AMIKO Amiko A3 Owners Thread

[Jim S.]

The 2.0.61 ROM that was the dev ROM has now been blessed as the stable ROM, so we can talk about it here. (Not that I agree with not talking about it when it was the dev ROM, nobody is under NDA here...)

I'm still having the issue where the web server dies overnight when the machine is left either on or in soft standby. Nobody else seems to be having the problem, and I haven't had time to look into the logs (the A3 produces a LOT of log information!) to see if there's any clue to what's going on. Of course, nobody but me seems to be having the problem.

Rebooting it fixes it for another day or two. Once, I reset to the factory default and reloaded the NA software and it stayed up for 8 days straight, then quit again. The last time I tried doing that, however, I ran into something that could be related to what Dee just had happen: it locked up when it rebooted. The difference is, after I pulled the power, it came back up exactly as I had left it BEFORE the factory reset! There is obviously something very, very rotten in the A3's handling of wiping data, but I'm no Android guru (all I know is Android looks like somebody took a perfectly good *nix system and piled a bunch of crap on top of it for no reason) so I don't know what it is.

 

[T134]

DEVROMs aren't classified by any means but at my place we keep seperate discussion threads for them since they are development betas that fix things and could cause issues not in stable releases.

For the webserver I still recommend what I told you at my site: leave it on/don't run fake standby and logcat the thing. Should show sparkshare crashing if the problem is the process terminating. Somewhere around this (if it is happening) there should be clues if a conflict with another process causing the problem.

If an A3 or any Android loads an update from the operating system, reboots and does nothing the update is not applied. Android updates are copied to the /cache partition, it reboots into recovery, update is checked then applied, then it reboots. If it doesn't go to recovery and just stops nothing happened and a hard boot normally just boots it to how it was like nothing happened.

 

[Jim S.]

If an A3 or any Android loads an update from the operating system, reboots and does nothing the update is not applied. Android updates are copied to the /cache partition, it reboots into recovery, update is checked then applied, then it reboots. If it doesn't go to recovery and just stops nothing happened and a hard boot normally just boots it to how it was like nothing happened.

OK, but what would be happening to prevent it from going to recovery / making it hang on reboot?

 

[Dee_Ann]

It's doing it again. It will not boot. It locks up and becomes completely unresponsive to any external controls BUT, the last channel it was tuned to, continues to play. The video and audio runs but otherwise the machine is dead to the world.
I pull the power cord and this time I pull the ethernet wire so it won't try to auto-update like it did last time, I wait 60 seconds then reconnect power. It's stuck displaying "boot" on the device and it's hung on displaying the initial AE screen, sans the normal animation. It will not respond to the remote or the keyboard.

Previously when it did this I was able to get the unit to boot up but in the process it "updated" itself to the european mode, all the US stuff was erased.
I went back and restored a backup that was two weeks old and it got back my US satellites and channels but a lot of the US stuff was missing from the apps such as the app that lets it update the satellite list for US satellites.
It was running partly with the European stuff and partly with US stuff and that was only because of the restore I had done.

Now it's at it again. I have not used it since the last time it cratered out, it's sat there powered up and untouched for the past few weeks.



Now, when I started tying this I had pulled the power cord for 5 minutes, this time when I plugged it in it came up and said "Android is upgrading".. It also informed me that the UID is corrupted, whatever that is.

This is absolutely unacceptable. I do not want automatic updates. As I have seen, they cause me trouble. I NEVER accept automatic updates on any computer, tablet or phone that I own, EVER.
How can I put an end to this obnoxious and unacceptable behavior? I am an apple user, I am not an Android user or fan. I have this device and a cheap tablet that runs Android and I don't like either one of them because of the extreme privacy issues and lax security. I'm pretty much ready to sell this thing to someone that has the patience to put up with it. I'm really not at all happy with this thing. Had I known what I know now I would not have bought it. It's been more trouble than I care to deal with and it's so bloody fragile that I don't even want to touch the thing. I've just quit using it because of all the issues and annoyances. It's unreliable and troublesome.

Edit: Every time I reboot the unit I get this message telling me that something is screwed up and it's unstable because of this. It tells me to "wipe the data partition" to fix it.

 

[primestar31]

Sell it, it's not worth the frustration you are having with it.

 

[Titanium]

I will agree with Primestar31. Time to sell the A3 and find something more suitable for your needs.

We have been through this with you so many times, with so many products and install challenges. I'll be the first to admit that it has been an interesting challenge to provide high level support via a forum thread and repeatedly talk the jumper off the ledge.

Sometimes a product is not a right fit for the customer. We seem to have an excellent track record of being able to repeatedly identify and help you correct past problems throughout the past few years. I am sure that we could identify what is happening this time as well or we take the easy route and encourage you find a different solution.

Android is not bad, Google is not evil. A3 is not fragile. Mistakes are made. Remedies are applied. We take another breath and life goes on. What do you want to do?

 

[Michael Nixon]

I will agree with Primestar31. Time to sell the A3 and find something more suitable for your needs.

We have been through this with you so many times, with so many products and install challenges. I'll be the first to admit that it has been an interesting challenge to provide high level support via a forum thread and repeatedly talk the jumper off the ledge.

Sometimes a product is not a right fit for the customer. We seem to have an excellent track record of being able to repeatedly identify and help you correct past problems throughout the past few years. I am sure that we could identify what is happening this time as well or we take the easy route and encourage you find a different solution.

Android is not bad, Google is not evil. A3 is not fragile. Mistakes are made. Remedies are applied. We take another breath and life goes on. What do you want to do?

I beg to differ googles at least a little evil

 

[Dee_Ann]

I want to make a statement here for all to know.

I have not been fiddling with this machine in any way, shape, form, or fashion. Not once, not even a little.

YES, I screwed it up the day it first arrived and I had to send it back to be fixed. That was my mistake and I confess I was an idiot.
But since then I have not messed with it. I am afraid to mess with it. I know nothing about android and my very first experience with it spooked me to where I am afraid to mess with it.

It has sat untouched for 99% of the time I've had it. It usually goes untouched for a week or more at a time. When I do switch over to watch it I find it locked up.

It is not me that's screwing this thing up, it's doing it all by itself. So do not blame me for this.

 

[Dee_Ann]

What exactly do I need to do? I don't know what "data partition" it's referring to, the 500gb disk I installed or something else built in? The disk I installed in it is essentially blank (zero recorded videos) and only contains backups of the system. I do not want to wipe that out and lose those backups, I need them because this thing crashes so much.

What can I do with it to fix it?

 

[Titanium]

Wasn't blaming anyone, but addressing your frustration and the drama.

Last time you reported this (December 23rd), we suggested to install your back-up rom. Did you reinstall the back-up?

Wipe data, wipe cache, install recovery rom.

 

[primestar31]

I want to make a statement here for all to know.

I have not been fiddling with this machine in any way, shape, form, or fashion. Not once, not even a little.

YES, I screwed it up the day it first arrived and I had to send it back to be fixed. That was my mistake and I confess I was an idiot.
But since then I have not messed with it. I am afraid to mess with it. I know nothing about android and my very first experience with it spooked me to where I am afraid to mess with it.

It has sat untouched for 99% of the time I've had it. It usually goes untouched for a week or more at a time. When I do switch over to watch it I find it locked up.

It is not me that's screwing this thing up, it's doing it all by itself. So do not blame me for this.

Nobody is suggesting you've done anything wrong. Sometimes electronic devices really ARE defective in some way, and I think yours is one of them. Perhaps you simply have a jinxed unit, baring the one mistake you did at the start, and by the way, you know you aren't the only one that made that same mistake. No harm, no foul, I really think you just need to sell it for now. There's enough frustration in life without dealing with this particular one.

 

[Dee_Ann]

I did restore the backups last time.
When I make a backup I select EVERYTHING. I back up ALL the options.

When I did the restore a few weeks ago I selected to restore EVERYTHING.

When it blew up a few weeks ago it gave me that UID error message, which I do not understand what that's even about.
It has been giving me that error since then. Every time it boots it says that and the only option it gives me is "I'm feeling lucky" which is the most RETARDED thing they could have picked.
It tells me nothing, it obviously doesn't repair it and it's just flat out unhelpful.

As for "Wipe data, wipe cache, install recovery rom." I do not know what the approved procedure is.

Wipe what data? Where and how?
Wipe what cache? Where and how?
Install recovery rom? Which one? Where from? How?

I'm not going to barrage my way blindly through and end up making matters worse.

Do I need to reformat the 500gb hard disk? Will that help? Is the problem related in any way to the hard disk? I understand the thing has it's own built in electronic disk like phones and tablets have, is that where things are screwed up?

I'm deathly afraid of the reset option because that's what fried it on day one. I honestly think that for US folks that option should be disabled or password protected so you have to contact the support folks before you can fry things.

Anyway, I don't know where to start on this, I want to fix it the right way. I know nothing about Android, to me it's alien and unfamiliar and I have no idea where to begin.
My instincts tell me to wipe it clean and start over but as I learned on day one, that's not an option.
So to preserve the US stuff it's obvious that you have to be an uber nerd to fix the thing.

I do not know what to do and I'm afraid to try ~anything~ without specific, step by step instructions for an IDIOT.

 

[Titanium]

Got it! You are frustrated!

The only reason that you initially had an issue after erasing everything was that you had not made the back-up file. Period... Had a back-up file been made when you first received the unit like the included important notice sheet directed, it would have been restored within minutes. Don't let this initial mistake made months ago haunt you! You made a back-up when you received the restored unit back. This should be all you need once we identify the cause of the UID notice.

Joe researched the UID notice as none of us have ever seen this display. It is an Android report that has displayed after the user performs a reset or indicates corrupt data. The problem may have reoccurred today if it wasn't cleared before the restoration last week or if the back-up file contains corrupt data.

Please drop an email and we will troubleshoot this offline.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Fair enough.. I will get in touch with you Monday and see if you can un-stupid me a little.

And yes, the very first thing I did when I got the unit back from repair was to do a full backup of it, all options checked. I still have that backup, I think.
Also, in the few hours that have passed, it has locked up again and is unresponsive to input and I have not touched it at all. I left it running on Retro TV since about 4pm today.
I just picked up the remote to check to the backups and found it not responding. The video is still running. I tried the air mouse and it moved around the screen. Then I pressed the mute button and it muted the sound but then it completely stopped responding to anything. There's nothing I can do now but pull the power cord again. I'm going to power it down awhile and then get back in to check the dates on the backups to be sure, after that I'm going to power it down and pull the cord until I talk to you Monday. It will be in the afternoon because I'm busy trying to make things happen for moving to my new home. Many phone calls to make and errands to run.

Edit: I found the original backups I made the minute I got the machine back from repair.



I have not messed with them, have not tried to restore them in any way, I just checked to see they are present. I also used the FTP to make backups of all the backups onto my Mac, I have been backing the thing up every few weeks since I got it back so I have about a dozen and a half. But you say we need only to worry about that original backup so it's all good to go. Now I just need some un-stupiding..
I'm not very good at this sort of thing, obviously.

 

[dougruss]

When was the last time you Charged the Remote ?

 

[Michael Nixon]

Anybody else is flying mouse stopped working?

 

[Titanium]

This is the first report that I have heard. Did it happen after an update or just stop during usage? In all menus?

 

[Michael Nixon]

This is the first report that I have heard. Did it happen after an update or just stop during usage? In all menus?

You know I don't remember if it happens after the firmware update or it just stopped working so to answer your question I don't know.

 

[barleyguy]

T134 or others... I have a question about changing the recording path.

I know how to SET the recording path in the settings, but when I go back to it to try to CHANGE it, there doesn't seem to be a way to go upwards in the directory structure, so it appears that there's not a way to change it from one path to another.

Does anyone know a workaround for this? Does the path get stored in a config file somewhere?

Also, is this fixed in a newer firmware? I got my A3 around February 10th.

Thanks.

 

[gpflepsen]

Go to System (bar at top)
Go to Settings Icon
Go to System (bar at the top)
Go to PVR Icon
Click right on Record Settings
Select Record Path
Highlight which location you want to store recordings at
press the red button for "Select directory"