Messages

Hi,

Like others here, I have had it with the included remote control. I am tired of hearing the "woodpecker" noise from the IceBox and having it skip to the end of a recording, or several days ahead in the Guide with one click, or randomly landing on any options selection I didn't want.

Amazon sent me a special on a ProChosen 2.4G Backlit AirMouse @$17.99. It mentioned Kodi in the description, so I went ahead and ordered one. It worked straight away with none of the issues of the original remote. It seems to have all the required buttons, including Power and Options. It has a keyboard on the back to get any missing buttons eg. it has no "i" key, but pressing i on the keyboard brings up the Info box. There is also no Instant Record, but the keyboard would presumably take care of that. The Air Mouse seems to work, but I haven't really used it. It works simultaneously with the old remote, so that could be used if needed.

Be aware that it doesn't come with batteries; it needs 2 X AAA.

Regards,
Ned

Hi,

I received my new SSD yesterday, and set to work on it this morning. I had some minor issues, which I'll describe here.

I "burned" the USB stick with no issues using Baleena Etcher.

I started the cloning trying to use a mini-usb keyboard that I use when I need to interact with one of my Raspberry Pis. I think the problem was that the delete key also had a back-arrow on it, so I might have been getting a backspace instead of delete. I switched to an old "real" PS2 mouse and keyboard on a PS2->USB adapter.

I still had problems getting into the BIOS. I found it easiest to let it boot into Kodi, then doing a Reboot from the menu. For me, there was too much ambiguity of when to start hitting Delete using the Power button.

For some reason that I don't understand, the new disk didn't always show up in Gparted. I had to reboot, and it then appeared.

In Gparted, on sda (the old disk), the System partition had a red triangle on it. Looking at the Info dialog, the packages dosfstools and mtools were required to manipulate FAT partitions. dosfstools was installed, but mtools wasn't. After I installed mtools, the triangle went away.

On sdb, the new disk, there was a red exclamation point, and it wouldn't let me paste. According to the Info, the disk label was invalid. I had to create a GPT partition table on the disk before it would allow access.

Once that was done, the copies succeeded without incident. I swapped the drives, plugged everything in again, and the IceBox booted normally, with all timers and recordings intact. My disk was only about 10% full, so the whole exercise only took about 1.5 hours.

I hope this helps anyone else having problems. Thanks IceTv for the replacement. That's service!

Ned

For the last two days, my IceBox has been unresponsive in the morning. I have to do the 5 second press of the power button to reboot it, whereupon it boots normally. It has worked flawlessly since my last post on the lockups thread. Has anything changed software-wise this week?

I knew I shouldn't have posted the previous :-( Last night while fast-forwarding through Millionaire, the box stopped with a black screen and a "No Signal" message. This time, I knew enough to immediately go to the Tivo, which is always on Channel 90, and press record. The Tivo starts the recording from the beginning of the time-shift buffer, so I got the whole News broadcast. I then went back to the IceBox and rebooted it, which worked normally.

As the box had run for 10 days without a problem, either there's a giant coincidence and the replacement HDMI cable has gone bad, or there's something else in play, perhaps to do with fast-forwarding.

Just a quick update. The IceBox has been running 24x7 without a hitch since I replaced the HDMI cable. Goes to show that it is vital to use a new/known good HDMI cable!

Ned

Yes, it was a new one for me as well. I don't think I had the SSD issue, as my symptoms were completely different. I must admit I've never had a problem before unplugging/replugging an HDMI cable. The IceBox seems to be unusually sensitive to what's happening on its ports.

Ned

Well, it looks like that was it. When I tried to unplug the cable, it came apart with the cable keeping the wires and contacts and the shell left behind in the socket. Sure enough, when I plugged in another cable the box was locked up again and I had to reboot it. Fingers crossed, it's now fixed.

Thanks,
Ned

I received your second reply while I was typing. I'll try another HDMI cable.

Thanks,
Ned

Thanks for your reply.

Is this the same problem? I read about the SSD issue, and that does not seem to be what I am experiencing. My box just stops while I'm using it, but there's no problem starting up. As soon as it happens, I just reboot (by holding the power button for 4 seconds), and it boots right up normally. I'm not thrown into the BIOS at all.

If you think this is the same issue, I'll just wait for a solution. In the meantime, I might disable the timeshift, as that's about the only thing I fiddled with.

Thanks,
Ned

My IceBox has locked up three times this week. The first time must have happened during the night, as the box was unresponsive when I tried to access it in the morning. The other times, it locked up while I was watching a recording (Millionaire). I watch this by fast forwarding/skipping all the waffle/ads to only see the questions. When it happens, the box becomes completely unresponsive; the screen goes black and the TV says "No Signal" on the HDMI. The only thing I can do is push the power button for 4 seconds to reboot. Of course, that kills the recording of the News which is happening at the same time.

It's acting like something is telling it to turn off. I looked at the Power saving settings, and everything seems disabled; I even changed the Shutdown Function to "Suspend" even though its timer is set to off.

Is there anything I can do?

Ned

Thanks for that. Pilot error, as usual: it didn't occur to me that I had to go up to the bars to navigate. However, unless it's something else I just can't see, there don't appear to be fast forward/reverse arrows like there are on recordings.

Ned

Thank for your reply. I rebooted the IceBox and tried again. I did it with Chrome and Firefox on Linux, and Chrome and Edge on Windows. The result was the same. When I first go in, I see either the details as I last changed them to, or only the enabled line, unticked, with the Advanced box blank. The enabled checkbox won't "stick". I never see any "Red Border" when I change something. That being said, the feature does seem to have been turned on.

As for timeshift itself, I'm a bit disappointed. I can pause, but I can't see any way to go forward or backward in the buffer. There's an icon with an arrow and a vertical bar that I assume should go to live TV, but it just says "Seeking XX:XX" on the screen and the picture doesn't change. Unlike all my other experiences with DVRs (Tivo, Humax 7500T, Humax 10000T, Humax 2Tune), I can't rewind live TV (or can't find how to do it). That's an important feature for me.

Regards,
Ned

Hi,

I just set up my new IceBox, but I'm having problems trying to configure timeshift. When I go into the configuration page, it looks like the one above, but when I fill in what I want and click save, the entries go blank, and nothing is changed. It feels like a permission problem? What am I doing wrong?

Thanks
Ned