H96 Max V58 tvbox

[hyc]

I recently upgraded from a Beelink GT-King to this new box based on Rk3588. It's pretty decent as hardware goes, and came with Android 12. But it's Android TV OS, and I miss the status bar and task switcher from regular Android (that my GT-King had). I've paired it with a 4K projector with HDR10 and HLG support. Some HDR videos are still shown with inverted color palettes though, which was unexpected.

One other annoying thing about it is the blue LEDs illuminating the base of the box. I don't know if there's a way to disable them, but when viewing very dark scenes in some HDR movies, that light drowns out the video.

I would've gone with the GT-King II instead, but that doesn't have as powerful a chip. But I imagine the rest of it would have been more reasonable. The H96 Max also has no microSD slot, another annoyance.

[not_Rich]

Hi I am interested in this box, regarding the Android TV OS cant you just install another launcher? I have never used android tv, my Minix U9 has a tablet style with nav bar etc

[hyc]

I didn't think changing the launcher would affect the notification bar or task switcher? It seems there is no task switcher at all, even after I installed some other apps that are supposed to control the switcher, nothing happens.

But sure, I'll try some other launchers and see what happens. I installed Snowball for notification bar. It works, but I miss having widgets in the bar like for screenshot, and other stuff. It has none of those.

This box seems to lack hardware support for VC1 codec, playing VC1 videos eats up 100% CPU and box temp goes up. It's also too slow to keep up, video lags noticeably. I've run across many H.265 streams that playback incorrectly as well. They glitch, a couple-second segment of video plays repeatedly several times, then it catches up to where it should be, and then a few seconds later may glitch again. Very annoying. The same video plays perfectly on the GT-King.

I cut thin strips of black electrical tape to cover up the blue LED strip around the base. Just another annoyance but that solved that problem.

[Musti157]

I recently upgraded from a Beelink GT-King to this new box based on Rk3588. It's pretty decent as hardware goes, and came with Android 12. But it's Android TV OS, and I miss the status bar and task switcher from regular Android (that my GT-King had). I've paired it with a 4K projector with HDR10 and HLG support. Some HDR videos are still shown with inverted color palettes though, which was unexpected.

One other annoying thing about it is the blue LEDs illuminating the base of the box. I don't know if there's a way to disable them, but when viewing very dark scenes in some HDR movies, that light drowns out the video.

I would've gone with the GT-King II instead, but that doesn't have as powerful a chip. But I imagine the rest of it would have been more reasonable. The H96 Max also has no microSD slot, another annoyance.

Just ordered one should have it soon.

Root the box and edit generic.kl key layout file. Swap over APP_SWITCH key with an unused key on your keyboard airmouse and reboot. Use the key on remote you switched and walla you should see recent apps on screen. As for the led if you open the box there should be a connector you can disconnect from the board powering the led I've disconnected on another box was very annoying on top would stay on even with the box switched off.

[hyc]

tvOS is definitely missing a bunch of these features. It's not just that there's no button to active the task switcher - the switcher doesn't exist. There are a lot of other UI features that are missing too, so e.g. the popup menus in VXConnectbot don't work. It's just such a lobotomized version compared to regular android. When you get yours you'll see.

I've been using Kodi with Seren and Umbrella addons to watch streams with realdebrid. All of the streams that originate from Netflix in H.265 glitch and are effectively unwatchable. They play fine on any other device though.

[Musti157]

tvOS is definitely missing a bunch of these features. It's not just that there's no button to active the task switcher - the switcher doesn't exist. There are a lot of other UI features that are missing too, so e.g. the popup menus in VXConnectbot don't work. It's just such a lobotomized version compared to regular android. When you get yours you'll see.

I've been using Kodi with Seren and Umbrella addons to watch streams with realdebrid. All of the streams that originate from Netflix in H.265 glitch and are effectively unwatchable. They play fine on any other device though.

I've had a few of these boxes I know how crappy they can be. Really wanting to see twrp ported to it and in time if someone will make a decent rom.

[Musti157]

Okay so had the box come in on Wednesday. I can say I'm impressed it's quite snappy, though I would prefer full android over some hybrid TV crap. Been messing with this day and night mucking around figuring out what flashing firmware is like on rochkip devices. Started getting intermittent ethernet drop-outs so go to check for wifi and it seemed it wouldn't turn on as toggle switch would show off plus couldn't see any networks. So I went to pull it apart looking for the wifi chip in it thinking it would be a wifi driver issue as some amlogic firmwares have had. I can say the LEDs are on the board no connector or wire to them. Dropped it while opening up so thought I'd see if it powers back up and wallaaa wifi is now working and networks are visible. So it needed a drop to work when I've been trying so many things all night I was just stunned.

[Musti157]

Okay so flashed firmware and again and wifi not working again. Tried multiple images from different downloads multiple flash attempts and wifi is not turning on again. Can anyone help?

[hyc]

Sorry, I haven't even seen any other firmware images to flash. I used to reflash my RK3368 boxes pretty often but haven't really done much with this one. Also I'm using the LAN port since I've got gigabit ethernet and fiber connections here.

[Musti157]

Sorry, I haven't even seen any other firmware images to flash. I used to reflash my RK3368 boxes pretty often but haven't really done much with this one. Also I'm using the LAN port since I've got gigabit ethernet and fiber connections here.

Just hard bricked it will try to bridge the two cpu pins tomorrow with solder if it works if not then there goes $300!

[Musti157]

russian forum has a few images not sure if it's allowed here. Also tried the khadas v2 image wouldn't flash haven't tried the mekotronics image but.

[hyc]

Mine just bricked last night. I think it overheated because I was running an xmrig miner on it. It crashed while I was using firefox, and now when it powers up it never gets past the H96 Max boot logo screen. I was thinking of trying to flash a new image onti ot now, but maybe the internal storage is just burned out or something. ??

I got it to come up in recovery. The internal storage is definitely toast.

[Musti157]

Mine just bricked last night. I think it overheated because I was running an xmrig miner on it. It crashed while I was using firefox, and now when it powers up it never gets past the H96 Max boot logo screen. I was thinking of trying to flash a new image onti ot now, but maybe the internal storage is just burned out or something. ??

I got it to come up in recovery. The internal storage is definitely toast.

Had that happen to me once on the boot video did a factory reset through recovery and booted up again no problem. Modified the key layout file also and unfortunately there is no recent apps/switcher. There is another google tv firmware but though it doesn't come up on google have to get it on telegram maybe that might have it haven't tried it yet. This box/firmware has its fair share of bugs/downsides but I must say it is very snappy I'm really impressed at the speed for a tv box though I would like to have had full android.

[hyc]

I'm pretty sure all those "I/O error" messages on my recovery console means the EMMC chip itself is toast; I don't think a reflash would succeed anyway. But the vendor on AliExpress gave me the link to a google drive share with the latest firmware, dated 2023-08-23. Let me know if you want to see that. It also has two previous versions, 2023-06, and 2022-11.

Right now I can't find any of my USB A to A null modem cables either, so I can't try to flash it anyway. I hate that this box has no SDcard slot.

[Musti157]

I'm pretty sure all those "I/O error" messages on my recovery console means the EMMC chip itself is toast; I don't think a reflash would succeed anyway. But the vendor on AliExpress gave me the link to a google drive share with the latest firmware, dated 2023-08-23. Let me know if you want to see that. It also has two previous versions, 2023-06, and 2022-11.

Right now I can't find any of my USB A to A null modem cables either, so I can't try to flash it anyway. I hate that this box has no SDcard slot.

Also hate the fact that there's no card slot. Furthermore stock recovery has update from external sd but guess what no slot like WTF???? To go even further the recovery doesn't even have the option to update from usb. I will try with a card reader to see what happens. Please can you share or send me the the link my wifi still doesn't work maybe this update may help. Figured out this box didn't like my ethernet cable even though cable works on other boxes.