yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Fire TV Android Development] schneid:
You say overscan is unsightly. Does that refer to just Recovery or all of AFTV?

Thanks.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
Just in recovery.
[Fire TV Android Development] schneid:
Thanks for the answer and your work.
[Fire TV Android Development] mattman5000:
I just want to add another confirmation of working usb sd card. I connected a keyboard and USB stick through a hub and backed up my system. Thanks for the effort to get this going!! And thanks for the larger font and overscan adjustment. I can actually see what I'm doing now :)
[Fire TV Android Development] CLran619:
backed up succefully with no problems this time. im about to put ur latest pre-rooted rom onto my usb drive and give it a go
[Fire TV Android Development] gazdaman.:
Awesome stuff, thanks for this

Just wondering if it is possible in the future for this to support the fire tv remote for navigating the recovery menus?
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
Anything is "possible". Short answer is no.
[Fire TV Android Development] gazdaman.:
I figured it was a long shot haha.

The mere fact we have CWM recovery is good enough
[Fire TV Android Development] toe-rag:
I'm hoping of a different answer..

how about going back to original Amazon recovery ... ?

I may at some point want to eBay one or 2 of my AFTVs - would prefer to restore to stock - unless the root-able versions become an asset.
[Fire TV Android Development] schneid:
http://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-revert-an-amazon-fire-tv-back-to-stock-recovery-and-stock-software/
[Fire TV Android Development] toe-rag:
thanks!
[Fire TV Android Development] mkclove:
Thanks for the /sbin/recovery-input trick, didn't have wired keyboard. Used Linux and was able to complete installing ROM.

Sent from my OnePlusOne
[Fire TV Android Development] AFTVnews.com:
For anyone interested, I figured out how to use /sbin/recovery-input on Windows to remotely control ClockWorkMod over ADB. I wrote a guide for both Windows and Mac here: http://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-remotely-control-clockworkmod-on-the-amazon-fire-tv-using-adb/
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
Nice. I can cross "fixing it for windows" and "writing documentation" off my list. :)
[Fire TV Android Development] AFTVnews.com:
:D Feel free to rely on me for the documentation (i'll be doing it regardless). You concentrate on make more awesome advancements.
[Fire TV Android Development] chrisdaun:
Un-powered USB hub

[MENTION=3991724]rbox[/MENTION]

First off thanks for the great work on this!

I am using v6.0.5.1.1 with an Apple USB keyboard.

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Wired-C...?ie=UTF8&qid=1412095562&sr=8-1&keywords=MB869

The keyboard has a built in un-powered USB hub and it works fine in recovery unless I have a USB flash drive for backup/restore plugged into either of the USB hub ports on the keyboard.

I know you said that mileage will vary but wanted to know if there was any way to make this work?

Thanks agian!
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
I don't think so. I tried with an unpowered hub and couldn't get anything to work with it.
[Fire TV Android Development] chrisdaun:
Okay, thanks for the reply.
[Fire TV Android Development] toe-rag:
This hub works GREAT for meI have a wireless keyboard and mouse plugged in an a USB stick - both work within recover and during normal AFTV use.

Amazon non-powered HUB
[Fire TV Android Development] mattman5000:
I used a cheap unpowered hub to connect a keyboard and memory stick. It worked great for me. I was able to do a backup to the usb memory.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
Interesting. I guess mine is bottom of the barrel. If I even attempt to use it nothing works, haha.
[Fire TV Android Development] schneid:
$6.99 Unpowered Four-port Hub

Cheap enough?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BWF5U0M/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have a USB stick, Logitech k440r dongle, MS entertainment KB/Mouse dongle, and a FLIRC plugged into it. All work.

I Highly recommend the Logitech k400r. Has a mousepad with scrolling, a Win Contect menu key that does FTV "Menu", A Home key that does "Home", with both Esc and Backspace doing 'Back/Return", Oh, forgot Arrow keys too.

Droidmote is pretty solid too.

---------- Post added at 01:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:10 PM ----------

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ENZRP0G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Was 419.00 two weeks ago but still worth it.
[Fire TV Android Development] roligov:
My favourite 4 port non powered usb hub is the Dlink DUB104. Works great with the FireTV and looks nice too:
[Fire TV Android Development] marlowe310:
hey guys -- unfortunately this is an "I'm a moron" post, so I'm really hoping someone can help me out.

Despite the clear warnings NOT to flash a stock image with this recovery, I accidentally have nearly done that. Basically I got confused as to which "update.zip" I'd pushed to my device, and now whenever I plug in the AFTV it boots straight into the recovery/update mode.

I haven't let it complete, but I'm also unable to figure out how to cancel that screen. Does anybody have any idea what I might do to get out of this jam?

Would the AFTV site guide about unbricking apply to the CWM recovery? Or would that only work on stock.

ANY suggestions are hugely appreciated, and I realize what a fool I am, I promise.
[Fire TV Android Development] schneid:
FIRST OFF, I know absolutely nothing. Can you still connect with ADB? If so, why couldn't you push CWM recovery.img and the proper update.zip and move on? REMEMBER, I know nothing. Just a monkey see, monkey do, guy.
[Fire TV Android Development] tavery:
Provided you're in the CWM recovery, you should be able to put one of rbox's pre-rooted ROMS on a USB drive and install it. You don't need mess around with the "recovery.img" file as you already installed that... which is why you have the CWM recovery.
[Fire TV Android Development] {ParanoiA}:
Put a pre rooted image on a usb stick and plug it into the firetv. Boot into recovery. Wipe /cache , wipe /system. Install pre rooted image. Reboot normally and the firetv will walk you through the initial setup again.
[Fire TV Android Development] marlowe310:
How do I boot back into the main recovery menu? Currently whenever I plug the FTV in, it goes straight into the loading screen/progress bar for a custom ROM install. Is there a way to exit that process?
[Fire TV Android Development] {ParanoiA}:
When you see the progress bar after flashing the Rom I believe that it is just rebuilding the cache. I got that same screen after wiping cache in recovery. Just let it go and it should boot into android after a minute. If you did wipe /system tho, make sure you have the update blocks in place on your router at least until you can # pm disable com.amazon.dcp just to be on the safe side.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
The block for dcp is in /data. So anytime you do a factory reset you need to redo the pm disable.
[Fire TV Android Development] marlowe310:
I really can't thank everyone enough for all the help and info -- hopefully I'll pass it forward one day.

One last clarification just for my own peace of mind, as I think I may have isolated a point I forgot to mention -- I pushed the update.zip to the /cache, NOT the /sdcard/

What I've currently done is:

- Rooted

- Installed CWM recovery

- Then PUSHED a stock image to the FTV using this command:

following the steps from this guide:

http://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-manually-upgrade-or-downgrade-the-amazon-fire-tv/

-After that I used the

command -- and now every time I plug in/turn on the FTV, I see a loading bar in the CWM screen. That bar definitely seems like it's installing the image, given the length of time it's taking. It's also going black screen every few seconds.

Since I've put the image in the /cache, is there ANY way to remove it? I can't connect via ADB during that loading/install bar screen. Can I cancel the updating somehow? Sorry to repeat questions, but I think the additional info might change the previous answers significantly.

Thanks again.
[Fire TV Android Development] {ParanoiA}:
I guess the protections will not allow that to flash successfully. What about using a wired keyboard and doing alt + prt scr + i combo get you into recovery to wipe /cache ?
[Fire TV Android Development] marlowe310:
That's my current plan (as soon as I get off work) -- I just didn't know if that would work in CWM, as I've only seen it referenced with regard to the Stock Recovery (thus far at least). I guess it sounds like I don't really have any other options to try so I'll take the plunge in a few hours.

If anybody can confirm that command WILL work, though I'd be overjoyed. Some might even say excessively-joyed.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
Are you sure you're just not using the wrong IP address? ADB should always be working.
[Fire TV Android Development] marlowe310:
Thank you SO much. The keyboard command did not work, but turns out you were absolutely right -- wrong IP address. I could've sworn I checked it several times last night, but clearly not well enough. That fixed it.

For the record - I connected via shell and just cleared all zips/bins from /cache and rebooted manually -- now all's well.

Thanks again everyone, I really appreciate everyone who offered any suggestions!
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
You're the second person I know of who got the IP wrong. I think I'll make it print out the IP on startup. :) And also disable automatic flashing.
[Fire TV Android Development] AFTVnews.com:
Both sound like a great idea. For whatever it's worth, my Fire TV also gets assigned a different IP in ClockworkMod.
[Fire TV Android Development] modstore:
I'm not sure if anyone has tried backing up one Fire TV and restoring to another, but I just tried it, and all seems good.

Doing the restore though, changed the registered account to that of the backup. So I'm not sure if it would have been registered properly, probably not. But I changed it to the account I wanted it registered too, and all seems good now.

XBMC data/plugins/skins etc. weren't backed up though, not sure if it's possible to be included. No problem if not though, will just have to backup separately.
[Fire TV Android Development] schneid:
I have my FTV address set to a static one on my router. Does CWM grab itself another open address?
[Fire TV Android Development] {ParanoiA}:
[MENTION=5957312]AFTVnews.com[/MENTION] Maybe you can put a warning notice in your downgrade guide to inform people to not use that method while using custom recovery
[Fire TV Android Development] AFTVnews.com:
Great suggestion. I've added the warning.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
If you've set a DHCP reservation based on the MAC address it should use the same one.
[Fire TV Android Development] Luxferro:
Any idea why it's backing up to local storage at /storage/usbdisk/clockworkmod/backup/ instead of my usb drive when selecting to backup to usb?

I assume it didn't like my flash drive for some reason, but shouldn't give me a error of some kind instead?
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
/storage/usbdisk IS your usb drive...
[Fire TV Android Development] Luxferro:
but it wasn't though.

to add more info to my previous post, here is how it mounted my 64gb usb 3.0 flash drive that had a lot more free space than reported on the picture:

basically the drive wasn't really mounted and it was writing to internal storage at that path... i browsed to it over adb shell and even deleted what it had backuped up, after I unplugged my flash drive to check the contents on a PC (nothing was backed up to it).

I put in a 8gb usb 2 flash drive and it worked like expected.. just thought it was odd that it used internal storage at that path when it didn't like my flash drive.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
I *think* it mounts a tmpfs at that location when a drive isn't detected. Can you pull /tmp/recovery.log from the 2 cases and pastebin them?
[Fire TV Android Development] Luxferro:
Sure, it's backing up to the 8gb usb 2.0 drive now. soon as it's done i'll grab the log and try to recreate the issue with the other flash drive.
[Fire TV Android Development] collindv:
I was having the exact same issue this morning. It saw the drive, would backup partially, then fail. Turns out CWM did not like my 64 GB thumb drive formatted as NTFS. Formatted as fat32 and backed up with no issues.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
Oh yeah, that's a good point. It's not going to work with NTFS or ExFAT. [MENTION=2163004]Luxferro[/MENTION], if yours is 64GB its probably NTFS or ExFat. It will only work with FAT32.
[Fire TV Android Development] Luxferro:
I just checked, and it is NTFS. Good to know the reason.

Couldn't you do some kind of check to make sure the flash drive is actually mounted or readable before assuming it's being used for the backup? Not trying to create work for you, just trying to help :p

---------- Post added at 09:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:16 PM ----------

It wasn't even backing up to the device, even partially. It was backing up to a temp location on internal storage using the balance of your free space (at least I think it used whatever free space you had).
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
I'll put it on my list. It really shouldn't be showing up in the list if it's not mounted.

It mounts a tmpfs on /storage/usbdisk, so it was just writing it to memory. Not filling up flash storage anywhere.
[Fire TV Android Development] Luxferro:
Oh, okay. I thought maybe it was using my free space, since I also have 974MB free, which is the same as the free space reported as shown in the image in my previous post. I checked after a reboot and it still had my 974MB free, so figured it was a temp file.

edit: Out of curiosity, I'll have to check my free space after it does the partial backup w/ the NTFS drive to see if it gets consumed.
[Fire TV Android Development] rotor00ter:
So I was able to downgrade my firmware and then get the newest cwm recovery installed successfully. When I use my keyboard to reboot I get the message "Rom may flash stock recovery on reboot THIS CANNOT BE UNDONE" then I get the NO or YES disable recovery option. Which option do I choose here and exactly what is it asking? I'm stuck on this screen as I want to make sure I don't mess anything up. Thanks for any help.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
Choose no. I think I'm just going to remove that warning. When you rooted, it installed /system/etc/install-recovery.sh to help su. That file is usually used by stock software to reinstall recovery. If you had copied the prerooted zip and insatlled that the first time you booted into cwm, you wouldn't have seen the warning.
[Fire TV Android Development] lolwatpear:
I have a strange issue. I woke up to my firetv's white light pulsing and turned on the tv to see the box keep rebooting itself. For some reason the CWM recovery screen comes up with the android animation and has a bar like it's it updating. It gets 1/3 the way and then freezes and then the box reboots to do the same process over and over. I unplugged it, plugged it back in, and it showed the Amazon logo for a few seconds, then it goes straight to the CWM like before. I was just using the box without issue yesterday. Does any know what is wrong?
[Fire TV Android Development] nyder:
Sounds to me likes it did an auto update and because the CWM doesn't allow those to work, it's choking on it and rebooting.

look to see if there is an update.zip or some such files in the /cache directory. Someone has mentioned in this thread how to delete any previous updates, I'm sure. I don't recall exactly what you need to type.
[Fire TV Android Development] lolwatpear:
Thanks. The problem is I can't even adb into it. Also, I blocked the amazon updates through adb a long time ago, so I don't get how this happened. I also tried this:

http://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-unbr...ry-mode-and-factory-reset-the-amazon-fire-tv/

And it wouldn't work.
[Fire TV Android Development] {ParanoiA}:
Read a few pages back. While in cw recovery adb over Ethernet is enabled but you may have to connect with a different ip than usual.
[Fire TV Android Development] lolwatpear:
I see. I connected it to my router and the IP has appeared to changed. I can now connect to it via adb using the new one. adb reboot recovery doesn't seem to work for me though. It there anything else I can do through adb?

edit: I'm assuming there is an update in the cache? Is there any way I can delete that and then boot into the firetv?

Could you tell me how you did this please?

edit: Got it working! Thanks for the help. Cleared the the cache using the bottom of this page: http://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-manually-upgrade-or-downgrade-the-amazon-fire-tv/
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
6.0.5.1.2

I have updated the OP with 6.0.5.1.2. Now, you don't have to guess what the IP address is, it will print it out when it starts. Also, since there have been issues with automatically flashing update.zip in /cache, I have disabled that. Also, a warning about install-recovery.sh was confusing, so I have removed that as well. Finally, NTFS partitions should no longer trigger recovery to show /storage/usbdisk as a valid option. It should only show up with FAT32 formatted partitions.
[Fire TV Android Development] jljaries42@gmail.com:
AROMA File Manager [Recovery file manager]

Hi

Iv'e seen the thread below before.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1651018

Now that the AFTV has CWM recovery - Thanks rbox - maybe this would be useful.

I have not tried it.

Does anyone know how it works and if it would be risky to try?

---------- Post added at 12:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:30 AM ----------

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1646108
[Fire TV Android Development] rotor00ter:
Awesome, thanks for the update rbox.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
So I tried AROMA briefly a year or so ago. I don't think it would work because it's made for a touch interface. I know TWRP supports mouse input to simulate touch, so once TWRP is going it *might* work... not sure. TWRP is on my list, just not very high right now.
[Fire TV Android Development] ver2go:
NM.. I think I've got it now
[Fire TV Android Development] jmandawg:
Any way you can put busybox vi in the next release? Can't edit any files via adb, there is no text editor.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
Sure.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
I have updated the OP with 6.0.5.1.3. This brings in adjustable overscan and the ability to flash custom kernels.
[Fire TV Android Development] retroben:
Now all we need is a custom kernel itself with GPU overclocking up to 600 enabled so I can set it higher than 400MHz and the CPU up to 2.0GHz unless there is a higher setting stable enough like 2.3GHz which would match my single-cored PC 4-fold.

Please don't let it take a kajillion years for a custom kernel to be available on Fire TV.

What are the other precise benefits of custom kernels?

Is this finally the chance to upgrade to Android 4.4.2 and maybe even Qualcomm Adreno v66 driver with OpenGL ES 3.0 included in Kitkat?
[Fire TV Android Development] graphreak:
Thanks for the updated recovery but, although the MD5 is shown, 6.0.5.1.3 link in the OP does not seem to point to downloadable file? :confused:

Could not seem to find it on aftvnews software page either.

Thanks!
[Fire TV Android Development] schneid:
+1 getting bad link.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
Oops. I fixed it.
[Fire TV Android Development] retroben:
Thanks for all your hard work rbox!

I hope someone gets a custom kernel made for Fire TV with all of the bells and whistles accessible.

Somebody knowledgable please make a noob friendly instruction thread on how to get and install which custom kernel on a Fire TV.

I saw some info on AFTVNews,but having a thread on XDA as well would be very useful for those that don't know about that and so more info can be sanctioned here on XDA..

What is the best custom kernel to choose that will already work on Fire TV with the most benefits like OC'ing GPU,new features access from KitKat,and even widgets plus wallpapers working?

I really want to have the most intuitive Linux distro with a Bluestacks-esque Android program pre-installed within so I can still access all Android apps conveniently in a screen filling window.

If not that,I would settle for KitKat AOSP or CyanogenMod's equivalent.

Just really into getting the most out of a particular kernel that fits my interests the most.
[Fire TV Android Development] Luxferro:
[MENTION=3991724]rbox[/MENTION] when flashing the pre-rooted image, does it also rebuild/replace the recovery?

I'm just curious how these work, and if CWR would then need to be 'dd' again. I did a quick compare between the pre-rooted image and the stock, and the only differences I see are su binary, superuser.apk, and the removal of every file from the root of the zip but:

boot.img

NON-HLOS.bin

prod_cert_swap.sed

sed
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
No. It doesn't touch the recovery. These images are basically just the regular image with the bootloader and nonessential images pulled out. And as you can see, it comes with su.
[Fire TV Android Development] Luxferro:
Doesn't android typically rebuild & flash the recovery partition from boot.img and /system/etc/recovery-resource.dat when it detects it's been changed? I was just curious when that normally would occur on a stock FireTV, and what prevents this from happening on your pre-rooted images. I haven't used any prerooted images. Already had root and just dd'd your cwr_recovery.img. CWR asks you if you want to disable the stock recovery process. As a test I picked no, and CWR didn't get replaced. So should I assume that Amazon doesn't run any scripts at boot that check the recovery and rebuild/flash it?

To make a long story short. I was just curious if your pre-rooted images disabled the recovery replacement, since I still saw the recovery-resource.dat used to build them in the zip. But I guess FireOS doesn't do that at boot :confused:

edit: I guess that may have been disabled by towelroot, since the install-recovery.sh is being used to start the /system/xbin/daemonsu --auto-daemon &
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
51.1.3.0 was actually the first version to include an updated recovery. If you look in the stock 51.1.3.0 image, you'll see a recovery directory with recovery-from-boot.p and install-recovery.sh. I removed that from my image. The install-recovery.sh is the one that updates the recovery.

I'm not quire sure why it asked you about disabling stock. I'm guessing you booted into it, did nothing, and then rebooted. The only thing I can guess is whatever you had installed already had a /system/etc/install-recovery.sh script there. That doesn't seem to be included in the stock update images. Maybe the stock recovery writes it if it doesn't exist... Either way, I think people have said the install-recovery.sh script that came with stock didn't do anything. And then when you install one of my updates, it definitely doesn't come with it.
[Fire TV Android Development] rbox:
Also, I just uploaded 51.1.3.0. :)
[Fire TV Android Development] Luxferro:
The contents of my install-recovery.sh had to do with the su daemon. So i assume it was from towelroot. edit: actually probably one of the variations of superuser?

Basically I was curious what changes you were making so the stock recovery wasn't being flashed back, just in case I wanted to mess around with later revisions that aren't rootable and might flash the stock recovery back and leave me w/ an unrootable system. Like 51.1.3.0. But I see that you just created a pre-rooted 51.1.3.0 :) Anyway, it was more of a curiosity than me wanting to have the latest version.