Posts by chewitt

  • Official LE13 Test Images for Amlogic (Kodi-22)

    The images in my share now synthesise a MAC address for the BT interface from the CPU serial and set this on boot to workaround issues where the (Broadcom) chipset ends up with a factory-default address which BlueZ ignores; resulting in BT not working. This is the correct resolution for the lack of working BT on WeTek Play2 boxes, which has been reported a few times, and likely impacts a few other devices too. The appearance of a BT 'regression' in LE 12.0 is the result of Linux 6.5.y kernel changes (LE 12.0 shipped with Linux 6.6.y) where the btbcm driver reverted to an earlier (stricter) handling of factory-default addresses. I was never able to track the cause down when previously looking; but now with help from Claude the dots were finally connected.

    At the moment the MAC setting is done in the btmactool buildsystem package but I will probably rework this and ethmac tool into a common package before it gets upstreamed to main repo.

  • SAMBA password authentication

    In modern Windows OS the SMB client MUST use authentication. So you need to set a user and password and enable auth on the Samba server. I forget whether it's required but since it's quick; reboot after changing/resetting the config. Also ensure the Samba server min/max version settings are correct, e.g. min SMBv2 and max SMBv3 and not min/max forced to SMBv1 as modern clients no longer speak the SMBv1 dialect.

  • Can I add WiFi config to SD card pre-install? (headless setup)

    Quote from Paul Webster

    I know that this thread is ancient ... but ... is there still a way to preconfigure WiFi?

    There never has been a way to preconfigure it (LE has never packaged os_config.json). I'd suggest you force the SSH daemon to start by adding "ssh" to boot params in cmdline.txt and then connecting an Ethernet cable. As you have not configured an IP on the RPi it will auto-configure itself with a 169.254.x.x/16 address. In the absence of DHCP the device you need to connect from should also self-configure itself in the same range (which is a large range) and you can run arp -a or perhaps ping the broadcast address (the .255 address of the local subnet) to discover the other device's IP address; and then connect over SSH. Once connected over SSH you can run connmanctl > agent on > scan wifi > connect <name-of-service> to configure the network connection, and use kodi-remote to navigate around the screen. If you struggle with the remote IP discovery another approach is to have your computer connect to WiFi and then share its connection via Ethernet to the RPi, which results in the RPi using a known IP subnet that requires less guesswork.

  • USB SSD No Longer Recognized

    All forms of "spinning rust" media have a lifespan; typically 5-7 years but nothing is ever guaranteed. Boot LE with the drive attached and run "pastekodi" and share the URL so we can see the kernel/system log. I'm expecting to see a bunch of errors that suggest the USB drive has problems; the errors can/might hint whether the issue is related to a messed up filesystem (might be recoverable) or something more hardware oriented.

  • [x86-64] Weird problem installing Libreelec 12.2.1 on an N100 BMAX B4 plus Mini PC

    Quote from Flat

    I can test this tonight. But can I roll back to 12.0.2 using the same commands ?

    Yes/No. Kodi upgrades DB files and add-ons when you update, and does not support downgrades, so make a backup first (see the basic file copy below) and then rolling back is a simple case of stopping Kodi, moving the folders around again, then repeating the "update" using an older image.

    Code
    systemctl stop kodi
cp -R /storage/.kodi /storage/.kodi-backup

  • LE13 on Radxa ROCK 5B+

    I will get around to investigating temp things at some point, but to be clear, it's entirely cosmetic as the OS self-manages anything to do with temps, and a long way down the list. There is no need to further report the problem unless you are reporting a complete fix.

  • TV Shows Not Showing on 'TV Shows'

    Settings > Media > Videos > Library > Flatten TV show seasons > Always .. and disabling "Show All Items" will reduce the number of navigation levels, and you need to set the viewtype to what you prefer at each navigation level. TV Shows has more potential levels due to the concepts of Seasons/Series and Specials, etc.

  • Sendspin support (synchronized playback from Home Assistant)

    In LibreELEC once Kodi runs it opens/owns the alsa sink preventing anything else from using it, so audio MUST go through Kodi to reach the audio hardware; ergo Kodi is the only place to implement something. General purpose desktop distros will be different because they typically implement some other layer, e.g. PulseAudio or PipeWire, and Kodi runs audio through them, so Sendspin integrates there to reach the hardware. LE can also use them, but PulseAudio has rather limited support for pass-through audio (a popular feature with users) and PipeWire either has similar limitations and/or isn't so well supported once you move away from the x86_64 hardware (me is forgetting which) so there's always a compromise and hence we don't use them by default.

  • Official LE13 Test Images for Amlogic (Kodi-22)

    I've bumped the test images in my share to 12.95.1 and they contain Linux 7.1.1 kernel and K22-Beta1. In the last couple of days I dug out an Odroid C2 with HiFi-Shield2 DAC and finally wired it and a WeTek Play2 box up to the digital inputs on my AVR for some long-overdue S/PDIF testing. This flagged FIFO buffer underrun issues (aka, machine gun noise) in the AIU audio driver when you switch between HDMI and S/PDIF inputs and when S/PDIF playback stops, which Claude fixed. and some minor changes to the HiFi-Shield device-trees. The HiFi-Shield2 board is now confirmed (by me) as working fine and I plan to send this upstream. It would be great to also get confirmation on the older HiFi-Shield+ board (which I don't have) so it can also go upstream.