not the problem.

Besides if I would have choise where to cache parts of file I would choose RAM. With chunks of torrent as small as 128KiB even for SD Card USB drive it might generate quite high wear. These devices utilise "convential" flash memories similar to internal eMMC where single erasable block of data can be as big as few MibiBytes (MiB).
On the other hand I think that torrents aren't so much dangerous for flash memory because their data should be written in big chunks which goes to different drive location (block). Writing some new data to the same block over and over is the most damaging for flash memory because of big erase problem mentioned above..

Thanks Gormar for the dissertation about it; I´m using RAM on wasser MM (v4.0.10 now) because writing to external storage does not work, and I had never used the internal memory due to the risk involved on writing this way from these apps; but in the other TV boxes with KK and LP firmwares I had been using small sizes (4 Gb) SD card or USB pen drives quite a long time (bigger than 2 years) with out problems and all of them are still alives and working. My usage of these apps are not that much are just 3 to 5 times a week (around 2 hours each) to watch some live sports that are not covered by my paid TV service, in my case mainly european soccer games, none of them had killed the external storage so far.

[Gormar]

Even the "sopcast" (stream over peer to peer) that only works writing to the RAM, the path defined to record the stream can not be found or accessed or reached; IMHO, this is a "bug" on MM wasser version.

I've got a little problem to understand this. Sopcast is writing to RAM or file system (drive)?
How do you choose where to write? Is it from KODI? When you select the path which is on SD/USB do you get notification about selecting root directory for this drive?

Just one more data to support that; I have a Samsung cell phone with MM 6.0.1, and just for testing purpose I had installed sopcast v1.1.0 and I can record without problem to external SD card, so MM as OS is not the problem.

Okey, that is interesting. What is the procedure on this Samsung smartphone when you want to write something to SD card from new app? Is there a notification to choose root directory on destination drive? Maybe they disabled this MM feature wanting to not confuse users?

[BTR11]

I've got a little problem to understand this. Sopcast is writing to RAM or file system (drive)?
How do you choose where to write? Is it from KODI? When you select the path which is on SD/USB do you get notification about selecting root directory for this drive?

Sopcast (http://www.sopcast.org/download/android.html) is different from acestream; sopcast use only RAM, works without download anything, there are two remote servers where is running, it´s like an android client server, but Sopcat itself is a videoplayer as well, so you can record the stream to the drives (internal memory or SD card, you define the location with directory and subdirectories) to watch i.e your sports later o watch again when you like it; when it´s used with kodi I use sopcast as external player for those kind of live streams.
Acestream (acestream beta) is currently on playstore, and this is more conventional background torrent proccess, your device is one of the "peers" ("seeds") where you can define how to write, download temporary files (segments); you can choose for live streaming to write to the disk and you define the location (internal memory or external drives with the chosen path , directory and subdirectories), or you don´t choose write to disk, so then writes to RAM; this acestream app requires a video player, that in my case I use Kodi (SPMC).
May be you can give a quick try for better understanding.

Okey, that is interesting. What is the procedure on this Samsung smartphone when you want to write something to SD card from new app? Is there a notification to choose root directory on destination drive? Maybe they disabled this MM feature wanting to not confuse users?

Well, now I'm doubtful, I´m not able to run sopcast v1.1.0 again (the other newer version hang/crash the system) in my samsung to re-check all the proccess; not sure if I had received a security update and I can not run this app. I can not replicate this now, so I have to ammend this affirmation; not sure if all of this is MM OS limitation through security implemented on it.
But when this cell phone was on Lollipop (I received the MM update from samsung some weeks ago) I had been running the app without problems and I had defined the location to record a particular event that I like; this it was only for testing purpose, because of course I do not use my cell phone for this task; for this I use the TV box. Regarding acestream, I do not install in my phone ever.

One thing is clear on my cell phone samsung updated to MM 6.0.1 and which is different on wassser MM fw: I can write to the external SD card without any notification to choose root directory; this is be done in the same way as It was done before without any extra step, as it was on KK or LP; so if this feature can be disabled permanently on MM as you suggest it was done on the phone, may be that is the better way to go with MM on the TV boxes; but I think this can not be done at the level of users, only from the developer.
[QUOTE=Gormar;n605461]

[gridlock]

thanks wasser.....
spdif passthrough (for the 1080p mkv files with dts or dolby digital) seem to work fine on kodi , until you try to fast forward or backward the playback. you have to stop it and play it back again)....
for me , this is the remaining issue with wasser's MM roms....

[BTR11]

I had found a fix for the problem to write to external storage in MM; searching I had arrived to xda forum where is discussed the problem; to overcome the restriction imposed in MM they developed an app "Marshmallow SD Fix - Root" https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...rshmallowsdfix (description: *** NEEDS ROOT and XPOSED FRAMEWORK installed *** Marshmallow SD Fix brings back the ability to save files in your external storage (such as microSD card), which has been restricted in Marshmallow and above).
So now everything is fine, back to normal as it was in Kitkat and Lollipop with acestream engine writing cache to external storage and sopcast recording the stream to external storage when required. So this is the solution for time being to me; with this fix wasser MM v4.0.10 is fully functional for my usage of Beelink R-89.

[bluesmanuk]

Another method that I used in another MM firmware to give access to external storage was to modify the Platform.xml as follows: (the actual formatting inside the XML file has indents that are not recreated in this copy and paste but you will get the idea when you see it).

<permission name="android.permission.WRITE_MEDIA_STORAGE" >
<group gid="media_rw" />
<group gid="sdcard_rw" />
<group gid="sdcard_all" />
</permission>

<permission name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" >
<group gid="sdcard_r" />
<group gid="sdcard_rw" />
<group gid="sdcard_all" />
<group gid="media_rw" />
</permission>

<permission name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" >
<group gid="sdcard_r" />
<group gid="sdcard_rw" />
<group gid="media_rw" />
</permission>

<permission name="android.permission.ACCESS_ALL_EXTERNAL_STORA GE" >
<group gid="sdcard_r" />
<group gid="sdcard_rw" />
<group gid="sdcard_all" />
<group gid="media_rw" />
</permission>

[Gormar]

Another method that I used in another MM firmware to give access to external storage was to modify the platform.xml

Nice find. I didn't thought that similar fix like in KitKat will help in MM. But you forgot to mention where we can locate that file . If someone interested it is in (system)/etc/permissions directory.

I had found a fix for the problem to write to external storage in MM; searching I had arrived to xda forum where is discussed the problem; to overcome the restriction imposed in MM they developed an app

That's another option. But I think those solution are only needed for apps which doesn't follow MM guidance for SD card write rights. I don't use any of that.
For example Sopcats "latest" version 1.2.8 is from 4th February 2015. More that three months before MM introduction.

Acestream is another subject because it seems to be updated after MM was released. Even so it doesn't ask for permission when I choose SD card/USB drive for its cache directory destination. But personally
I would use RAM memory to cache streamed torrents. 512MB should be plenty to do so. I have modified /mnt/obb directory with write rights to apps and I download files there which are smaller than 1GB (preferably 600-700MB).