CoreELEC 19 Matrix Discussion (Kodi RC)

Development Development & Testing
170

Thanks for answering!
Since kodi 18.

171

I mean that Hable and ACES Filmic were implemented in Kodi for hardware that use OpenGL (on Linux) and D3D (on Windows). Amlogic and other ARM devices use OpenGLES.

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172

Device: Turewell F2 SoC S905X2, 64Gb eMMC, 4Gb Ram, 10/100 LAN, WiFi.
OS: CoreELEC Matrix Beta 2 nightly 20201227 Generic running from SanDisk 64GB Ultra Fit USB 3.1 Flash Drive.

Addons used for testing:

Netflix (CastagnaIT)
Amazon VOD (Sandmann)
YouTube with dev keys (Bromix)
PlutoTV (Lunatixz)
Radio (Tristan Fisher)
OpenVPN pre-release (Zomboided)

LAN, WiFi, Bluetooth, Video and Audio work out of the box.

Remote requires remote.conf
OpenVFD has to be setup for LCD.

Widevine: Yes
CEC: Yes
4K Video: Yes
7.1 Surround Sound: Yes
Suspend: Yes

173

Thanks for the new 19Beta nightlies.

WeChip v5
S905X 2GB RAM 16 GB Storage
Running CoreElec from microSD
Installs fine
Wi-fi works, both 2.4 and 5 GHz bands
CEC works
Hardware acceleration works
Bluetooth Works

Addons tested:
Netflix
Disney+

The only issue I had was inputstream helper never completes widevine cdm extraction from chromeos image. Dead hang during download or reboot during extraction.
Had to manually copy the widevine cdm file from another box and then netflix and disney+ work fine

174

This is awesome, been playing with matrix android installed direct on my TV. time shift in simple IPTV totally rocks! sadly my TV has small rom so i cant use my normal install, as thumbnails folder is 10gb… cant wait to get this on an SD and run with corelec to get the full experience!

thanks so much for the effort :grinning:

1 Like
175

Hi all

Sorry for perhaps long post

Basically I am uncertain about the kvim3l /flash/dtb.img instruction
caveat and I wonder if any Khadas VIM3l user has tried the CoreELEC 19
Matrix Beta 2 (Development Release).

I recently bought Khadas VIM3L with CoreELEC 9.2.5 (official)
preinstalled in eMMC. It is a very good device. First thing I did is
make a VIM Krescue backup.

I have no /flash/dtb.img:
Kvim3L-CE:~ # ls /flash/dtb.img
ls: /flash/dtb.img: No such file or directory

I do have:
Kvim3L-CE:~ # ls /flash/device_trees/sm1_s905d3_khadas_vim3l.dtb
/flash/device_trees/sm1_s905d3_khadas_vim3l.dtb
Kvim3L-CE:~ # md5sum /flash/device_trees/sm1_s905d3_khadas_vim3l.dtb
e772daf7801ff7264d5add6b13ec7627 /flash/device_trees/sm1_s905d3_khadas_vim3l.dtb

note: this is the exact same sm1_s905d3_khadas_vim3l.dtb as in
CoreELEC-Amlogic-ng.arm-9.2.5-Generic.img.gz release ng image.

I thought to be somewhat smart and copy
/flash/device_trees/sm1_s905d3_khadas_vim3l.dtb to /flash/dtb.img,
but, this resulted in device not booting CE 9.2.5.

So I restored Krescue backup and Kodi backup. That all went fine.

the OP instructions indeed read:

[…] If you get a “file not found” please
restore your system like with a Android image or a krescue image
before upgrade!

I got a “file not found” indeed, and I have no Android image (CoreELEC was
preinstalled), so, as mentioned above, I restored my system with the
day-1 krescue image.

Still, just like originally, I have no /flash/dtb.img in eMMC…

It sounds a bit like a chicken and egg issue to me.

How shall I proceed?

176

First, thank you for reading the title post!

Second, krescue images aren’t supported by CoreELEC.

Please use official firmware from Khadas to restore Android on the eMMC:

After restore you can boot CoreELEC again from uSD and also perform a install to eMMC by the command line tool ceemmc.

Please use the search function in our forum and Khadas forum how to perform these steps.

1 Like
177

Thanks @Portisch for prompt reaction!

Second, krescue images aren’t supported by CoreELEC.

Oh, but the OP said:

or a krescue image

:slight_smile: perhaps that confused me

So what exactly is the ‘missing’ KVIM3L dtb.img caveat about when already running official CE 9.2.5 from eMMC?

Say: I can boot Matrix Beta 2 from uSD, is it (y/n) mandatory to have an Android firmware in eMMC? Does Android have a /flash in eMMC to begin with? Recall I bought device with official CE 9.2.5 preinstalled in eMMC.

178

Khadas installs the CE 9.2.5 image in a different and incompatible way to normal CE installs.

Shoog

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179

Thanks @Shoog
Shall I then, to make it compatible, first reinstall official CE 9.2.5 to eMMC with ceemmc when booted from uSD? Or, maybe, just put CoreELEC-Amlogic-ng.arm-9.2.5.tar and vim3l dtb.img in ~/.update/ and reboot?

180

You need to restore complete Android before install CE new. A update by tar alone is not enough.

There are some krescue images out there what maybe support it. But in general it’s not supported and your test showed it’s not compatible.

1 Like
181

FYI:

The service addon OpenVFD is now available again in the CoreELEC nightly repo!

2 Likes
182

Hi, i use dual boot version of stable CE 9.2.5 and Android on Ugoos X2 Cube. Both on eMMC. I know its recommended to do fresh install on external media. But i would like to try and risk installing CE Matrix. How technically make fresh install of CE having two partitions on eMMC?

183

With ceemmc you can remove CE from emmc, boot from uSD card with CE Matrix and reuse ceemmc.
Or you can just directly update to Matrix with your current installation. It’s not the supported way but i can tell you that I did it 2 days ago on one of my devices and everything went well.

2 Likes
184

You need to restore complete Android before install CE new

Thanks once more @Portisch for kind and patient help.

Let me first mention: I am rather familiar with AML, CE and VIM, and
I could always recover from Krescue and Kodi backup. So I feel
confident experimenting. I tried the following today, and, somewhat
unfortunately, I did not reach goal. The trajectory may interest Khadas
VIM3L (HTPC kit) owners.

I have two questions:

(a) why would ceemmc have failed in step 3. below ?
(b) can someone provide or suggest an Android image to flash ?

I will also ask on Khadas VIM3L forum

start:
from ‘incompatible’ day-1 CoreELEC 9.2.5 (official) in eMMC on Khadas
VIM3L (sold as “HTPC kit”)

goal:
end up with compatible CoreELEC 9.2.5 (official) in eMMC on that
Khadas VIM3L (such being required for trying out CoreELEC 19 Matrix
Beta 2 (Development Release), which is the next goal)

  1. flash VIM3L-Android-Pie_V201113.fixed.raw.img.xz with Krescue

this Android installed and booted just fine!

  1. make SD from CoreELEC-Amlogic-ng.arm-9.2.5-Generic.img and boot
    CoreELEC 9.2.5 (official) that SD

it succeeded and it has the /flash/dtb.img (on SD where I had put
it)!

  1. run ‘ceemmc’ (without and with -x), unfortunately: it failed

CoreELEC:~ # ceemmc

Starting CoreELEC eMMC installation tool…

eMMC size: 0x0003a3e00000 [16GB]

No CoreELEC installation found on eMMC

Install in dual boot mode, CoreELEC and Android on eMMC
Use CoreELEC data from
[1] current used SD or USB device
[2] existing backup on current used SD or USB device

Install in single boot mode, only CoreELEC on eMMC
Use CoreELEC data from
[3] current used SD or USB device
[4] existing backup on current used SD or USB device

Please choose one option? [1/2/3/4]: 3

Free space of ‘partition CE_FLASH’: 512MB
Warning: Could not find ‘dto’ partition!
Free space of ‘partition CE_STORAGE’: 14298MB

Used space of ‘/flash’: 222MB
Used space of ‘/storage’: 3MB

There is enough free space on eMMC for installation!

Install CoreELEC on eMMC.
Continue? [y]: y
Error dtb magic: !
Could not remove node ‘/partitions’ from dtb0!
Failed to write the new partition table to eMMC!

hmmm, then maybe try another, alternative, method

next attempt:

flash latest VIM3L_Pie_V201113.7z either from ‘Burning Card’ or using
‘USB Burning Tool’ on Linux

  1. creating a VIM3L Burning Card, I could not readily do because no
    SD u-boot file present in
    dl.khadas.com - Index of /firmware/vim3l/uboot/
    I could have considered building VIM3L u-boot, but

  2. one can use USB Burning Tool instead
    This was a bit scary since:

aml-burn-tool -b VIM3L -i update.img
ERROR: Unsupported board: [VIM3L]

so, nevertheless, I tried (it proposed (VIM1|VIM2|VIM3))
aml-burn-tool -b VIM3 -i update.img
which succeeded!

this Android installed and booted just fine!

  1. But now. unlike with previous Android image, I could no longer
    boot CoreELEC 9.2.5 from SD card, in fact: VIM3L upgrade method
    booted into Android recovery instead.

  2. Luckily, upgrade method with Krescue SD card still succeeded and I
    could restore original ‘incompatible’ day-1 CoreELEC 9.2.5
    (official) backup to eMMC.

  3. restore Kodi

done: back where I started :slight_smile:

last question:

I can now again boot CoreELEC 9.2.5 from SD card, but, I guess I
should not attempt to run ‘ceemmc’ having the Khadas CE in eMMC,
right?

1 Like
185

Please go to Khadas forum and request support how to flash a Android image to the eMMC.

When this is done you can request support again how to install CE, thank you.

The image “official” does not mean official support by Team CoreELEC. We do not support krescue images and we do not have control over what Khadas flash on eMMC to sell the device as HTPC kit.

1 Like
186

Thank You! :slight_smile:

P.S.
In settings is possibility to add unofficial channel for updating. Which adress i could use to do manual update to Matrix?

187

Please go to Khadas forum and request support how to flash a Android image to the eMMC.

Done.
Thanks once more for kind and patient and expert help.
FYI here is thread in case someone is interested

188

You can just download the .tar image of latest CE19 nightly, put it in .update folder and reboot.

189

OK. Thank You.

I updated. For now all working fine. As i didnt use any fancy addons i dont see problems. But i noticed a few default addons (i suppose) are deactivated. Should i remove them or just wait for updates?