RPi and Kodi problems

[Bobins]

I've been using the Raspberry Pi for months with Raspbmc and it's been fine with the NPVR client (not needed to use Live TV though). I recently bought a RPi2 and discovered the Raspbmc build will not work with this new model. I therefore tried the new OSMC version and immediately hated the GUI.

This brought me to try XBIAN which is a Kodi build. The install went fine and it seems quite stable. My problems started as soon as I enabled the NPVR client. Every 30 seconds I get an audio beep and a popup saying NPVR has "Lost connection". The TV menu item doesn't appear and the EPG or Channel list doesn't load...... just every 30 seconds or so the "Lost connection" message pops up.

I have a spare Micro SD card so I loaded the XBian software onto that and tried it in my original RPi. Having configured it I get the same problem...NPVR has "Lost Connection" every 30-40 secs :confused:

So two different model RPis with the same problem implies to me a software or config issue. Has anyone else got XBian working with NPVR on a RPi?

Just to make matters worse, when I re-inserted my Raspbmc SD card back into my original RPi, it updated the software to the last Raspbmc Kodi release. That's now totally unstable with random re-boots and will often re-boot several times before reaching the main menu screen.

So I now have two RPis that I can't get to work properly.

Any suggestions welcome.

[mvallevand]

OSMC can be changed to use the Confluence skin if you prefer. Other than that I personally don't support the PVR Addon on the RPi anymore, it's too much effort since no one cares to send logs.

Martin

[Bobins]

Appreciate logs may be needed. I think that unlike say a Windows environment, many RPi users just want a load & run environment and don't actually know how to delve into the O/S and find the logs. I have to say that even though I have years of IT (and GBPVR/NPVR) experience, I would have to go digging to work out how to access RPi logs.

I hadn't spotted the possible skin change for OSMC so I'll go back and try that as my previous Raspbmc experience was good (until the last update).

Thanks for your response.

[mvallevand]

Appreciate logs may be needed. I think that unlike say a Windows environment, many RPi users just want a load & run environment and don't actually know how to delve into the O/S and find the logs. I have to say that even though I have years of IT (and GBPVR/NPVR) experience, I would have to go digging to work out how to access RPi logs.

Don't you think the others that are trying to give you that experience don't spend the time digging? Your problem with the RPi2 could even be power supply or usb cable related and the logs won't help with that, but there are numerous posts about that, The reality is the RPi is a piece of a cheap computer kit and part of the reason it is cheap is the users's responsibility to put the kit together and do a bit of research.

Martin

[Bobins]

Hi Martin,

From your reply, feels like I may have touched a sore nerve with my response & use of Raspberry Pi in which case I'm sorry.

Totally agree it's a cheap device and personally I have a low expectancy of what its performance would be. All I want it for is playback of music or pre-recorded programmes and maybe recording scheduling from the EPG. I don't expect perfect performance nor using it for live streaming TV. Up till now, it's worked reliably and matched my expectation.

I'm aware of the power issues many people have had and have been careful to buy good properly rated power adapters.

I didn't mean to imply in any way that I wasn't prepared to do the digging. Indeed I trawled the Raspbmc, XBIAN and associated websites and I searched numerous forums (including this one) to see if anyone had experienced anything similar before raising the query here.

I am very appreciative of the efforts Sub, yourself and many other forum members have gone to over the years not only in writing the software but in helping those less versed in the intricacies of building these systems.

I go off now and retry OSMC with a skin change (...and only come back if I've got logs and something concrete contained therein) :-)

Regards,

Ray

[donschjr]

I'm now expert on any of this but I get that message if I'm not connecting to the server so I'll ask if you did the configuration in the pvr addon for your server's address on your network?

[Bobins]

I did double check the NPVR client config in both RPi's when using XBIAN and it was correct. Both gave the "connection Lost" message and everything I tried didn't fix it so either I'm missing something or the client has an issue on the XBIAN build.

After Martin's suggestion of changing the OSMC skin back to Confluence (which I hadn't thought of), I reloaded OSMC, changed the skin and setup the config exactly the same as I had done with XBIAN and guess what.....it works perfectly!

So I'm back to 2 working Pi's again :-)

So the inference is ...... use OSMC if you want a RPi or RPi2 to work with NPVR.

[stustunz]

The solution is easy
Turn off live tv dont use the npvr client and instead use xnewa with autostart web client.
The way kodi does its tv recording etc is crap and resource hungry.
The down side is its not as pretty some would say cause it doesnt have all the same fan art,the upsude is it looks clean and simple just like npvr and it works pretty much as good as any clientvive used.(look at sig)

[NYPlayer]

The PVR Plugin works great on the RPI using OpenElec. Thanks to mvallevand.

Part of the problem was being caused by my Windows 7 Server ... I had to make some changes to security policies and some other changes because after a while the Server would become not accessible to the RPI. If anyone is interested in the changes I can post them.

[StevHodge]

NYPlayer

Please would you post the changes. I am running openelec on 3 RPis. They all upgraded to openelec 5.0.4 today and now they will/cannot access my windows 7 server. I put its web address in on the configuration screen for the NextPVR add-on and it seems unable to save it. Just comes back with the address space blank when I exit, and then go back in. Feels like a permissions problem in the server to me

Steve Hodge