So I am using my corelec tv box now with auto start vpn.
Now I have a new problem/
It works perfectly. It starts network on, vpn on, high speed.
But sometimes after booting up, I see no clock time (yes 01.00) indicating there is no network access.
Determining the time issue, I found there is also no correct date, 1978 or something. That explains, why openvpn doesn’t start. the open vpn server sees an invalid date and refuses a connection. Why is my box showing an ip address where in fact there is no access on the net?
It is weird. Seems like coreelec is not tested out for all devices or something.
I found a solution for now.
When I put a command to pick up the time on internet manually in a file autostart.sh,
(which in fact i don’t like to use) it works.
I never had problems with ntp in CoreELEC, so I assume it has something to do with your OpenVPN configuration. If I take a look into your other OVPN thread, this is more than likely.
You can’t expect the devs to test every possible scenario.
Think about Entware. It is nearly impossible to test every package combination.
CoreELEC is meant as a pure and “just enough OS” media center.
Yes, you can do so much more with it, and that’s fine.
But if you use it for other things as well and it breaks, you can’t blame the CE devs for not testing everything properly.
It’s like pointing the finger at Microsoft, when your Windows system crashes after installing the fifth “tuning tool” in a row.
But using the same vpn provider in librelelec setup with the same openvpn config files a year ago,
i never had time updating errors when booting the device. So , I assume
the father of coreelec had already a solution for it.
Sounds also logical to pick up the time first thing after network connection, specially if the device you intend your o.s for has no realtime clock onboard…
About your line "so I assume it has something to do with your OpenVPN configuration. "
answer: Yes ofcourse. If the time is not picked up first at network connection , my VPN provider’s server refuses any connection from that client. …SSL…it simply can’t match the date.
Not any openvpn configuration will work than, till you solve the first problem.
Was i the only one having time updating errors? Very hard to believe.
I think JohnBoyz’ solution could work.
You configured OpenVPN as a systemd service, therefore it doesn’t wait for Kodi to start first, but tries to start it in parallel.
And Kodi/CE on the other hand doesn’t know about your OpenVPN, because it isn’t configured as a Kodi addon.
You could use the following in /storage/.config/system.d/openvpn.service:
[Service]
ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 30
30 seconds may be a bit too high, but everything including ntp should be started after this time period.
The box worked great in the last weeks with the autostart.sh alternative. I had no real reason to modify it again. The situation I had while having that error I reported in this topic, was that even after starting up and run in kodi, the time was not set. It was saying 00.00 with a year in the 90’s somewhere. I think that means, that even in kodi it couldn’t pull the right time. Would a delay really help in those circumstances?
“…And Kodi/CE on the other hand doesn’t know about your OpenVPN, because it isn’t configured as a Kodi addon.…”
Relkai, everybody has a right for an opinion. Mine is that a vpn connection is an o.s. job, not a kodi job. Kodi is the application. I understand the kodi openvpn app is comfortable for some using all kinds of american vpn providers, the app even works as a commercial stimulation to sign up for those vpn providers for new users. However, it doesn’t handle all available providers during my experiments. Specially of those in europe, where the good vpn providers are, outside the world of NSA and PRISM.
Further about the recent coreelec distribution;
When I installed coreelec first time, I had to improvise many things. For example, My remote controller didn’t work, I had to configure each button for it manually using a manual. I had to play around with several images before finding the right one. I had to use many different sources on the net before understanding how to install in correctly.
Later I had problems with several apps, I used before, but not compatible in kodi 18.
Why is it it is all that hard.?
I do like the improved pvr though. It gives me the time how long before a program will finish. Changing channels seem to work faster. These are good improvements.
I can’t really comment on the VPN part, but I can on the CoreELEC distribution part:
There are literally tens or even hundreds of different boxes on the market, from different manufacturers. Many use different IR codes. The way the remote system works is that we can only include a limited set of supported remotes because a) we don’t have IR codes for every possible remote, and b) some remote codes conflict with others (same code for different functions on the remote), so in that case we can only include one or the other.
I don’t know what different images you had to go through or why. The installation and configuration guides/instructions are all available on this forum and are as clear and simple as they can be. If you have suggestions for improvement or missing information that could be useful, please let us know and we’ll update the guides.
We started CE with Kodi v18, it was still in Alpha stage. While in Alpha, a lot of features are added, APIs changed, things are broken and later fixed and so on. So compatibility with existing add-ons does break from time to time, and the developer either has to follow Kodi and update his add-on every time, or just wait until the API is finalized in beta or even RC, and update his add-on then.
