[Chazg76]

Hi,

I have installed Kodi on top of Ubuntu 16 LTS which is all running on an Intel NUC. I have the NUC connected to my Philips TV through HDMI port 2 on the NUC to HDMI port 1 on the TV. I bought a PulseEight HDMI CEC internal adaptor for the NUC which I have setup. That's the reason I am using HDMI port 2 on the NUC because if I connect via port 1 then I cannot use my TV's remote to control Kodi.

So, to my problem!... This has been driving me mad for a while now!... Basically, "most" of the time when I switch the TV to HDMI port 1 to use Kodi the screen is blank and I get "no signal" displayed by the TV. Very rarely kodi is displayed.

This is really annoying as I have to keep rebooting the system to try and get kodi to be visible. Even rebooting, kodi is not always displayed and I sometimes get the same blank screen.

Even if I press buttons on the remote nothing happens. I also have a Bluetooth keyboard connected to the NUC but pressing keys on this does not do anything either!

I can connect to Ubuntu via SSH and run the command

$ ps aux | grep kodi

Which shows kodi is running.

The only display I have on the NUC is the TV. Otherwise I manage the NUC via SSH.

I also have the Kore app on my mobile. It shows that it is connected to kodi but once again pressing buttons does not being back the screen. I even tried using the 'wakeup' command on it but that did not help either!!

Any ideas how I could fix this?

Please let know if anyone requires any further info on setup.

[Karellen]

If you press the \ key, does it bring the display back to life?

[Chazg76]

If you press the \ key, does it bring the display back to life?

Thanks for the reponse, unfortunately, that does not work.

[black_eagle]

Have you tried a different HDMI port on the NUC and the TV?  Different HDMI cable ?  Maybe Ubuntu's screensaver is kicking in and shutting off the display output ?

[Chazg76]

Have you tried a different HDMI port on the NUC and the TV?  Different HDMI cable ?  Maybe Ubuntu's screensaver is kicking in and shutting off the display output ?

Thanks for the idea. I have tried that and the strange thing is that if I run Ubuntu and not Kodi when switching from TV I don't have any display problems!

[black_eagle]

Thanks for the idea. I have tried that and the strange thing is that if I run Ubuntu and not Kodi when switching from TV I don't have any display problems!

OK, well the only thing that that makes me think of is the fact that Kodi itself can choose which output it appears on.  I have a TV and a monitor connected to my PC and I can put Kodi on either of them, however, because GDM in Ubuntu 18.04 is not multi-monitor aware and due to the way I have X11 set up, Ubuntu can only see the monitor.  Means I can run Kodi on my TV and a desktop on my monitor and neither of them interfere with the other.

The point is though, that Kodi might be outputting on the other HDMI port (especially if it's the default one) which could cause a loss of signal on port 2.

What I would do to check this, is without kodi running look in ~/.kodi/userdata/guisettings.xml and find the setting videoscreen.monitor and make sure it's set to the right output (probably you want HDMI-1 for port 2).  Another thing I've just remembered is that I had to turn off all the CEC stuff on both my AVR and TV.  My original AVR didn't do CEC, but the new one does.  So I thought, one remote is easier so lets just use CEC.  However, with it enabled right through the chain, every time I turned off the TV, Kodi automatically switched to using my desktop monitor for output.  Obviously, that was less than desirable as Kodi runs all the time on the TV.  The only way I could get it to 'stay' there was by abandoning using CEC and programming my AVR remote to work Kodi via lirc.  CEC might be causing you a similar issue in that it is making Kodi output on the wrong port.

Those two things are about the only thing I can think of given that Ubuntu itself works right.

[Chazg76]

Thanks for the idea. I have tried that and the strange thing is that if I run Ubuntu and not Kodi when switching from TV I don't have any display problems!

OK, well the only thing that that makes me think of is the fact that Kodi itself can choose which output it appears on.  I have a TV and a monitor connected to my PC and I can put Kodi on either of them, however, because GDM in Ubuntu 18.04 is not multi-monitor aware and due to the way I have X11 set up, Ubuntu can only see the monitor.  Means I can run Kodi on my TV and a desktop on my monitor and neither of them interfere with the other.

The point is though, that Kodi might be outputting on the other HDMI port (especially if it's the default one) which could cause a loss of signal on port 2.

What I would do to check this, is without kodi running look in ~/.kodi/userdata/guisettings.xml and find the setting videoscreen.monitor and make sure it's set to the right output (probably you want HDMI-1 for port 2).  Another thing I've just remembered is that I had to turn off all the CEC stuff on both my AVR and TV.  My original AVR didn't do CEC, but the new one does.  So I thought, one remote is easier so lets just use CEC.  However, with it enabled right through the chain, every time I turned off the TV, Kodi automatically switched to using my desktop monitor for output.  Obviously, that was less than desirable as Kodi runs all the time on the TV.  The only way I could get it to 'stay' there was by abandoning using CEC and programming my AVR remote to work Kodi via lirc.  CEC might be causing you a similar issue in that it is making Kodi output on the wrong port.

Those two things are about the only thing I can think of given that Ubuntu itself works right. 

Many thanks for the detail, I'll see what I can do.