Installation of LibreElec 8.1.2 on Intel NUC7I5BNK

Hi there,

This post will describe the installation and configuration of LibreElec 8.0.2 8.1.2 on the new Intel NUC7I5BNK. More details on this hardware can be found here. I have my setup working right now, but there are still a few glitches left on which I did not find a solution at the moment. Because this is fairly new hardware there is not yet much information to be found on the net. Below you will find my experiences. Thanks for reading this long post

Hardware configuration
I am coming from a Minix NEO X7 with Kodi 16.1 where the Kodi database is on a MySQL server on my Synology NAS. The setup of my hardware can be found in the drawing below. The Logitech Harmony Touch operates the Proximus STB, the HDMI matrix, the media-center and the Sonos system. No further explanation needed I think.

SETUP

I know that the Intel NUC7I5BNK is new bleeding edge hardware. The reason I have chosen this NUC is that it supports HEVC10, 4K and some other ‘modern’ functions and formats. Therefore I expect that it will not be a painless installation.

I first started to upgrade Kodi 16.1 to 17.1 on my Android tablet. While upgrading the application the database was auto-magically converted to the 17.1 format.

The coverage of the remaining installation process can be found in the next chapters.

BIOS Setup
Before installing LibreElec 8.0.1 I modified some BIOS settings. Some in favor of the LibreElec installation and some in favor of my taste.

• Updated BIOS to the latest version 046 052
• Setting “HDD activity LED” to “Disabled”. My HTPC is not a Christmas tree.

• Setting the“Primary video port” to “HDMI” and the “Secondary video port” to “None”. This makes pass-through on HDMI the most robuust in Kodi. Strange enough, in Kodi, I have to set my Audio device and pass-through device to "ALSA: HDA Intel PCH, MEI Panasonic-TV on Displayport #0" in stead of the expected "ALSA: HDA Intel PCH, MEI Panasonic-TV on HDMI #0".
• Disabled “Auto turn on TV” (HDMI CEC) in BIOS. I operate all my devices with the Logitech Harmony Touch remote.
• Setting “Fan Control Mode” to “Cool”. The NUC is in my TV furniture and maybe needs a little extra cooling. Noise levels are still very acceptable in “Cool” mode.
• Some settings I made to reduce the amount of flickering LED’s (image 1 and image 2) on the front panel. Again, my HTPC is not a Christmas tree.
• Setting “POST Function Hot-keys Displayed” to “Disabled”.

Settings to get Kodi to work on NUC7i5BNK

• In Settings -> System -> Display -> Video calibration, I adjusted the overscan for my TV. Don't do this. Better adjust the over-scan on your TV. See this reply.
• In Settings -> LibreElec I enabled "Wait for network before starting Kodi". Otherwise Kodi does not connect to my MySQL database. I kept the “Maximum Wait Time” at 10 seconds.
• In Settings -> System -> Audio I set "Audio output device" to "ALSA: HDA Intel PCH, MEI Panasonic-TV on Displayport #0"
• In Settings -> System -> Audio I enabled "Allow pass-through".
• In Settings -> System -> Audio I set "Passthrough output device to "ALSA: HDA Intel PCH, MEI Panasonic-TV on Displayport #0"
• In Settings -> System -> Audio I enabled Dolby Digital (AC3) capable reciever (Sonos). DTS Capable receiver has been left switched off because Sonos does not support DTS.
• In Settings -> System -> Audio I disabled Dolby Digital (AC3) transcoding (Sonos).

Selecting the audio output device.
Audio output device set to "ALSA: HDA Intel PCH, MEI Panasonic on Displayport #0”
Passthrough output device set to"ALSA: HDA Intel PCH, MEI Panasonic on Displayport #0”

Other Kodi settings (Relative to my network)

• In Settings -> Services I enabled the webserver
• In Settings -> Services I configured WINS server to 192.168.1.248 (My NAS server who is WINS server)
• In Settings -> Services I configured Workgroup to "HOME", which is the name of my workgroup in my home network.
• In Settings -> Interface I set "Region default format" to "Central Europe" for Belgium.
• In Settings -> LibreElec I configured the wired network to DHCP. My DHCP server gives the NUC a fixed IP based on the MAC address.
• In Settings -> LibreElec I enabled SSH. Make sure you enable SSH when installing LibreElec.
• In Settings -> LibreElec I enabled Samba. Make sure you enable Samba when installing LibreElec.

Problems to solve

1. [SOLVED] Bluetooth. When I enable Bluetooth in Settings -> LibreElec, Kodi says that there is no Bluetooth adapter found. I fact, after investigating the boot log, I seemed that the bluetooth kernel modules are missing and therefore not loaded. The command “dmesg | grep -i bluetooth” give the following results.

The solution for this problem was given in the posts below:

thread-4556.html
thread-4759.html
Index of /source/_dev/linux-firmware.git/intel/

Download the files “ibt-12-16.ddc” and “ibt-12-16.sfi” and copy them to the directory /storage/.config/firmware/intel/ on the NUC. If the directory “/storage/.config/firmware/intel/” does not exists you have to create it. Make sure the owner, group and rights of the new kernel modules and the new directories are the same as the other kernel modules and directories. Restart the NUC and Bluetooth should be working now. I have my Logitech Dinovo Edge connected now.

The command “dmesg | grep -i bluetooth” now give the following results.

This issue is solved in LibreElec 8.0.2. The kernel modules are included now. See this reply.

2. [ONGOING] WiFi Firmware.

LibreElec is trying to load newer versions of the WiFi firmware (23-26). The “lsmod” command reveals that the WiFi kernel module is loaded. Apparently versions 23-26 are not supported yet. For the moment wifi is working fine with version 22 except for the one time crash of kodi when fiddling with the wifi interface in Kodi, which is described further on in this post. Latest wifi firmware is now 27. The latest wifi kernel modules for LibreElec can be found here. Don't have any problems left for about WiFi. Everything is working fine.

3. [ONGOING] Audio pass-through. Audio pass-through is working more or less right now, there are a few things that still bother me:

• [ONGOING] "ALSA: HDA Intel PCH, MEI Panasonic-TV on Displayport #0" port is listed in possible audio output devices in stead of the expected "ALSA: HDA Intel PCH, MEI Panasonic-TV on HDMI #0", this in spite of the BIOS settings. Anyhow, selecting "Displayport #0" from the list of possible audio output devices gives me GUI sound and pass-trough on the HDMI port. Also I don’t understand why the ports “HDMI #1” and “HDMI #2” are listed. I only have one full HDMI port on the NUC. Selecting HDMI #1 or HDMI #2 results in no audio at all (video and GUI).
• [SOLVED] Sometimes when Kodi starts I have no sound from whatever video in my library. The strange thing is that I have GUI sounds. A restart does not help. I have to choose Power down the system en start it again to get sound from my videos again. Problem is no longer there. I don't know if its due the the BIOS updates or LibreElec updates since I was not able to find the cause of this.
• [ONGOING] For the moment I have problems with passtrough using AC3 DD5.1 streams. I only have sound when I switch-off pass-through. Details about this phenomena start on page 3. The problems with passtrough using AC3 DD5.1 streams are more or less solved. For more details see this post.

The soundcard itself however is working fine. The output of “journalctl -a | grep -i sound” LibreElec first says that no sound cards are found but later on the sound system is loaded by systemd. In kodi.log the audio devices are enumerated.

4. [SOLVED] HDMI Firmware. If you are running HDMI firmware earlier than 1.66 you will have problems with the audio pass-through to an AV receiver that is HDMI 2.0 capable. After the update, which can be downloaded on the Intel Download Center, all audio formats should work fine.

Intel states only to install this update when a HDMI 2.0 capable device is connected to the NUC. All my other devices are HDMI 1.4 and 1.4a so I think I have no possibility to install this update. Anyone experience with this update? Is it solving some of the audio pass-through problems? I managed to do the update to version 1.66. For installing this update, you need Windows 10. I created a "Windows to Go" version on an external USB 3.0 hard-disk using "Win2USB". Use the latest Windows 10 PRO iso. This can be downloaded at Microsoft. After that I started windows on my NUC booting from this external drive. The free win2usb can't create an UEFI bootable disk. So when you want to boot from this disk you have to go into the BIOS and switch of UEFI boot and you have to select the external USB disk as boot device under "Legacy Boot". Restart the NUC and go into windows, do the updates and start the HDMI firmware update utility. Despite all my devices, except the NUC are HDMI 1.4a I was able to update the HDMI firmware to version 1.66.

There is a discussion on this subject in this thread and this one.

5. [ONGOING] Other errors/fails/warnings found. Although the system is working right now there are still some error/warnings in the log-files that maybe need attention:

journalctl -a | grep -i error   

• Apparently the pulseaudio errors above seems to be a bug that is still open.

journalctl -a | grep -i fail  

• kernel: [drm] failed to retrieve link info, disabling eDP. Don't now what this error means. Has something to do with direct rendering?
• Process '/sbin/hdparm -E8 /dev/sr' failed with exit code 2. I think this is normal for my configuration. LibreElec is looking for an optical drive which I do not have.
• [pulseaudio] authkey.c: Failed to open cookie file '/var/run/pulse/.config/pulse/cookie': No such file or directory. Don't now why this error shows up. The file cookie exists in directory /var/run/pulse/.config/pulse/ and in /storage/.config/pulse. Only the file .pulse-cookie does not exist in both directories. More info here.
  I made a symlink: "cd /storage/.config/pulse ; ln -s cookie .pulse-cookie". After a reboot the error messages are still there. Maybe the file cookie is not there yet or or the directory "/var" is not yet mounted when pulseaudio is looking for it.
• bluetoothd[334]: Failed to obtain handles for "Service Changed" characteristic. Don't know what this error means. Bluetooth is working though.
• xorg-launch[485]: Starting Xorg server with: "/usr/bin/Xorg -nolisten tcp vt01 -s 0 -noreset -allowMouseOpenFail -config /etc/X11/xorg-i915.conf"_XSERVTransTransNoListen: unable to find transport: tcp. Looks like an ongoing topic here.
• kernel: thermal thermal_zone0: failed to read out thermal zone (-5). More info here and here. Seems to be an ongoing problem also.
• Mediacenter connmand[293]: Time request for server 2a03:b0c0:0:1010::3:4001 failed (101/Network is unreachable). It seems that LibreElec make a request to a timeserver on IPV6. I disabled IPV6 on the wired and on the wireless interface. Don't know why LibreElec is still sending out a request to a timeserver on IPV6.

journalctl -a | grep -i warning  

• May 19 15:42:41 Mediacenter kernel: WARNING: You are using an experimental version of the media stack.
  May 19 15:42:41 Mediacenter xorg-launch[483]: (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.

  Don't know what these two warnings mean and if they cause a malfunction of some parts of LibreElec. Will do more investigation.

Latest kodi.log:  

• ERROR: DBus: Error org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown - The name org.freedesktop.UPower was not provided by any .service files.
• WARNING: JSONRPC: Could not parse type "Setting.Details.SettingList".
  WARNING: CSkinInfo: failed to load skin settings

  Don't know what these error/warnings mean and if they cause a malfunction of some parts of LibreElec. Will do more investigation.

I hope there are other users on this forum with a NUC7I5BNK who are willing to share their experiences with me.

Thanks

Quote from DaVu

Will read the rest as well, but this is always a blocker in my eyes

Overscan should NOT be fixed by using Kodis video calibration. Nearly every modern LCD TV (Which is 1080p capable) should be able to display the pixels natively. So if Kodis GUI is bigger than the screen, you have to change the settings at your TV and not inside Kodi. While doing that inside Kodi you will loose native resolution and that's not the thing you want, I guess

So please check your TV settings. Depending on TV (every vendor does it different), you need to check the zoom-option and/or if your TV has a "PC-mode". Use that instead of the calibration. The calibration is mostly used with older TVs which are only capable of 1360*768 or such and which don't have those zoom-options or a PC mode.

If it's a newer LCD TV, just take a look at the manual how overscan should be handled on the TV.

Thank you for the info. I dove into the manual of my TV and I found an option called "Picture Overscan". I had to set this option to "off". After that I set the overscan in Kodi to it's default.

Will adapt the first post.

Thanx.
[hr]

Quote from Klojum

ehoitinga

Please note that we prefer to have logs or other text snippets uploaded with LE's built-in pastebinit tool, or pasted onto pastebin.com (or the pastebin website of your choice). It makes reading logs a lot easier on big display, and not via a letterbox view in the forum. Thanks in advance.

O, I'm sorry. Never worked with pastbin. Will look at it.

OK. Looked at it. Should I paste the web link, the JavaScript Embedding or the Iframe Embedding?

Looks nice the new software but I'm no longer able to edit my first post. When I hit submit it says that the post is to big and must be 10.000 characters or less.

OK. I adapted my first post with my latest findings. For now the installation of LibreElec 8.0.1 works fine on my brand new NUC7I5BNK. The errors and warnings found in "journalctrl" and "kodi.log" do not seem to cause problems yet.

Let me start by going through the ONGOING issues in my first post one by one.

First the WiFi kernel module. The command "journalctl -a | grep -i iwlwifi" reveals that the kernel is trying to load iwlwifi version 23-26. Only iwlwifi version 22 exists in LibreElec:

Mediacenter:~ # find / -name iwlwifi-8265-*.ucode
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-8265-22.ucode
Mediacenter:~ #

On this page I found version 27 of the Intel iwlwifi kernel module. I downloaded the file and put it in the directory "/storage/.config/firmware/". After a restart I see that version 22 is still loaded. Is the directory "/storage/.config/firmware/" the right directory to put this file and/or do I follow the right procedure?

WiFi is working with firmware version 22 except for the one time problem that Wired and Wifi interface seemed to be on the same MAC address at first configuration (described in point 5 in my first post).

Quote from guandms

ehoitinga

Hi,

Did you solve the HD Pass through on your NUC ?

I still can't hear HD Audio because of Intel's firmware or driver problem, i updated to the latest bios "46" but still the same ....

I don't now if you were able to read my screenshots and pastbins. After the change of the forum software most of my links in my first post were converted to something like:

https://forum.libreelec.tv/core/dereferer/?ref=aHR0cCUzQS8vcGFzdGViaW4uY29tL0ZaeUZ2Vmh1

For now the HD pass through is working for me. When I play a movie with AC3/EAC3 sound I see a Dolby Digital 5.1 signal coming in to my Sonos soundbar. I can't test DTS because Sonos does not support DTS (nor DTS-HD, DD+ or DD TrueHD)

As for the audio pass-through there are two things that bother me:

1. My NUC is connected to my HDMI switch with a HDMI cable. The "ALSA: HDA Intel PCH, MEI Panasonic-TV on Displayport #0" port however, is listed in possible audio output devices in stead of the expected "ALSA: HDA Intel PCH, MEI Panasonic-TV on HDMI #0", this in spite of the BIOS settings I changed. Although the xrandr command says that the displayport DP1 is connected. So I think that displayport#0 (DP1) has nothing to do with the displayport capability of the thunderbolt port on my NUC. I believe DP1 and HDMI1 are clones on the physicval HDMI port. Apparently the Linux layer lists the port starting at "1" and Kodi starts listing at "0". Its a bit confusing but not an error. So I consider my first point concerning audio pass-through as solved.

Mediacenter:~ # xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 32767 x 32767
DP1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 1150mm x 650mm
   1280x720      60.00 +  59.94  
   1024x768      60.00  
   800x600       60.32  
   720x576       50.00  
   720x480       60.00    59.94  
   640x480       60.00    59.94  
DP2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
VIRTUAL1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
  1920x1080 (0x49) 148.500MHz +HSync +VSync
        h: width  1920 start 2448 end 2492 total 2640 skew    0 clock  56.25KHz
        v: height 1080 start 1084 end 1089 total 1125           clock  50.00Hz
Mediacenter:~ #

2. Sometimes when Kodi starts I have no sound from whatever video in my library. The strange thing is that I have GUI sounds. A restart does not help. I have to choose Power down the system en start it again to get sound from my videos again. It does not happen very often. I have not yet been able to reproduce this error but it seems to happen after a power failure.

Despite these two "issues" my audio pass-through for AC3/EAC3 on HDMI is working fine with these audio settings: screen1 and screen2.

Did you also check if the HDMI firmware update is necessary for your setup? This post and this post suggests that it is a HDMI2.0 problem. However, the HDMI update to version 1.66 solves the pass-trough problems in Windows. For Linux (and thus LibreElec) we are still waiting for the linux drivers/kernel module to be updated. Does pass-through work for you with AC3/EAC3?

Quote from Axel Foley

With LE 8.0.2 the Bluetooth issue #1 is solved. There's no need to copy the firmware/modules anymore. I just tried removing them after the upgrade to 8.0.2 and my Logitech Harmony connected perfectly.

Yeah, I noticed Will adapt first post.

Thanx

Quote from justpressplay

Hi

I have an Aspire One Intel atom and with 8.02 bluetooth adaptor not found . The bluetooth adaptor is Foxconn BCM02046. Could you guide me how to activate this?

Thannks in advance

Is this an internal or external adapter? Do a "journalctl | grep -i bluetooth" to see what the error is and to see the name of the kernel module that its trying to load. Most likely the kernel module for this adapter is not present in LE. The command "lsmod" can be used to see if the bluetooth module is loaded.

If a bluetooth kernel module exists for your device you can download the kernelmodules and use the same procedure as I did.