[Miscellaneous Android Development] Josh.5:
Hey guys.

What you are talking about here are 2 separate issues affecting the ntpd retrieving the date/time from a remote server.

In the first case which we have found is affecting people in Thailand, there internet connection for some reason does not receive a response from the default USA ntp server it time before timing out. Not 100% sure if the people affected by this problem are even able to get a response from the usa ntp server, or if it is just too slow and times out. Either way, this is easily fixed by changing the server location by way of configuring the ntp.conf file. I have added the ability to create a custom ntp.conf file in the /root/Configs/ dir, but as Ray has mentioned, you need to be running the latest build of EmbER for this to work (compiled 20Mar2016 or later - as printed in Kodi System info).

The second issue, which I suspect you have Wotzit, is where the ntp daemon requests a date/time update prior to your device being able to connect to the internet. In some cases, connecting to your local home network happens a lot faster than WAN discovery. That is why simply restarting the ntpd a min later works for you because by that time your device has been able to complete it's connection to the WWW. To solve this problem, the best option is to add a small delay to the ntp startup script. Perhaps you could ssh into your device and edit "/etc/init.d/S49ntp" adding a few seconds delay to the start-stop-daemon to see if that solves your issue. If it does I can add something officially.

I've taken into consideration these issues, and I agree with Ray that this is a biggie. I hope to implement a feature into our System Settings whereby users can select NTP servers manually and have the option to force kodi to wait for a network connection before starting. Right now our focus is set on bringing you Kodi Jarvis on the 3.10 kernel. And we are ridiculously close! G18ref, M12, and CMX devices are pretty well complete with only g02ref boards to go waiting on a major issue with a driver in its 3.10 kernel. Once this small issue is fixed, EmbER v4 nightlies can begin compiling and I will start adding fixes for these issues by way of a System Settings option.

Also, to clear up a few things:

The ntp daemon running on EmbER will request a date/time update whenever a network adapter is brought up. This includes boot time, plugging in a eth cable, or connecting to a wifi network.

Nightly builds will be auto compiled by our server whenever we push git commits to the STAGING branch. We only push commits here if they do not seriously break stuff. This is why you do not yet see Jarvis nightlies, and also why you don't see a new build in the manual OTA Update list every day (more info on what a nightly build means, see here). Nightlies will pick up quickly once we have v4.0.0 EmbER to the point where it doesn't (on all devices) cripple people who OTA update to it.

A really big thanks to Ray and Wotzit for your activity in this forum. We at EmbER-Dev are normally too swamped with development to set aside time to forums and social media. Having people who are dedicated to openly discussing issues and coming up with solutions really helps us to continue work in the background. :good:

This year I will be adding a EmbER users page to our website (possibly a wiki) where users can write up their own tutorials or tips on anything that you find.