MECOOL M8S PRO TV Box Amlogic 912 Android 7.1 3/16GB Dual WiFi Fast Lan BT4.1

[aspittles]

Was your testing of the WiFi scientific enough (i.e. logs showing network failure)? How did you come to the conclusion that a particular FW version had bugged WiFi 5G?

Hi azn-spidey, First let me say welcome to the forum, I too am a newb to the Android platform, but also have a software engineering background.

The testing I did around the 5Ghz WiFi consisted of running a 2 hour+ movie on Netflix. On the 20170524 build and the 20170801 build the 5Ghz WiFi dropped after about 5 to 15 mins. On the 20170707 build the WiFi did not drop at all during the playback. I repeated the test 3 times on each of the 3 different builds. I also did the same test on the Nexus Stock and Nano ROMs (1 time only not 3 times) they too had the same problem with the 5Ghz Radio, but they are based on the 20170524 build, so this was expected.

What happens is the WiFi will just disconnect and I have to manually go back into the network config and tell it to reconnect. It doesn't seem to re-connect automatically.
During the 20170707 build testing the Netflix movie did stop once, however the WiFi didn't seem to have dropped and clicking on the Netflix play button resumed playing. So I just put this down to a Netflix gremlin and not a M8S Pro problem.

So from my observations the 20170801 seems to have been based on the 20170524 Rom, but they for some reason have changed the startup video and added a DRM App and Update script is looking for a "M8SPRO" device instead of a "q20x" device.

Interestingly my 1st M8S Pro (3Gb/16Gb Variant) came with 20170419 build and my 2nd M8S Pro (3Gb/32Gb Variant) came with the 20170707 build pre-loaded. Neither of these builds had these crappy MgmtSupport & BCenter Apps which crash randomly and seem to have no real purpose that I've been able to find so far. So they seem to have been introduced by the ROM's made available on this forum.

Guest Do you know where these ROM's with the MgmtSupport & BCenter Apps actually come from?

Sorry but I don't use the standard M8S Pro VSLauncher, I'm not a fan, I run TV Launcher on my 1st box and Nova Launcher on my Test box. If you have time you should check out Guest Nexus Stock Rom for the M8S Pro. http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-...7-1#post657555 It's very clean and stable ROM.

The underlying firmware for these is made by VideoStrong, but sometimes the OEMs add crap like those MgmtSupport & BCenter apps. It's trivial to remove them, and so I care much more about the underlying stability and performance.

[aspittles]

Guest Do you know if there is any form of fault/error logging on the network side. I'd like to dig into what's going on with the 5Ghz Radio. Also what components in the android platform make up the network stack and where they are found?

I'm also going to swap my 2 M8S Pro boxes around and do the same tests on my older box, just to eliminate the 5Ghz Radio issue being a hardware one....
Should hopefully have time to do that tonight (I'm in Sydney GMT +10)

[Guest]

Guest Do you know if there is any form of fault/error logging on the network side. I'd like to dig into what's going on with the 5Ghz Radio. Also what components in the android platform make up the network stack and where they are found?

Well, I'm only aware of the logcat, but there may be others.

As for tutorials on Android wireless, try this and this.

[aspittles]

Well, I'm only aware of the logcat, but there may be others.

As for tutorials on Android wireless, try this and this.

Thanks!

[aspittles]

Guest Do you know if there is any form of fault/error logging on the network side. I'd like to dig into what's going on with the 5Ghz Radio. Also what components in the android platform make up the network stack and where they are found?

I'm also going to swap my 2 M8S Pro boxes around and do the same tests on my older box, just to eliminate the 5Ghz Radio issue being a hardware one....
Should hopefully have time to do that tonight (I'm in Sydney GMT +10)

I spent the evening testing the 20170524, 20170707 & 20170801 build on my original M8S Pro and the 5Ghz Radio never missed a beat...
So it looks like I have something dodgy going on with my 2nd M8S Pro. Maybe a HW problem, but's strange how the 20170707 didn't have an issue on it.

I also found another new item in the 20170801 build in the full page Settings panel (not the right hand side settings panel), 2nd from the bottom of the System section there is a new item "System UI Tuner". It basically seems to let you turn a bunch of stuff on/off in the Status Bar...

Anyway back to Guest question:

So what's the general consensus here? Should I based my next update on 20170707 or 20170801?

No reason that I can see not to go with the 20170801 as a base for your Stock and Nano Roms, now I have eliminated the WiFi issue…

Sorry for the confusion around the 5G WiFi...

Cool! I'll work with the 20170801 build then.

[UknowEtheG]

A friend of mine has one of these boxes, 2gb ram and 8gb storage. He's not savvy at all and "couldn't get anything to work" so I had him drop it off to me, it wouldn't connect to WiFi, just did a factory reset to start with a clean slate. Got it all set up, signed into Google, installed Kodi and my build, a few other small apps, etc. Was working fine. Made me jelous my box wasn't as nice.

he brings it home and the thing says connected to the internet, but nothing has internet access on it. Google can't connect to servers. Other devices in his home having no issues with connecting to his home network.

Is there something I'm missing here? Knowing the man, I'm pretty confident it is some type of user error. But still trying to help em out. How to correct the internet connectivity? Please and thank you

[Capitolhill]

Your right about the connectivity of this box. I have had about 15 different android boxes and this is the worst to get connected and "STAY" connected. It's has a weak radio chip or antenna both on 2.4g and 5g radio. Probably like all the other boxes without external antennas. It's one heck of box otherwise though. This one would be a good candidate for an antenna mod. I have mine about 50ft from my routers and doesn't have the performance of the Vorke Z1 but here again the Vorke Z1 has an external antenna. Must say the M8S pro works great on Ethernet.

[Guest]

Okay, so we have some decisions to make with regard to custom ROMs on this device.

The new custom ROMs that I just posted for the Beelink GT1 also work for the Alfawise S92...and the M8S Pro. Basically, it works on just about any device based on the Amlogic q201 reference board.

Here are the advantages:

• Android Nougat 7.1.2 (NHG47L build)
• Works with a long list of wireless chipsets, based on both the Qualcomm (Longsys) and Broadcom (AMPAK) driver architectures. To my knowledge, this is the first ROM that works on both.
• Supports several IR remotes (including OEM from Beelink and Mecool...even when pressing the Power button to cold boot).
• IR remove codes are NOT stored in the device tree, so they're once again easily customizable in the remote.conf.
• An excellent selection of video and audio settings at top level, including overscan, HDR, CEC, Dolby, and DTS.
• Configurable power button, plus press-and-hold pop-up menu with Power Off and Shutdown.

This is really the "One ROM to rule them all!"...which is why we've been calling it "Precious".

The disadvantage:

• There's a bug with Bluetooth audio playback, which makes speakers and headsets basically unusable.

I've been assured that this bug has been fixed in the next release, so at least we won't have this problem for long.

You can download this new ROM in Nano, Stock and TVStock (Android TV) variants now, if you'd like to try them out.

My plan is to update the existing M8S Pro custom ROMs one last time today, but then deprecate them going forward in favor of the new Precious ROMs. What do you think?

[aspittles]

Okay, so we have some decisions to make with regard to custom ROMs on this device.

The new custom ROMs that I just posted for the Beelink GT1 also work for the Alfawise S92...and the M8S Pro. Basically, it works on just about any device based on the Amlogic q201 reference board.

Here are the advantages:

• Android Nougat 7.1.2 (NHG47L build)
• Works with a long list of wireless chipsets, based on both the Qualcomm (Longsys) and Broadcom (AMPAK) driver architectures. To my knowledge, this is the first ROM that works on both.
• Supports several IR remotes (including OEM from Beelink and Mecool...even when pressing the Power button to cold boot).
• IR remove codes are NOT stored in the device tree, so they're once again easily customizable in the remote.conf.
• An excellent selection of video and audio settings at top level, including overscan, HDR, CEC, Dolby, and DTS.
• Configurable power button, plus press-and-hold pop-up menu with Power Off and Shutdown.

This is really the "One ROM to rule them all!"...which is why we've been calling it "Precious".

The disadvantage:

• There's a bug with Bluetooth audio playback, which makes speakers and headsets basically unusable.

I've been assured that this bug has been fixed in the next release, so at least we won't have this problem for long.

You can download this new ROM in Nano, Stock and TVStock (Android TV) variants now, if you'd like to try them out.

My plan is to update the existing M8S Pro custom ROMs one last time today, but then deprecate them going forward in favor of the new Precious ROMs. What do you think?

Sounds good to me... I'm happy to run this up and put it though testing..... I personally don't use the bluetooth stack anyway....

[Capitolhill]

I'm downloading it know. Glad to give it a try. I'll go for the TVSTOCK version. Let you know how it goes..

[aspittles]

I'll take the straight Nexus Stock and have a play this evening (in about 6 hours time for me)...

[LeonNel76]

Hi guys, I tried everything i could find on the big wide WWW, but still cant get around the "you are using a rooted device" issue on some apps.Anyone have ANY ideas please?

[aspittles]

On Guest file share unter the q201 folder http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-...ms-android-7-1 you'll find a verison of the Nexus Stock image that runs well on the M8S Pro box called Nexus_q201_Stock_NHG47L-20170825.img. When checked with Root checkers is says it is not Rooted, so this should get you out of trouble...

I believe that is rooted, though. (At least the underlying OEM firmware is, and I didn't change anything along those lines.)

[LeonNel76]

Thanks guys i am downloading it now, and will give it a try. I dont understand why we pay for a service and then the supplier blocks us from using it on devices we want to..GRRRR!!

[LeonNel76]

Hi. not working...it sees root.. hide my root just goes into a loop, so does supersu..other suggestions