[Milhouse]

New OpenELEC Helix build: #0619
(Supercedes previous build)

Code:

# uname -a
Linux rpi512 3.15.1 #1 PREEMPT Thu Jun 19 19:22:06 BST 2014 armv6l GNU/Linux

# vcgencmd version
Jun 18 2014 18:43:44
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version 1a6f79b82240693dcdb9347b33ab16f656b5f067 (clean) (release)

# lsb_release
OpenELEC_Helix (Milhouse) - Version: devel-20140619192050-r18622-g3f9dd58

Based on tip of OpenELEC master (3f9dd58, changelog) and tip of XBMC master (06959f1, changelog) with the following modifications:

• Includes newclock3 patches
  
• Excludes the OpenELEC fernetmenta patches due to conflicts with newclock3
  
• Excludes the OpenELEC linux-01-RPi_support patch in favour of sourcing these and possibly more recent patches directly from kernel branch rpi-3.15.y
  
• Excludes the OpenELEC xbmc-master-newclock3 patch in favour of sourcing these and possibly more recent patches directly from newclock3 branch
  
• Default setting for "Show RSS Feed" changed to disabled
  
• Disabled "Total Duration" in Confluence (see build #0221 for details)
  
• ALSA is enabled and any suitable hardware should be available in XBMC Audio Settings
  
• FIQ FSM is enabled by default. See initial post for more details.
  
• Includes RPi-specific libCEC commits from mk01/libcec. See build #0527 for details. Also double-key suppression.
  
• Increase scan interval of PeripBusCEC from 5000 to 60000, reducing CPU loading by about 2% (1GHz Pi) every 5 seconds (even when CEC is "disabled")
  
• Includes libnfs master with directory caching support
  

Build Highlights:

New firmware with reloc/malloc memory queries (bcmstat.sh updated with support for new queries). New kernel 3.15.1.

1. Firmware (Jun 18):
   • firmware: gencmd: Add queries for malloc and reloc free memory. See: link
     
   • firmware: display: Add support for 32bpp palettes. See: #276
     
   • firmware: Alterations to support camera DRC. (Dynamic range compression). See: link
     
2. OpenELEC:
   • fluxbox: hide useless errors
     
   • linux: update to linux-3.15.1
     
   • gettext: update to gettext-0.19.1
     
   • misc-firmware: update to misc-firmware-0.0.10
     
   • file: update to file-5.19
     
   • libpng: update to libpng-1.6.12
     
   • dbus: update to dbus-1.8.4
     
   • libusb: update to libusb-1.0.19
     
   • gcc: add patches to fix GCC-60902, this should fix #3323
     
3. XBMC:
   • Small darwin fixes for Sysinfo (PR:4925, 3 commits, 2 files changed)
     
   • dvdplayer: only set audio and subtitle index on user action (PR:4921, 3 commits, 4 files changed)
     
   • dvdplayer: fix incorrectly indicated buffered samples after ae7cda6629c7... (PR:4901, 1 commit, 2 files changed)
     
   • [posixdirectory] removed misplaced ; - thanks spiff (PR:4930, 1 commit, 1 file changed)
     
   • FIX: [jni] typo (PR:4934, 1 commit, 1 file changed)
     
   • renderer: allow some lateness within vblank interval (PR:4905, 1 commit, 2 files changed)
     
   • dvdplayer: set clock for all streams as long master has not synced (PR:4912, 1 commit, 1 file changed)
     
4. newclock3:
   • AE: Mark parameter of AEChannelInfo::ContainsChannels as const
     
   • AESinkALSA: Prefer opening too many channels to too few channels
     
   • AEChannelInfo: Add methods ReplaceChannel, BestMatch, AddMissingChannels
     
   • AESinkALSA: Add support for ALSA channel mapping API
     
   • ActiveAE: request best matching 5.1 layout from sink
     
   • [rbp] Reduce GPU memory use when limited
     
   • ActiveAE: Add queries to determine number of channels output
     
   • [omxplayer] Make use of audio decode fast paths when downmixing
     

[jsxbmc]

I've been checking openelec/pi out for a year and a half now, official builds, my own builds, and now these test builds. I was running r17644 from Feb for a while, tried r18050 from Mar briefly but backed it out due to serious regressions. I've been trying some of these recent builds (#531, #601, #619) and while they are *significantly* better (to the point of being almost usable for day to day watching and in front of company) than the Feb build, there's a few newly introduced issues:

(My use case is DVDs as a VIDEO_TS folder structure off hard disk.)

1) The video jitter which I presume is the same others have pointed out here. Seems to be random whether it happens or not. Often won't after start of playback or a skip to a chapter point, often will after returning to normal speed after trickplay. Feels like 3-5 times a second the video just stops for a few frames. Audio is flawless (mostly). I tried playing with the "adjust display refresh rate", "sync playback to display" and "vertical blank sync" options, but the jitter persists. (So I've returned them to "off"/"off"/"always".)

2) While watching LOTR I was getting occasional short "veep" noises, as if one uninitialized sample buffer had been queued. Given the positioning I think that was at chapter boundaries, or possibly other longer-scale structural boundaries within the DVD stream. I've heard it a couple of times on a few other disks too, though the length factor biases the sample!

3) On a few (but not all) DVD menus, it feels like the ENTER/OK action is being queued and not performed for (variably) 2-8 seconds, though the visible feedback (highlight/colour change) happens immediately when the button is pressed. Normally just an irritation, but on the BSG boxsets, rather than a list of episodes, it gives one selectable menu item which scrolls through the 4 episodes. The variable delay makes it impossible to select the right one. Further, when the click action finally happens and the video switches, the episode that plays is often not only not the one clicked on originally, but not the one visible at the time of the action either, but something after that.

Older problems: trickplay still needs a little work. Delivery is extremely erratic (seems to play a burst of frames, then wait half a second, burst again), and the clock speed doesn't much resemble the speed label selected. Time will often jump both forwards and backwards, whether or not the playback direction is forwards or backwards. (If I had to guess, I'd say it feels like the normal speed playback timer hasn't been stopped, and both timebases are now competing with each other to set the next position.)

At least menus work at all now, fairly well on pretty much every disk I've tried. And the temporary video blackout just before the end of video sections appears to be gone now.

---

(I should be clear that as of Feb I switched the default player from omx to dvd, so the above applies to that. And great work on the huge improvements so far!)

[popcornmix]

I've been checking openelec/pi out for a year and a half now, official builds, my own builds, and now these test builds. I was running r17644 from Feb for a while, tried r18050 from Mar briefly but backed it out due to serious regressions. I've been trying some of these recent builds (#531, #601, #619) and while they are *significantly* better (to the point of being almost usable for day to day watching and in front of company) than the Feb build, there's a few newly introduced issues:

There is a hack you can use if you are having problems. Use dvdplayer to navigate the menus and start the feature.
Stop, then context menu, and "play using omxplayer". It will offer to resume from where you were and you can play the feature with the generally better behaved omxplayer.

Sure, that shouldn't be necessary and I'd like to improve dvdplayer.
What is always useful is samples of files that clearly misbehave. Upload a sample, explain exactly what you press and how it misbehaves and I'll investigate.
I don't tend to watch dvd images. I have a few for testing but they seem to behave pretty well.

[b1m1]

It did not see anything from fsck.

Sorry, it's a bit fuzzy now but it would not mount the /storage "partition" and finished with a message saying to run fsck manually I think.

If it happens again I will record more info.

Did the auto fsck attempt to fix problems (and then fail), or not detect any problems at all?

[mikeb93]

Just FYI. I get little audio dropouts with the latest build. They're subtle but very annoying. Can't send a debug log right now.

I didn't notice them much when watching 720p TV series. But it's very much noticeable on a 1080p movie.

Does anyone have them too?

[pootler]

does that make any sense ? - and is there anybody out there using Pi / live tv who recognises what I am saying?

Yes, it matches my understanding. I think if you have a perfect signal with no errors, then the audio sync will be fine (whether using official openelec or milhouse build).

If you are getting visible corruption on screen (e.g. due to a poor signal from aerial), then it is possible the timestamp of an audio packet is corrupted.

I think something in the code gets upset by the bad timestamp and results in bad audio sync for some time (possibly until that timestamp is actually reached).

It appears that the milhouse build handles the bad timestamp better than official openelec.
So, the question is, do the first or second test builds behave the same as the milhouse build (and so better than official?)

I realise that as the problem relies on random errors which come and go it may be hard to be certain if build A is better than build B.
Just keep switching between the builds and report which one you are happiest with.


Back again

So I,ve used both builds for a few days now, and the results (from the UK jury) are:

Build 2 - show drifts like build 1. Reading what you said about timestamps, rather than flip the channel to and then back again, I let things run.
Surprisingly,the drift was pulled back in again after an hour or so.
However the drifts were not large in the first place.

Build 1 - very similar I'm afraid, not a lot in it. However I couldn't use it much because it had the dreaded'' Channel change to a blank screen'' from the very very early builds?

So out of the two build 2 seemed more reliable - but it still drifted and then would pull back in again.

You have to laugh though, I am now back with Millhouse helix build ( the latest ), and Live tv today had serious audio/video drift!

Time for a coffee.

Sorry I can't be more helpful but if you'd like to throw me another build I'll try it.

Cheers

pootler

[popcornmix]

You have to laugh though, I am now back with Millhouse helix build ( the latest ), and Live tv today had serious audio/video drift!

Do you only get audio drift with live TV?
Ideally I would like you to record a file that contains the audio drift.
Then the behaviour would be reproducible, and I could download the file and investigate it.

Have you ever had this issue with a recording from live TV?

[Mafarricos]

I think i found a bug with xbmc ui. In any addon settings if you check any setting from type option, when you browse the options it always shows 2 extra (files and library). This only happens to me? You can check in settings of youtube, for eg, in quality you will have 1080p,720p,sd,ask,files,library.
is making some mess.

This in 19 jun release.

[pootler]

You have to laugh though, I am now back with Millhouse helix build ( the latest ), and Live tv today had serious audio/video drift!

Do you only get audio drift with live TV?
Ideally I would like you to record a file that contains the audio drift.
Then the behaviour would be reproducible, and I could download the file and investigate it.

Have you ever had this issue with a recording from live TV?

As far as I am aware only live tv.

I.ll see if I can capture a section

I shall try and record for a few hours , and if it drifts, see if the recording does as well.

Pootler

[Heiko123]

Hello,

I installed version: devel-20140518210348-r18418-g035ae32, but why I don't get newer version over the update-function?
Or If I have to do a update procedure?

EDIT: OK, my fool. I found the link with all information. http://wiki.openelec.tv/index.php/Updati...ent_Builds

[ijsbeer79]

The easiest way to upgrade, download the TAR file from MilhouseVH in this thread. Make sure SAMBA is enabled in XBMC and go to \\<ip adress of your pi>
And copy the TAR file to the update folder and reboot. In the boot sequence you will see the magic happen and a smile will arise on your face

[f1vefour]

The easiest way to upgrade, download the TAR file from MilhouseVH in this thread. Make sure SAMBA is enabled in XBMC and go to \\<ip adress of your pi>
And copy the TAR file to the update folder and reboot. In the boot sequence you will see the magic happen and a smile will arise on your face

The easiest way is to use the update add-on.

http://openelec.tv/forum/128-addons/49855

[rterblanche]

The easiest way to upgrade, download the TAR file from MilhouseVH in this thread. Make sure SAMBA is enabled in XBMC and go to \\<ip adress of your pi>
And copy the TAR file to the update folder and reboot. In the boot sequence you will see the magic happen and a smile will arise on your face

The easiest way is to use the update add-on.

http://openelec.tv/forum/128-addons/49855

Off topic quickly. One don't get a update add-on for normal windows xbmc?

[freaktm]

Hi,
The last few days I've been having issues with live-tv, if running overnight. The entire system would get slow.
So, I've started rebooting the pi before going to bed, to avoid this. Been working just fine, although the reboot would not always go fine by itself - I've had the plug pulled once or twice, for it to reboot OK.
Until tonight, now XBMC won't start after a reboot.

I get this error (or something similar, the text shows for a very short duration!) when Openelec is loading:

Code:

failed to setup user config dir
Check systemctl status userconfig.service

When I run that command, I get this output:

Code:

â userconfig.service - Setup User config dir
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/userconfig.service; disabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 1970-01-01 01:00:06 CET; 44 years 5 months ago
  Process: 123 ExecStart=/usr/lib/openelec/openelec-userconfig (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Main PID: 123 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Warning: Journal has been rotated since unit was started. Log output is incomplete or unavailable.

Then I thought, let's try and update to the latest build, but I'm not allowed to push the update to the smb share. I can read OK, but not write.

This is my current build: devel-20140503235917-r18335-gb2d3626

Hope someone can help me out here!

[Milhouse]

Until tonight, now XBMC won't start after a reboot.

I get this error (or something similar, the text shows for a very short duration!) when Openelec is loading:

Code:

failed to setup user config dir
Check systemctl status userconfig.service

This would suggest your /storage filesystem is no longer readable/writeable. Reformat the /storage partition and restore a backup, or if you don't have a backup then you'll have to go through the setup process again.