[bleriot13]

Hi to all.

I'm experiencing a rather weird issue with Kore (Android) and Kodi (Linux Mint 17.3).

Kore has been working flawlessly for quite a long time. The day before yesterday I noticed the problem I'm experiencing now.

Kodi says it is trying to connect to my media center but never completes this action. HOWEVER, I can use the remote to navigate through the different screens in Kodi. This means that the up / down / right / left arrow DO work. What I don't get is the set of play / pause / fast forward / rewind controls (as well as any others that appear once the remote successfully connects to Kodi).

If I try to install the remote in a different device (another Android smartphone) it is able to find the Kodi server without problems.Nonetheless, once I have configured the username / password parameters (I know these by heart) it is impossible to connect too.

At first I thought that I had a problem with my router, since my provider changed it a few days ago so, maybe, an internal firewall was blocking the access to my Kodi server. But what really puzzles me is that SOME commands sent by the remote (arrows) DO reach Kodi.

Any ideas? Could the new router be blocking partially the connection between Kore and Kodi? Any other suggestions?

Regards,

Bleriot.

[syncd]

yes, your router is probably blocking the http port that Kore uses to communicate with Kodi. The HTTP port is configurable in Kodi (and kore), but it's usually 80 or 8080. Also try to unlock 9090.

The arrows work because they are sent through port 9777 which probably isn't blocked.

[bleriot13]

Syncd,

thank you for your answer, since it seems to explain the weird behaviour I described in my first post.

I already tried changing the port to 80 and 443 since these, normally, are not blocked because they are related to web browsing, but Kodi complains about its inability to start the service. To my best knowledge, I have no http servers installed in the laptop where Kodi resides, so I don't know why this problem arises; the ports 80 and 443 should be available.

After reading your post I tried to change the port to those close to 9777 (9776 and 9778) believing that if this one was not blocked, the adjacent ones wouldn't be blocked neither, but the situation is the same: Kode does not connect.

I've also been taking a look to my router configuration parameters and seen no option to block / unblock ports in the LAN. Of course, the usual NAT options are available to map WAN ports to LAN ones, so I have no hint on how to solve the problem. I'll try to contact my ISP to see if they can help me. Note that I'm assuming that the problem is caused by the router blocking these ports; if you have any other suspect, please let me know.

Thanks again,

Bleriot

[bleriot13]

Syncd,

one extra (important) comment.

I have been testing the ports used by Kore using another Linux computer and the Telnet command, as for instance:

telnet -4 ip.of.the.kodi.computer 8080 (or 9090, or any other port)

and both 8080 and 9090 seem to work. I mean, I get no answer from the Kodi computer but the connection is NOT refused. Moreover, if I send the escape character ^] telnet says "Connection closed by foreign host" (the kodi computer)

On the contrary, if I telnet using another port as 2000, the answer is "connection refused". 9777 refuses to connect too. To my knowledge, this means that these (2000, 9777) ports are not open / reachable."

In the Kodi computer, the command "nmap -sT -O localhost answers the following:

PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
445/tcp open microsoft-ds
631/tcp open ipp
1688/tcp open nsjtp-data
8080/tcp open http-proxy
9090/tcp open zeus-admin

Would not this mean that ports 8080 as well as 9090 are ready (nmap says so) and NOT blocked at all by my router (telnet gets an answer) I've tested this using a wired / wireless connection (just in case this should make any differences for the router; for ssh it does).

Thanks,

Bleriot.

[nickr]

Scanning localhost won't go through the router.

[bleriot13]

Nickr,

you are right. I have executed the same nmap command in another computer, writing the ip of the kodi laptop instead of localhost to force going through the router. The result is very similar:

nmap -sT -O 192.168.1.200
...
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
445/tcp open microsoft-ds
8080/tcp open http-proxy
9090/tcp open zeus-admin
...

There are two ports missing now (631 and 1688, see the previous nmap command) but 8080 and 9090 are still accessible.

Does not this mean that my router is NOT blocking the ports needed by the remote control?

Thanks,

Bleriot.

[nickr]

Your interpretation is correct. Very odd.

Port 631 is for printing. Not sure about the other one.

Edit: fixed pretty-->port, bloody android autocorrect.

[bleriot13]

Thanks, nickr.

Therefore, if the right ports are reachable, the remote should work, shouldn't it?

What do you recommend? Should I reinstall Kodi?

By the way, happy new year!!!

Bleriot

[nickr]

Other than doing some network capture I can't think where to go next, you could try reinstalling.

And happy new year to you too.

[bleriot13]

Hi again!

Finally, I solved the problem reinstalling Linux. I tried first to uninstall Kodi as suggested above but it didn't worked. A fresh install of both Linux Mint + Kodi did the trick.

I guess that some (Linux) update broke this or that file so it was impossible to connect correctly the remote. So the router was not the culprit. I don't know what happened but it does not matter since I was able to solve the problem.

Thank you very much for your help.

Bleriot.