Emporium

Pretty sure the issue was fixed on the 4900 shortly after I posted here. I will check again tomorrow, but I do vaguely recall one of the updates fixed it. I do recall having done 4 simultaneous recordings (all launched via single button record) and all worked smoothly. As soon as the update situation get's sorted out on the X5, and the next update goes out, I am sure the fix will be included.

I always do shutdown nowadays. I recall on my 4900 when I first got it, after 2 or 3 suspends, my network would continuously cycle in and out (and I am always wired). I went to shutdown, and never had an issue again. So I continue to always use shutdown. Actually even on PCs, I have always disabled hibernate and suspend options. Especially with windows 7 and below, it was a hit and miss all the time. I have to admit, windows 10 is not as bad (I use suspend on my surface pro and it is stable overall - but then again, if it doesn't work well on a Microsoft hardware and software combination, there is a serious issue). However I still do shutdowns on my business laptop and workstation PC. Last thing I need is for MS Teams to start acting funky in the middle of a business meeting. It can do that on it's own already without any help, so trying to keep the odds in my favor

Try both http://some name here.icu:8080/ and if that fails try http://some name here.icu It can vary from provider to provider. Often you need the port (if provider uses one), but takes a few seconds to try both if one doesn't work, so why not. For the versions, reason I ask, is because latest public release is 4.0.549, but latest beta is 5.0.756 so just want to make sure we know what we are dealing with here. Keep us posted.

I use at least 3 different M3U lists on my 4900 (with both the latest public release on one of my 4900 and with the latest beta on my other 4900) and have no issues with any of them. Is it possible your provider locks to some metadata, like user agent, etc.. and may not like this "new unknown" one ? Did you try setting it up as an XC portal ? Use the base URL as the portal, then enter your username/password. From Live TV, if you hit "menu", what is the version number you are using (on the bottom of the menu).

What is your powerkey definition set to ? Suspend or Power off ? In the past on some of the older boxes, I used to find that if you used suspend, then you would eventually find yourself with strange behaviors like many channels not streaming. On those older devices, I had switched the powerkey definition to power off (or shutdown). Yes it takes an extra minute to boot the machine, but at least I had less issues since it was a clean boot all the time. I got so used to that, that I even do the same on my new boxes. And I find depending on the service, some seem to behave better with the Default player, and other on the Secondary player. Too bad there is no "one" universal players that works well for all streams. But can't blame Buzz for that. I've had similar issues using a variety of external players with other apps (VLC, MXPlayer, Titan, EXO, etc..) and they all glitch on certain types of media. Not saying I don't get any "media not supported" or other similar messages on occasion, but the few times it happens, I just flashback to previous channel, and come back, and it's ok. And it does very strongly recommend on the service itself. On some services it was ridiculous (I no longer use them), and on others it is quite rare.

I hear you, and I know everyone is different. They are great boxes overall (and trust me, I have tried my share also). It is just a shame to see that people feel they need to customize it to the point that they don't use the main reason for a buzzTV box, which is the IPTV app. Same here. Other than testing some friends MAC subs from time to time (which I use STBEmu for that), I have not seen any reason to use any other app for IPTV. I have switched to XC api shortly after I upgraded from my xpl3000 also. In my case, I came from a bunch of Xiaomi MiiBox 3 units which I had for many years, and they had native AndroidTV on them (it was the only box other than the Shield at the time). And surprisingly, it was actually pushed 3 major Android TV versions OTA over it's lifetime. Which is pretty impressive for a pretty cheap box. If I did not have the advantage of the BuzzTV apps, I would have probably stuck with my MiiBox or upgraded to newer Nvidia Shield Pro boxes and just installed Tivimate. At those also have all the required DRM for the 4k streaming of many of the services who require it.

If you are going to change the launcher. and not use the included BuzzTV applications, then what is the point of buying a Buzz box in the first place ? If you are going to use a generic 3rd party launcher, and then use Tivimate or STBEmu as your primary IPTV app, then you can use any generic Android box. If you only have one box, then a MAC based sub should not be an issue. Just ask your supplier to switch your account to your new server ID. If you have more than one box, then you are better off with an XC type login. Don't get me wrong, I would have loved to be able to change MAC on these boxes also in some cases (when I want to test something for a friend or family member). But that has been taken off the table since the 4000 series was introduced. The last buzz boxes that I know that supported that was the xpl3000 which I had. Not sure, but possibly the xpl3900 also (but I never had one of those - so can't confirm).

I hear you. I used to use an MX3 type remote (airmouse and backlit keyboard) also, and it was great when I was doing a lot of typing and stuff, and using 3rd party apps. Nowadays however I find I do primarily basic liveTV viewing, and watching some pinned tv series on my vod, so don't really use the airmouse or keyboard features much. The X5 remote is still a lot better than any remote delivered with chinese junk boxes which you need to be 5ft away pointed directly at them (at no shrp angle) to even get them to change channel

I tried with 2 of my service and had no issue searching VOD or TV series titles on my 4900 or my 4500. So could be something very specific with your service. Have you tried using the same service with something like Smarters, Tivimate or even STBEmu if using Mac sub ? 61GB after formatting ? Sorry dude, but what kind of USB stick you using ? Last time I had that issue was with a stick that a buddy of mine brought back from China. Said it was a 64GB stick, came in genuine looking SONY packaging, yet reality was, internally it was just an 8GB stick, with some funky custom firmware, that made it look like 64GB. You write to it and you could seem to fit up to 64GB of data, until you tried to read it back Like I said, to rule out usb stick, remove the stick, change pvr option to store internally, and then do a small test, using the internal storage. I know it is not a permanent solution, but this is to rule out media issues. Earlier this evening I recorded one of the xmen movies that was playing on CTV Sci-Fi and it worked perfectly fine on both machines. On my 4900 I have a 240GB SSD installed in the unit, and on the 4500 I have a 32GB USB stick. I recorded from one service on one box and from the other service on the other box, and both play back perfectly fine. Personally, I don't use PVR much other than testing. For anything other than some very rare live broadcasts, pretty much every episode of most shows I watch are on my VOD/TvSeries list the very next day. Actually some shows are even available before they even air on the networks, since some streaming services have the episodes available to stream from the beginning of the day (like CBS all access), and my iptv service has it available even before it airs in some cases (worst case, next day). But what shows up in the VOD/TV Series section is purely dependant on your IPTV service provider. Not on the box. It does not have some miracle DB to provide you shows that your provider does not have on their sever yet.

The remotes that come with these recent boxes are pretty decent, so no real need for a different remote. I have the BT100, BT200, and BT400 with various boxes and they all work pretty well. Having said that, even the IR100 was pretty impressive for an IR remote. Did not have to go up to the box or within 5 feet like some crappy remotes I've seen with other boxes. Back when bluetooth remotes was not a thing, these RF/WiFi remotes were something great and in some cases needed (since the cheap IR remotes some of the crappy android box vendors included were pure junk. I used to have a few different one, from name brands and some cheap Chinese knockoffs of the MX3 style remotes (airmouse, 2.4Ghz Wifi, backlighting, etc..). Most worked well considering the alternatives at the time. Now if you have some apps which were never designed for proper remotes/TV and expect a mouse, then sure, an air mouse remote is needed (or at least makes your life easier). But most of the apps I use are Android (many even AndroidTV) designed, so work pretty well with regular remotes. And if you are using these boxes for just IPTV (without any other 3rd party apps - like many of my friends), then for sure there is no need for another remote.

Oh ya, and if you are configured to record to external USB stick, just try to change and change, and select internal just for a test, and then schedule a small recording. This will at least confirm if the external storage is causing an issue. Ideally the stick should have been formatted on the buzz box, as "portable storage".

You say "scan into the future a few days & locate my show in the Guide. I highlight it & press REC - Nothing happens". Are you hitting record (red button), or hitting OK, and then selecting Record ? When in the EPG, when you select an event in the future, you need to hit "OK", which will bring up a dialog and ask you to select one of 3 options: Return to EPG, Set recording, or Set reminder. First one is obvious. The set recording should create a recording even based on the EPG, and the last one will prompt you at the bottom of the screen as a reminder, and you can press "OK" to switch to that channel if you are watching something else. Have you SET the PVR location for recording ? If it is an external location (USB stick), have you tried another stick ? Keep in mind that the metadata (the shows, duration, synopsis, etc,,) are stored in the internal memory (not the external media). So if there is a problem with the USB stick, it may still show the recording in the PVR listing, but may not be able to access it from the USB storage.

With the X5 remote (BT400) it works ? Reason I ask, is that there is a setting to "force volume max", which makes volume on any remote non-responsive. It has happened to me twice that it accidently got set to "on". Can't figure out what triggered it (other than the one time after an update which is known). Not something frequent, so hard to say. But something to check.

When you are on beta channel, glitches are to be expected. This is why my main box (the xrs4900 the wife watches) is NOT on beta channel (it is on last released public version), but all my other boxes (including my other 4900) are on beta. But all the apps I typically install on my box, I keep a USB stick with all the APK (mxplayer pro, vlc player, titan player, b33tv, iptv player pro, stbemu, plex, solid explorer, and a few others) . So when I need to do a reset, it is quite simple to load up all the apps back to the box in a few minutes through the app installer. Entering a few servers is not too complicated (and with the new "web" page to enter servers, it is even simpler. But even before the web page was a feature, I had a small cherry USB keyboard/touchpad always handy to zip through all the configurations a little easier than an onscreen keyboard via a remote. The longest part after a reset (in my opinion), is going through all the channels and flagging the favorites That would be a sweet feature to be able to backup the favorites for a particular service, and then be able to recall them after a reset. All the rest, take a max of 15 minutes. IF however you have something like Kodi and piles of plugins installed, I agree that it can take some time to reconfigure it and all the plugins. But I no longer use Kodi. Typically, yes, and update will NOT affect your installed programs or settings. But there are sometimes glitches which can affect some types of installations more than others, and being on beta, you accept the "risks".

Guess OP means programming/learning some of the IR portion of the remote.

In my case at least, I went to recovery screen, but I chose to "factory reset/wipe". Oh well, next time I'll go for the less destructive approach

Same here.. Oh well.. Had to do a factory reset also. I was skeptical in taking it, but figured I'll try. Guess will reinstall everything

OK.. I managed to reproduce the HDMI CEC issue even with my HP 27" computer monitor the X5 is connected to. Went into settings->device preferences->display and sound->HDMI CEC section. Then just in case, before disabling "CEC SWITCH" (first option), I first disabled the second option "DEVICE AUTO POWER OFF" (just in case it was made unavailable but actually still internally enabled). Then I actually disabled the "CEC SWITCH" option. If I then go back to home screen (this point is not needed), and then just turn off my monitor, it actually turns off the X5. So it looks like the X5, even though CEC is switched off, it still detects monitor being turned off, and it goes into a Standby mode. And obviously, the remote has no way to wake it up, since the remote device is still powered off. IF I turn on the monitor, the box turns on and is ready before my monitor even has a chance to initialize So it seems like the X5, regardless if you have turned off the CEC option in the settings, it ignores it, and still follows the remote device state. Maybe @allaboutbuzz, when he gets a sec, could look into why the X5 unit is NOT ignoring CEC commands to turn off when the setting is actually disabled.

OK.. I found something interesting. I no longer have an LG TV, but I do have a few remotes left over from various TV sets I used to have. I used 2 different model LG remotes. But, even though the POWER button button does NOT have any effect on the X5, some other keys from the LG remote do. Keep in mind that this test was done with the X5 connected to computer monitor via HDMI (so no CEC or anything else affecting anything here). And there is no LG TV in my home, just 2 different model LG remotes pointed to the X5 Findings: the "FLASHBACK" key (labeled as "Q.View" on the second LG remote) react like a DISCRETE POWER OFF. They will not power the X5 back up, but they will power if OFF only The "9" key on the LG remotes, reacts like a VOLUME DOWN (there is obviously no auto repeat on this key so with every press the volume is lowered one notch). The "OK" button (labelled as "Enter" on the second remote - effectively the center button on the DPAD", from the main home screen, will bring up the "SETTINGS" menu, as if you selected the settings option on the top of the screen. Then there are 2 key "sequences". Strange, but after playing with it, I noticed it is ONLY of a series of quick presses of the following keys in sequence, will "work". So pressing 4-5-6 in sequence or pressing 8-4 in sequence, will react like the "Buzz logo" button on the BT400 remote, and launch you straight into LiveTV (I put cursor on home screen to PVR, to ensure it was not an ENTER/OK key which was registering, and no matter where cursor is, it launches into LiveTV). I tried these many times to ensure it was not just one of the keys triggering the effect, but strangely enough it is the full sequence. Any variation did not do anything. I tested the same remotes on an xrs4900 and had no reaction to any key from the LG remotes on the 4900. I did not test any other boxes, but if needed, I can gladly check. I also tested 2 different Samsung Remote, 2 different Sharp Aquos remotes, and 1 Sony remote. None of these, no matter what sequences or keys I tried, seem to have have any effect. I did not test the remotes to see how they react within the LiveTV app, but if needed I can gladly test things also. I did these tests quickly, so there may be other key sequences that have some effect, but the combinations are endless. The ones above are just some I happened to stumble on accidently. So this is something specific to the codes LG uses which seem to also be picked up by the X5. Considering this does NOT affect the xrs4900 in any way, I am assuming this is probably some debug code that may be left over on the X5 from the testing of the new BT400 remote on the X5. I am not the dev on this, so this is just an assumption, but maybe @allaboutbuzz can check the remote IR detection routines and see if there is anything which would explain why the X5 also responds to these keys. I would have assumed the IR stuff would have been very similar between the X5 and the 4900, but then again it is different hardware, so maybe it uses different routines. Guess we'll wait to get a response.

If you turn your TV off without the remote (ie: via the buttons on the TV itself), does the X5 also turn off ?

No. and no Making the pvr recording available over the network, would involve the buzz box having some sort of file server running on the box. Right now, there is not many readily available file servers for Android. And similarly, for the the PVR client to be able to save on a network share, it would need to include some sort of filesystem network client (like NFS or SMB). With few exceptions, this is typically only found in file managers like ES File explorer, Solid Explorer, etc.. Yes there are some media players that include SMB clients to be able to scan network shares, but for the PVR to be able to use it, it would ideally be at the OS level, and NOT at the application level. And at the oslevel, being able to remotely mount a filesystem has all sorts of implications other than just the kernel support for the various filesystems. There would need to be all sorts of error handling added for alot of things. example of a few is when credentials fail to mount a remote filesystem. when a remote filesystem is not available (powered down or otherwise), when it becomes unavailable while being used, and also the OS root permission to be able to actually perform the mount. Not saying it will never exist, and it is very interesting. But I would be surprised if it is high on the future feature list. Considering I have a few NAS servers, I agree being able to put all recordings into one location from all devices would be nice. IF you want, you can always download an FTP server for your Buzz box from google store ,and then setup some script on your NAS (or other machine) to be able to occasionally connect to you r buzz box and synchronize/mirror the pvr storage directory. Keep in mind however that the metadata which describes the episodes/content of all the files is stored elsewhere (not in same directory). So you would be getting just a bunch of media files with what seems like random names.

Thanks. Just tested and works as expected now.

I'm assuming it will just run off the MicroSD, and ignore the onboard eMMC ? Just curious on WHY you would consider doing this on a new box, with so much going for it ? If you want Kodi, just install Kodi as an app. CoreElec is great on older devices if they are out of support or have no dedicated IPTV app like BuzzTV5, but I just don't see the point on using it on a Buzz box, and the latest flagship one at that.

Just tested it on the 4900 and it works as expected now Much appreciated. Thank for the super quick turnaround.

OK. Ran a few more tests. Seem like the refresh issue is ONLY present on the Modern UI (and only when you install. On Uninstall it is refreshed). Using Classic, Media Player or Media Player 2, it works as expected. I did not even consider it could be related to just the modern UI (Thanks @dishuser). Anyhow, it is nothing urgent.