[8.2.3.1] LibreELEC 8.0 for S805

Quote from NINJAIII

i find the box must be in use Ex. try playing a Movie then it does not lock up with 8.1.5a and autostart. Please try.

trying it now will report back

Quote from sami

Everything does not work anymore.

[READ FIRST] Reporting bugs

Quote from NINJAIII

i find the box must be in use Ex. try playing a Movie then it does not lock up with 8.1.5a and autostart. Please try.

Still the same for me with 8.1.5a

beginning to think its down to either an add-on or skin causing the issue as yours is ok

Are you using default skin

Quote from fanni

Still the same for me with 8.1.5a

beginning to think its down to either an add-on or skin causing the issue as yours is ok

Are you using default skin

Fanni:

I tried at least 4 skins and it had no affect always lockups after a few mins moving through Kodi or playing a Movie a complete Freeze. I even tried no add ons just default Librelec. I had to revert back to version 7.0.1 if I recall it worked fine at that version. Then at version 8.1.5a I added the Autoscript and things started to work no lockups. I kept updating to latest each release and no issues. Then I had to wipe for other reasons and loaded 8.1.9 and started getting lockups. When I looked closer of course my Autostart was wiped. Put it back in and still had issues so I went back to 8.1.5a and added Autostart and last night running for hours no issues. So it does not make sense thats why I thought the fix is not in 8.1.9.

Currently running Kodi default skin and 8.1.5a installed to Nand with autostart and 1 extra Add on. No issues. MXQ All Black box with Fake Ram 512 and Board

S805Q_V2.0.

Latest build working on mine 👍

Quote from Steve1987

Latest build working on mine 👍

Do you have the Fake Ram problem Board S805Q_V2.0 ? The one that has been an issue since the 7.2 Days ?

Dear kszaq or any other knowledgeable person.

I have a question.

I want to compile your version of Libreelec with custom device tree (.dtb) file. By looking at the code I think I need to modify /projects/S805/options and add new entry in the "# Kernel extra targets" to build with my .dtb file. But where I should place the file itself? Am I missing something else? I have the build environment setup according to the wiki with the only exception that I have cloned your repo instead of the main repo.

The box in question is Videostrong K1 with DVB-T2 that has Sony CXD2872 receiver, that (to my understanding) has Linux support, so it should be possible to get Libreelec with Tvheadend to work in this box. I have newer done this, but I would like to give it a try. I have already extracted the .dtb file from the original FW and I can't get my box to boot with any of the precompiled FW's, so the method mentioned in the FAQ in the first post is a no go.

All help will be very much appreciated as is the work you have already done for us!

Quote from mdm63

Dear kszaq or any other knowledgeable person.

I have a question.

I want to compile your version of Libreelec with custom device tree (.dtb) file. By looking at the code I think I need to modify /projects/S805/options and add new entry in the "# Kernel extra targets" to build with my .dtb file. But where I should place the file itself? Am I missing something else? I have the build environment setup according to the wiki with the only exception that I have cloned your repo instead of the main repo.

The box in question is Videostrong K1 with DVB-T2 that has Sony CXD2872 receiver, that (to my understanding) has Linux support, so it should be possible to get Libreelec with Tvheadend to work in this box. I have newer done this, but I would like to give it a try. I have already extracted the .dtb file from the original FW and I can't get my box to boot with any of the precompiled FW's, so the method mentioned in the FAQ in the first post is a no go.

All help will be very much appreciated as is the work you have already done for us!

I have the exact same question.

I want to get the manual. And then I never got to compile his version.

(Ubuntu 16.04, Debian stretch.) - 64bit.

P.S. AlexElec compiled from source normally.

Quote from NINJAIII

Do you have the Fake Ram problem Board S805Q_V2.0 ? The one that has been an issue since the 7.2 Days ?

I dont, mine is the 1gb ram and using HD18Q build, not had many problems with it on these builds.

Quote from filkint

I have the exact same question.

I want to get the manual. And then I never got to compile his version.

(Ubuntu 16.04, Debian stretch.) - 64bit.

P.S. AlexElec compiled from source normally.

Do you have the same box as I? After some research I found out that "LibreELEC-S805.arm-8.2-8.1.10-HD18Q.img" works great with my box. Only thing I had to do, to get it to boot from the SD-card, was to add empty file named "unlock_autoscript" to the root of the SD-card. Everything except the DVB-tuner seems to work, including Wi-Fi and CEC, so I don't need the .dtb file I extracted from the official OTA firmware any more. With quick glance it actually seemed the same as the device tree used in kszaq's image.

Now I have to find out how to compile the CvH's additional DVB drivers fork to S805. His fork has support for the Sony CXD2872 tuner.

If you don't have the same box as I, You could always try to modify one of the kernel patch files located in the /projects/S805//patches/linux so that it matches you .dtb file. Then compile by using the device which patch file you modified. This may or may not work. I am in no way a expert in Linux kernel compiling and if you do this, you do it on your own risk. You may damage your device for good! That's what I was going to do, but found out that my .dtb was close to identical(if not identical) with the meson8b_hd18q_dtd.patch. If you are going to try this, I suggest you change only the values in the .patch file and not the whole file. More info about Linux kernel patches and how they work can be found on google, but I have not yet found a good and simple source or tutorial. I have to do plenty of reading to get grips on Linux kernel patching and compiling.

Hope this wall of text has been at least somewhat helpful.

Hello KSZAK,

I have been working on trying to get your S805 version LibreElec installed on a TV110/MX Pro android box (Amlogic S805). See the enclosed picture of the box. I will first explain what I have done so far and then describe my issue and hopefully someone will be able to point me in the right direction to fix the issue.

I first tried all three of the S805 images (MXQ, HD18Q, M201) on an SD card and used the toothpick method to try to get the image to boot. No luck. I found a version of OpenElec (v6.0.0.2) that was compiled for the TV110. I tried this image and it installed and ran fine. The only issue is that it was using Kodi 15.2 and not the 17.4 version. I searched everywhere but there was no other TV110 builds after that version. This is where I decided to experiment. I took the latest tar file for the HD18Q (LibreELEC-S805.arm-8.2-8.1.10-HD18Q.tar) and unpacked it. I then copied the contents of the target folder to the update folder in openelec via ssh and rebooted. The device upgraded and much to my surprise came up fine with Kodi 17.4. I then copied over my kodi build files to the device via ssh and rebooted again. The box booted back into Kodi with my skin and addons just as it should. This looked like a success story.

Now my issue started to appear after running or being idle for a while. I would get random freezes and would have to reboot. Sometimes this happens when playing a movie or sometimes when it has been sitting idle for a while. I am fairly new at this so I have exhausted any ideas that I have and was hoping someone could point me in the direction to correct this problem.

Update Oct 17, 2017

So with nothing to lose I wiped out the entire Kodi build that I put on the box. I then restarted the box which re-created a vanilla Kodi 17.4 install. I have left this for 2 days now and there has been no freezing. This could be a coincidence but think the freezing was caused by one of the addons I had in my build. I am going to add them back in one by one to see if I can track down which addon was causing the issue. So right now it seems that the path I took will in fact allow me to upgrade the other two TV100/MX Pro boxes that I have. I will update once I have done more than one.

Update Oct 19, 2017

Well perhaps I was too optimistic in my previous update. I left the box overnight and late the next day when I went to resume it was frozen. I had turned off the monitor it was attached to for testing and perhaps with the loss of video signal it caused some problems. Either way I applied Kszak's wake lock patch and left my monitor on and am re-doing the test overnight to see what happens. In the meantime I will go through the Kodi logs and see if there is anything in there that might shed light on the freezing issue. Anyone with any thoughts please respond to this email. I would really love to have a stable Kodi experience.

Hello 143-kszaq

Thank very much for your work! One little thing the CPU2 and CPU3 load are 26% and 629% always. In other skins are 0% and 0% and CPU0 and CPU1 values they seem a little bit high. I guess the 4 cores are working well and is only a cosmetic mistake. Libreelec 7 worked right. Just in case you can fix it next time.

Regards

Quote from mdm63

Hope this wall of text has been at least somewhat helpful.

I have not compiled even the original is not changed Libreelec.

Running 8.2-8.1.5 after reading about that being a particularly stable version on my Beelink/RedStripe MXQ. So much better than Kodi on Android ever was!
My only issue is what I believe to be refresh rate changes blanking the screen. I'm not sure if this is a problem with this build or just the way Krypton works in general. Maybe someone here can point me in the right direction to minimize this.

I'm using it with a projector, and it seems to blank the display and reconnect when selecting a video, and again when ending the video and returning to the GUI. I'm under the impression this is because the GUI wants to display at 60fps, while the video I selected is 23.97. Heck, it even blanks the display when seeking within the video, as I'm guessing it tries to change the refresh rate back to the GUI when the playback was temporarily interrupted, only to change it again when the new position plays. When using on a computer monitor, this seems like a minor blank screen, but frame rate changes on the projector are registered as a source disconnect/connect, which makes my projector a little nuts. The splash screen comes up, a big NO SIGNAL banner comes on, then it checks possible connections before deciding the HDMI port is good again and reconnecting, along with a bunch of other messages about optimal resolution, etc, which go away after 2-3 seconds. It also seems to create more heat as I hear the projector's fan ramp up RPM during this process. All in all, its not horrible if this happens now and then, but it seems like I would really like to keep these blank outs to a minimum and I feel like they are happening far too often now.

For example, when returning to the GUI without any video playing, why must it go back to 60fps? Can't it remain at 23.97 or whatever it was just at unless another video requires a different frame rate? Like, if I'm watching 3-4 videos that are all encoded at 24p, why can't it just remain at that refresh rate the entire session, GUI and all? I feel like it is aggressively trying to change the frame rate whenever possible for no good reason at all. Especially the bit about seeking within the video. Makes it particularly hard to find a position to jump to when the display goes bonkers each time.

And yes, before you ask, I tried playing with the Adjust Display Refresh Rate settings. It is currently set to Start/Stop, but I'd rather a "start and stay there until a video needs something else" setting, rather than have it go back everytime the video stops. I tried setting it to all other options as well, but it seems to behave the same way no matter what I set it to there so I'm starting to suspect this setting is broken and/or doesn't really do anything. Or maybe I'm doing it wrong? Sync Playback to Display is currently off, as I want to try and keep it using the correct frame rate for the video (one of the reasons I like this over the Android Kodi). I tried seeing if I could change the Kodi refresh rate so that the GUI at startup maybe wouldn't require fps changes, but that option appears to be grayed out.
Am I SOL? Is this just how LibreElect/Kodi 17/Etc is supposed to work? Or is there something I can do to minimize the fps refreshes?

Actually, I'm starting to wonder if the frame rate changes work in the first place. My projector reports still being 60hz after the blank out / refresh. Manually changing the refresh rate seems disabled in settings as well, even when connected to my monitor- greyed out at 60hz. Limitation of the hardware? I'm pretty sure my projector supports HDMI 1.4, which includes 24hz as a refresh rate option, so I'm inclined to think its the box. And if it isn't changing the refresh rate, why is it bothering to update the screen and disconnect/reconnect each time?

I tried turning off refresh rate changes (set it from On Start/Stop to OFF), and turned off the delay when screen refreshes setting as well. But it still blanks out and disconnects for a moment, even while seeking within the video. I'm starting to feel like I'm stuck with it like this.

Thanks for the response, Kszaq! I think it IS some sort of EDID issue, as I know my outputs can display more than just 60hz. Oddly enough, even though the refresh rate was locked to 60, it would STILL blank the display and disconnect/reconnect when starting a 24p video, especially when seeking through the timeline, even though it would just reconnect at 60hz again. Why was it bothering to attempt the switch if the box was locking it to 60hz the whole time? It seems so strange.

In other news, I managed to trick the box by plugging it into a different HDMI device on boot up, which then presented me with 60hz or 50hz in the settings menu. Still no 24, but at least it wasn't locked to only 60hz. I set it to 50hz, the screen refreshed and reported being 50 now. I then plugged it back into the other devices that were previously "locked", and it remained on 50hz (monitor and projector's info screen confirmed it was now at at 50, even though neither had given me the option previously to set it). So, EDID is clearly not being represented properly as I can use it in modes it usually does not present me with. I still can't get it to offer 24hz however, which is the whole goal here.

If I can't get 24hz, I'm assuming my best option is to stick with 60 since the pulldown is cleaner than trying to conform it to 25, right? I still find it odd that when it is "locked" at 60, it would continue to try changing the refresh and resetting the HDMI connection, even though it was going from 60 back to 60 again. Very odd. I'm going to look at that link now, I did all this today before I saw your response.