All kinds of issues with Live TV

[hansolo77]

OK, so I did a little more testing, and thought I had it figured out. After enabling the system logging, I changed back to the default Estuary skin. I thought maybe the skin was overlaying something and screwed everything up. Not the case. But after rebooting, I was able to watch the 1st HD channel in my guide (through the cable company). I thought I had it fixed, so I changed to the next one, and I have a black screen again. Rebooted and tried again. Again the 1st channel (NBC) came through fine, then the next channel (ABC) failed. Rebooted again and tried ABC first, still have a black screen. So I thought maybe that channel is out? Rebooted and tried another channel (CBS). Black screen. I then tried switching to the first working channel (NBC) and it's still black. Rebooted and tried again with NBC, still black. Tested the channel on my server and it's working fine. Something somewhere is messed up. Why would it be working fine on one channel, and not others? And then why would that working channel suddenly stop working but work fine locally on the server?

I might not have a valid decoder key. I didn't write down the serial number I have it associated with, just "Raspberry Pi 3" vs the RPi2 I also have. But I've built 3 or 4 of these now for various family members, and the original may have been given to my brother or dad, etc. I'm going to try and contact the Foundation and see if they can verify the serial number my keys go with, and compare. In the meanwhile, feel free to examine my logs:

[hansolo77]

HOLD EVERYTHING!!!!

I need to experiment a bit more to make sure I"m right, but I think I fixed it. I was browsing the log file posted above (the live tv bit is towards the end). I saw a bunch of things indicating I was using the OMXplayer, and then a lot of errors about the renderer not being setup or something. Now that gave me an "aha" moment. I remember changing it, so I changed it back to MMAL. Now the all seem to be working right again.

The thing is, I also built a Raspberry Pi to be able to play emulators on it. The video screenshots cause a lot of lag on the system because they're using a software renderer. In the "RetroPie" software I use, they have a new update that allows you to change it to OMXPlayer. That is supposed to enable hardware rendering, and relieve a lot of the lag. It works great on my emulation machine. So I switched it on my Kodi system in an attempt to make it run better too. Apparently that doesn't work. There must be some added dependencies or the software for the OMXPlayer isn't installed. So it was crapping itself out.

I really don't know what's going on. I mean, wouldn't having BOTH options installed be the best? Apparently that doesn't work. I had to disable OMX to make MMAL work. I just don't get it. Does anybody know how to install the OMXPlayer software? Is there really any benefit in this particular case? This system is only for running videos on Kodi. I'll just leave it on MMAL if that's the case. Just curious.

Off to further testing.....

[mvallevand]

Wasn't the problem. I copied over the keys from my old card, and still have the same problem.

The keys can't be copied they are device specific

Martin

[hansolo77]

I'm pretty sure these are the correct keys for this device. I did more experimenting, and it seems to be working great now. I guess I figured it out on my own, but would never have been able to had it not been for reading through the Kodi log. Thanks!