yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Pro-me3us:
No, not from a powered off state, that's not possible on any Amlogic box I know of. The SOC needs to at least be in a suspend state. I don't know if the Cube can be woken from suspend with IR. It can be woken with GPIO (action button) but not all the hardware wakes up, this is the bigger problem.

If it's this one, it's probably not getting any power. I don't think USB-C can negotiate power with MicroUSB. The hub might have worked if it included an option for external power. The USB-A version includes a USB-C port for an external power supply.

From what I've seen both the MT7668 WiFi & Bluetooth can cause the a bootup freeze loading the WiFi driver. The first version of autoscript.sh/shutdown.sh was only meant to test delaying the WiFi connecton. Was your 60% success rate with bluetooth still on the blacklist?

You can add the mount service to the autostart.sh so that it's called right after WiFi is re-enabled.

I had both WiFi & Bluetooth on with the second version of the autoscript and got my first lockup after ~20 reboots. With you seeing little to no improvment with the scripts, and me seeing a ~95% boot success, it's hard to figure out the problem. I thought I might have gotten a clue to what direction to look for the source of the problem, but now I have not idea again.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
I have a really big powered hub somewhere (like 10 usb ports). I’ll try to dig it up and test that one.

As long as I can get it booted consistently and configure either a Windows Media Remote or BT dongle to work with my Harmony Hub then I’ll be all set.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] signde:
This may help with hub and stick woes, here is what I can confirm are working:

Non powered hub w/ Ethernet - Cable Matters 4-in-1 USB Hub with Ethernet, Support Gigabit Ethernet

Powered hub - Acer USB Hub 4 Ports, Multiple USB 3.0 Hub, USB A Splitter for Laptop with USB C Power Port

USB stick - PNY 32GB Elite USB 3.2 Flash Drive

USB micro adapter - 2 in 1 OTG Converter USB 3.0 to Micro USB and Type C Adapter

IR Remote - Windows Media Center Remote Control Complete Kit

These do not work:

USB stick - Lexar JumpDrive S73 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive

Updated to the new DTB. IR worked right out of the box for me, I didn't configure anything. I am using a Harmony Elite configured as the remote I linked above. To your point, it does seem a little erratic. Sometimes it drops commands, I'd guess around 5% failure rate. With the IR dongle that came with the remote, response was perfect. I'll dig up the actual physical remote and try it too. I feel like there has to be a delay / sensitivity setting I can adjust to get this 100%.

I've also added the latest v3 autostart and shutdown scripts. I still have BT blacklisted so I commented out the lines to start and stop that. Rebooting via the CE power menu, 20+ reboots without a single failure. This is great! I don't have the need for BT so I am set with this arrangement.

Thank you again for all the effort you have put forth on this.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
How much power does the cube’s micro USB port output? It’s a really odd choice for them to add a micro USB port that doesn’t draw power rather than a standard sized USB port.

I am looking for a cheap powered hub with a gigabit ethernet port (preferably with a micro usb connector)- there must be few.

Edit- Do I need a USB OTG cable to work with a hub or can I just use any standard USB to USB micro adapter?
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Pro-me3us:
IR remotes can work through meson-ir and amremote. By befault CE is using meson-ir. When you move/create an amremote conf file to /storage/.config (Samba ConfigFiles), then reboot, CE switches to amremote. amremote is supposed to be faster. I still had missed button presses with amremote.

There's a lot of IR configurability, so reliability probably can be improved. I'll look at the pulse timing to try to determine why some presses are missed. I was looking at the irblasters, they might be usable too. But CE isn't compiled with irblaster support by default, it's not an in demand feature. Peter gave me a build with them enabled, and I can at least see that the hardware is working in CE when called through sysfs.

I assume it conforums to USB2 standards, which is 500mA. That doesn't increase with a USB hub, so all the connected devices are limited to 500mA total, that's whey powered USB hubs are recommended in general when connecting anything other than low powered devices (mouse, keyboard, flash drive).

USB2 flash drives typically draw ~100mA when in use (~20-30mA idle), USB3 flash drives ~300mA. Ethernet chips tend to be low power too maybe 150mA or less. You could probably get away with a flash drive, BT dongle and Ethernet on an unpowered hub, but may be pushing it. The USB hub itself also draws a little power.

My guess is that Amazon tries to steer their hardware towards people that will use it in the way they intended, streaming media for advertising and data collection. They are losing money on hardware, hoping recoup it on services.

I've never seen a USB hub with microUSB + power + gigabit eithernet. It's an unlikely combination with the 480Mbps bottleneck of USB2. CableMatters is the only company I know of that makes micoUSB devices with gigabit ethernet. I've seen a number that have microUSB + power + 100Mbps ethernet in the $10-13 range.

You'll have more options with USB-A Hubs. The Ugreen hub is ~$17. You need to provide your own USB-C cable and adapter for power, any 2Amp phone charger should be fine (even 1-1.5Amps).

It doesn't matter if you use an OTG cable or microUSB to USB-A cable without the 5th pin (OTG). In CE USB is always in host mode. I've booted off both OTG and non-OTG cables.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
I bought a used cheap powered usb c hub for $15 on eBay that has everything, card reader, gigabit Ethernet, etc, etc. I’ll buy a cheap USB C to USB Micro adapter and hopefully it will work.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Pro-me3us:
I bought one of these (USB-C to microUSB) in case I ever need it, I was able to make a fastboot connection with it. Which USB-C hub did you get? I might get a USB-C hub with power injection if a great deal pops up.

While you wait, did you try using the remote paired to your television? CEC control works right off the bat. That would be good enough to get setup, and pair a remote with your BT dongle. @signde is getting better speeds (up to 435Mbps) over WiFi than is possible over USB2. My home WiFi is slow, so I use Ethernet on my main Cube.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
Ethernet should be more stable for me, the 5G band is overcrowded where I live so I can never really get a decent connection with it, particularly not for 4k rips.

I purchased a Vava DK003 which is some weird triangle looking thing that got so-so reviews (most complaints seem to be that it requires power to use, which is fine for me). They are easy to find for $15-$20 on eBay, hopefully it should suit my purposes.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] ddogishere:
Hi @Pro-me3us was experimenting with emmc/ usb hybrid & now stuck on boot screen. Luckily I can still ssh dmesg log , any ideas? Thanks.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] ddogishere:
Hi buddy, can you please give an example of how to update raven dtb & kernel.img full cmd? For example I don't know what "raven-dtb-name" should be or kernel.img. what is UUID? I use hybrid/emmc mode, do I need to do something for this m

And also since I blacklisted bt only, I've had no lockups on 10+ bootups.

And are we able to use IR to turn on/off in CE now with something like the harmony remote?

Thanks, I know is so many q's so we really appreciate all your help and expertise.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Pro-me3us:
CoreELEC:~/downloads/mkbootimg # python kernelpack.py out/raven_dtb.img

That will pack the newest raven DTB (raven_dtb.img) which is already in the out folder, of mkbootimg_v3.zip. You don't need to worry around UUID, it only applies to a bootloader modifcation that I didn't post.

That's good to hear. I'd still think about changing out your USB stick for another in case it is reaching EOL. That would also help in figureing out if the issue above is the USB stick or USB hub.

No, the hardware doesn't fully wake from suspend. It probably needs the bl301tool to fix, but that doesn't work on encrypted bootloaders, or secure boot devices.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Pro-me3us:
So internal IR blasters in the Cube do work in CE. The IR extender that plugs in the back would require more effort. But the IR blaster module isn't currently enabled by default in CE builds. It's an unpopular feature since few Amlogic boxes have an IR blaster option.

I'm not sure if there is any interest in trying to get the CE Team to enable this feature?

Having an IR blaster option overlaps with the purpose of something like a Harmony remote. You can point any remote at the Cube to get a specific button IR code, and program the Cube to issue those commands as part of a button press, startup or shutdown process etc.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] signde:
I appreciate the offer but I don't think I would have any use for that as I already have a Harmony Hub.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] ddogishere:
Hi what exactly can you control with the harmony, Can you for e.g turn on/off etc. I might get an ultimate.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] signde:
@Pro-me3us can correct me if I am wrong here but I don't think any remote can turn this device on after it has been turned off. This is why I have resorted to just leaving it on all the time.

With the harmony there are multiple ways you can configure it, it depends on which device profile you choose. I choose the microsoft windows media center remote profile and this lets me control CE for everything I've needed. It will turn off the device if you if you desire.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Pro-me3us:
No, this is an Amlogic bootloader problem with all NG devices.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] signde:
I've moved over to using the built in IR capability without my USB IR dongle. Every once in a while it misses a press but it's close enough, thanks again Pro-me3us.

I did run into a strange thing though. I noticed for some TV shows, when I browse to the episode lists, remote command responsiveness devolves from working to not working. First it will stop responding 50% of the time, then 25%, then it goes down to almost no responsiveness. I can then plug in my Microsoft USB IR dongle at this point and it will instantly work. Same for input from my usb keyboard, they respond.

I'm using the Arctic Zephyr Reloaded skin with the Netflix style view for episodes on CE nightly from 6-19. I turned on debug logging and sure enough, Kodi CPU usage is spiking 100+ in this view. I switched to a different view and the CPU no longer spikes so it's probably a skin bug / kodi bug but I found it interesting that the CPU spike can choke out built in IR yet external USB input can push through.

Again I don't think there is anything that needs fixed but found this curious.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Pro-me3us:
I don't know if there is a way to prioritize IR over other processes, or assign it to a lesser used CPU? Does it make any difference when using amremote or meson-ir? You could trying asking over on the CE forum. IR remote functionality is common across many boxes, so you may get more feedback if you frame it as a general Amlogic - IR question. I am curious why USB IR receivers like yours and FLIR do a better job, and if SOC handling of IR is flaky in general.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
Don't buy one of those USB-C to Micro adapters on ebay. I got one and there was absolutely no connector on the inside. lol

Ok, got it working, loading off a old 2.5" 500G drive connected to a hub (I formatted the unused space to ext4: and it picks it up just fine). Hub's built in gigabit ethernet also works fine- need to find a speedtest somewhere.

Has anyone tried the latest 21.1 generic nightlies? Do they work?

What skins work on this build? I can’t get any to load. I want to use Artic Zephyr Reloaded but it fails a dependency.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Pro-me3us:
Cool, so the USB-C hub is working. $15 is a good deal for that especially looking at the Amazon price. Did you get a backup USB-C to microUSB adapter? The quality control of cheap Chinese parts on eBay isn't great. My experience is that the sellers are quick to issue a refund if there's any problems inexpensive adapters/parts.

I flashed the latest CE nightly a week ago, and it worked fine. You'll need to pack the Cube DTB into the kernel.img of any CE update. Check the FAQ: "How to add Cube DTB to kernel.img so I can try out custom builds & nightlies?"

A quick example would be, SSH into CE

1) cd /downloads/mkbootimg

2) wget https://relkai.coreelec.org/Amlogic-ng/ce-21/CoreELEC-Amlogic-ng.arm-21.1-Omega_nightly_20240623.tar

3) python update.py CoreELEC-Amlogic-ng.arm-21.1-Omega_nightly_20240623.tar

The CE update tar will be in the Update folder, and ready to install on the next reboot.

The best way to run a speed test is using iperf to test the connection speed between two devices on your home network, ruling out any ISP slowdowns. I have used Arctic Zypher on both CE 20 and 21, it's working. Make sure to enable 'Unknown Sources' and ' Update official add-ons from --> Any respositories' (Settings > System > Add-ons).
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
VAVA (VA-DK003) 7 in 1 USB-C HUB , Docking Station (4K HDMI / RJ45 / USB & ...) | eBay

<p>VAVA (VA-DK003) 7 in 1 USB-C HUB , Docking Station (4K HDMI / RJ45 / USB & ...). </p>

www.ebay.com

That’s the hub I bought. Well worth the $15 shipped, everything on it seems to work, and it’s powered so there’s that. I just ordered a whole bunch of otg converters on Amazon for like $5.

I can’t figure out why I can’t get addons to load on this build- repositories come back with “invalid structure” errors and I can’t get individual addons to load at all. I have unknown sources set to on.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Pro-me3us:
You're getting errors trying to install any add-on, or just Arctic Zephyr? I don't know Kodi errors well.

Did you also try changing Official repositories only to Any repositories? That had to be set for some addons to get all the dependencies to install.

If you are using Ethernet, maybe try disabling wireless networks too. I think CE defaults to Ethernet when it's available, but just in case. (Settings > CoreELEC > Network)

If none of that makes a difference, try downloading the addon zip on a computer, and copying it to CE over Samba, and installing it from Downloads. You shouldn't have to do this, but it might help figure out where the problem is.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
I did all that already- absolutely no addons or repositories are loading for me, including the zip files on my NAS (tried both Samba and NFS) and the built in ones or even the ones in the official Kodi repo. Not a one. I will try updating the build to a nightly and see what happens.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] signde:
I didn't have any issues loading add-ons when I started with v21 stable. My goto skin is Arctic Zephyr Reloaded as well. That sounds very odd, almost like a borked Kodi instance. You should be able to load up AZR directly from the Kodi repo with no errors.

The nightlies are definitely a better experience me, especially if you are playing files with high definition or DD+ audio. I got a lot of stuttery playback before moving to them. My logs were littered with "unexpected stream type" errors and occasional sync errors which the nightlies fix.

I would still not say things are 100% perfect yet. Sometimes I still get some stuttery playback with UHD TrueHD rips over my LAN. Playing the same files from a local external USB drive plays back perfectly so I am not sure where my issue lies. I want to say sometimes it feels like a reboot of the device will get me past it so I don't think it is network related. I also feel like it is often repeatable, happening at the same spot in these files. I haven't had time to look through logs to nail anything down.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
Im not really sure why it’s having issues- I guess I can try using a flash card instead of a hard drive. I formatted the left over space on my hd to an ext4 partition- maybe this build is having trouble with that? Other than that I’m just using a powered hub and it seems to work fine, that might be an issue too.

Can I just fresh install one of the nightlies rather than upgrading from 21.0?

Edit- OK, so I think the issue I'm having is because I can't resize the STORAGE partition so Kodi is limited to space. I tried just formatting a drive to Fat32 and copying over everything and writing a separate EXT4 STORAGE partition but that wouldn't boot.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] signde:
You must pack the Raven DTB into the kernel for any nightly you pull. You should not use an old previously generated kernel or you could lose any new kernel changes from the nightly. This is equivalent to the kernel.img that was copied in the original steps - that kernel.img was created for a specific version of CE.

Pro-me3us has given us the tools to pack the Raven DTB into any new kernel this but the scripts are designed to run on a CoreElec device using the update mechanism. It doesn't take long to run through the install then the update if you want to keep a separate stable and nightly stick.

Personally I've abandoned stable for now. Things are much better with the nightlies. Hopefully when v21.1 lands I can stick with stable again.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
OK, I figured it out-

Use GPARTED/GPARTED Live to resize your STORAGE partition, then you shouldn't have a problem. Took me a while.

Ok, now I am on 21.0 and I will attempt to go to the latest nightly. Success!!!

Interesting- The cube does not like my AVRKey all that much. I am struggling to get Dolby Vision working with it.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Pro-me3us:
Maybe it's bandwidth issue due to lossless DoVi? If you switch the DV profile do videos play any more easily?

BTW do you have more than the CoreELEC/Storage partitions on your HDD? Just curious if Etcher wasn't able to flash CE to your HDD (to automatically handle Storage), or if you are doing a custom partition setup.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
I was just doing a standard etcher flash to the hard drive, but unfortunately Partition Magic on windows wouldn’t let me expand the storage partition so I had to add a 3rd ext4 partition.

I figured out that using a Gparted Live boot was the only way to expand the Storage portion. Probably works directly from Linux as well.

As for the AVRKey that thing is always finicky, probably why HDFury phased it out. I will get it working, it just takes a while.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] ddogishere:
Why is mine never worked even with power?
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
Your hub? Try a different USB C to USB micro adapter- I bought a few different ones on Amazon and none of them worked. I found the only thing that worked was a to use a standard micro to usb otg cable and then use a smart usb to usb c adapter.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] ddogishere:
Can you provide Links/ pics to them please, thanks
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
https://www.amazon.com/UGREEN-Adapter-Samsung-Controller-Android/dp/B00N9S9Z0G

https://www.amazon.com/Welldiea-Adapter-Converter-Thunderbolt-MacBook/dp/B0CZDTD71C/

I couldn't find the exact ones but something like this OTG cable combined with a USB C to USB 3.0 adapter- when I tried the various direct USB C female to USB micro (some with OTG, some without) none of them worked. I don't know if CoreElec is having issues with your hub in particular, have you tried a different one?
[Fire TV Original Android Development] ddogishere:
Yes tried two adapters ( both work on other devices) so your way is what only works. Thanks will go your route.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Pro-me3us:
That's a CoreELEC message, which means that U-Boot detected the USB hub/CE stick, and was able to load the kernel.img far enough to get video output. Hard to know why CE is having problems with the USB hub. But this must mean that whatever adapter you're using is able pass data.

I don't think USB hubs are used much with CE, and low priority items get less attention. I can't tell if you have full debugging enabled. If not, setting it in config.ini may give you a little more onscreen output about the USB hub

coreelec='debugging ignore_loglevel=1'
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Wagmans:
I can’t guarantee that it will or won’t work, I’m just saying what worked for me- and I assume I have a different hub than you.

I’ve been watching some DV rips on my cube, maybe I’m just imaging things but I think it looks better than it did on my Z9X. Make sure to turn off the noise filter.

I also enabled the superscaler for SD/HD content and it looks pretty crappy, I guess I’ll continue watching non-4k content on my Shield Pro using the “Enhanced” setting.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] Pro-me3us:
I'm not sure what the super scaler option in the player settings actually does, or if it does anything?

There's an Amlogic super scaler option, that can be turned on or off, but is off by default. I don't know if the player setting interacts with this. In FireOS the super scaler option is always enabled. These sort of things are always too subtle for me to know if they are beneficial.

CoreELEC: ~ # echo 1 > /sys/module/amvideo/parameters/super_scaler

This appears to be the same as

CoreELEC:~ # echo 1 > /sys/class/video/sr

Again, don't know if enabling it either way makes a difference. There have been a couple past threads about this feature, with some people liking the effect, others thinking it's aweful, and those that can't see a difference, so you'll have to be the judge.

If it's something you like, you can add the command to autostart.sh
[Fire TV Original Android Development] ddogishere:
Hey all, how to stream videos on home network without Internet(slow Internet here), or is smb & ftp my only options?
[Fire TV Original Android Development] signde:
NFS is also an option and reported to be faster than SMB.

Beyond that, you could setup a Plex, Emby, or Jellyfin server and stream over http(s). The latter of those is completely open source and free. If you are doing direct play which will be the case with this CoreElec box as a client, none of those need much cpu power. A low budget NAS or Raspberry Pi would do the job.

I did not test NFS but in my local tests I better results out of Plex direct stream (https) than over SMB.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] ddogishere:
Thanks, will give nfs & Plex / Emby / jellyfin a try. But does it still depends on speed of Internet? 4k DV rips struggle sometimes.
[Fire TV Original Android Development] signde:
If the server is local on the same network it will not depend on your internet speed, only your local network speed. Those servers will reach out to the internet for stuff like artwork but Kodi does the same.

What is the network path to your current sources and what kind of iperf3 results are you seeing?

I'd highly recommend using the nightlies from 06-19 or later if your UHD rips have high definition audio. Playback for me was not good with UHD TrueHD rips until I moved to the nightlies which have a lot of fixes. It will definitely improve things. Rebooting the device every once in a while will help too - I got into the habit of doing it every night before I sat down to watch.