AMIKO Amiko A3 Owners Thread

[primestar31]

I am 99.99% confident that the problem occurs because if there is a corruption of the app, it attemps to go online to restore from the latest available update. If not available online, it restores from the app installed on the unit, but does not restore the user data. Most receivers restore from a local file including user data during a reboot.

Currently providing some development advice on another set top box that was designed to update / restore from online data. Now it has been coded so the firmware and user data will be restored from a local file rather than online.

So, people with A3's could just disconnect the network cable (but the clock...), OR, find out what port it uses to go out on, and block it in the network router for now...

 

[Jim S.]

I am 99.99% confident that the problem occurs because if there is a corruption of the app, it attemps to go online to restore from the latest available update. If not available online, it restores from the app installed on the unit, but does not restore the user data.

Well OK, but what's causing all the corruption? It's not just Amiko's app crashing, I've seen popups about other Android components crashing too.

 

[Titanium]

Most devices including STBs will experience an event which corrupts the data and causes a lock-up. Once the receiver is rebooted the recovery typically returns to the active or custom user configuration.

Blocking internet access will have no effect as the recovery routine is not reloading the user data.


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[Jim S.]

Anybody want to give me a refresher on how timers work on this thing? I set one last night (for the first time in quite a while), making sure that the motor was parked on the satellite in question, and put the receiver into soft standby. Tonight, I checked and there was no file recorded. The timer manager didn't have any indications of what went wrong (not that I was expecting it to...) I can only think of two possibilities. First, since wiping the ROM a few months ago, I never set a location for recordings. However, I can't [i[find[/i] any place to set a location for recordings, so I assume that it goes to the internal drive. (Possibility 1-B: last time I was using the A3 on a regular basis, the internal drive was formatted to NTFS. When I re-did the system, I formatted it to ext3 instead. But, everything else I put on the drive such as backups and channel lists works, plus I'm currently doing a manual recording and it's not complaining.) The second thing that comes to mind is that maybe it needs to be left "on" rather than in standby -- but I always use the soft standby, not the deep standby, where everything is still powered on except the actual A/V output. Even the web interface is available.

 

[bpalone]

I am no help on the timer. But, I seem to recall there being something about the format on the hard drive. This was early on and may of been corrected in later versions. I initially formatted in Ext3, but changed back to NTFS. Wished I could recall what the issue was, but can't.

The joys of getting younger.

 

[KE4EST]

I have never tried with it in standby, if I know I have a timer set I leave it on.

 

[bigg t]

I've had no issues recording with the unit in standby or when powered on. When turned off I use deep standby. I had to change a setting so that the tv wouldn't turn on when the receiver powers on. I woke up a couple of days with the tv already on when I got up. I think the recording was to take place around 5am.

 

[Jim S.]

Well, I set another timer for tomorrow, leaving the unit "on" this time. We'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, I'm still perplexed (to put it mildly) that despite everything else apparently working since the ROM wipe, the SMB server on the A3 is still reporting bogus filesizes! When I connect from a Windows 7 system, it reports negative sizes, when I connect from a Linux system (after fixing the directory permissions, which are weird, on the A3), it reports 16 exabytes for a file of a few gigabytes. These files are OK if I pull the drive and physically connect it to a different system. And I've tried it with the A3's drive formatted to both NTFS and EXT3 now. And the A3's ftp server is still broken:

C:\Users\Jim>ftp 192.168.11.3
Connected to 192.168.11.3.
220 (vsFTPd 2.1.2)
User (192.168.11.3:(none)): root
331 Please specify the password.
Password:
230 Login successful.
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
500 OOPS: socket
ftp> ls
500 OOPS: priv_sock_get_result
Connection closed by remote host.

 

[Jim S.]

My recording set for two hours cut off after 37 minutes. Could've been a signal drop I suppose as we had some rain, except I'm virtually certain that I walked by the box later than that and saw the red light still on. So another Amiko mystery!

Recordings done manually by pushing the record button on the remote have always worked fine, and continue to do so.

 

[gpflepsen]

My A3 seems to be getting more unstable. It freezes up now after days to a few weeks. Power off reboot doesn't bring it back sometimes. Other times it hangs at the boot screen. Doing a full Monte reformat is the only option. I'm longing for a good 4k receiver to replace it but am hesitant to get another to bridge the time gap until it arrives.

 

[Jim S.]

Well, mine survived for one day shy of 16 weeks on a reflash. Today it locked up on a blind scan, and is currently boot-looping. I've got too much outdoor work to do this afternoon to mess with it, but I'm eventually going to have to at least get it running long enough to grab the DiSEqC 1.2 positions for all my satellites to put into a different receiver -- unless I get really disgusted and just take the drive out and read them from the XML files. (I always do my channel list backups with the exporter utility, not the backup utility.)

 

[KE4EST]

I think the conclusion I have came to is that blind scanning is what breaks them.
For a long time I couldn't figure out why I had (3 at the time) and 3 from different batches, and never hardly had any issues, but others had problems all the time.
I would ask them what apps they are installing and they would say nothing I swear, just using it as a FTA receiver.
I came to realize I did very little blind-scanning with mine and when I did, after a few scans it would lock-up.

 

[bigg t]

I've also had mine do strange things while blind scanning. It seems to have problems with certain transponders although I have yet to figure out why. I still use mine ocasionally but haven't used it to record lately. When it was used for recording I don't remember having any issues.

 

[bpalone]

I think the conclusion I have came to is that blind scanning is what breaks them.
For a long time I couldn't figure out why I had (3 at the time) and 3 from different batches, and never hardly had any issues, but others had problems all the time.
I would ask them what apps they are installing and they would say nothing I swear, just using it as a FTA receiver.
I came to realize I did very little blind-scanning with mine and when I did, after a few scans it would lock-up.

You very well may have something there. I do VERY little blind scanning and have had very little issues with my A3s. The other thing is that they are Android devices and like most all computer systems, need to just be rebooted once in a while.

 

[a33]

You very well may have something there. I do VERY little blind scanning and have had very little issues with my A3s.

To add to this experience: I have several XSAT CDTV410's, which always have to be reset when programs on a certain transponder were viewed. It took me a while to conclude that is was only one specific transponder where the problem occurred.
So maybe there are software bugs that - when encountering certain specifics on a transponder - cause trouble?

greetz,
A33

 

[mc6809e]

I've got two A3's here (three, if you count the A3 Combo) that I use regularly and have very few problems with. I don't blind scan very often so that may be why I have so few problems with them.

For me at least, the A3 is not unique in the "lock up in blind scan" problem. I've had problems with several receivers (Pansat 3500, Pansat 9000HD & 9200HD, and now the A3) locking up during a blind scan. For the Pansats I don't remember which satellites were involved but I do know it was repeatable and a receiver reboot was required. I sometimes even had to disconnect the coax to get control of the receiver and delete the offending TP.

 

[Jim S.]

Well locking up, I could understand. But locking up should on no account cause changes to the operating system which render it unable to boot! That's just inexcusably poor programming.

 

[Babadem]

I think the conclusion I have came to is that blind scanning is what breaks them.
For a long time I couldn't figure out why I had (3 at the time) and 3 from different batches, and never hardly had any issues, but others had problems all the time.
I would ask them what apps they are installing and they would say nothing I swear, just using it as a FTA receiver.
I came to realize I did very little blind-scanning with mine and when I did, after a few scans it would lock-up.

I05.0°w c-band is the worst culprit for me.

 

[Babadem]

I've also had mine do strange things while blind scanning. It seems to have problems with certain transponders although I have yet to figure out why. I still use mine ocasionally but haven't used it to record lately. When it was used for recording I don't remember having any issues.

I like it a lot for the small incremental adjustments when adjusting my motorized KU dish.

 

[Keith Brannen]

Well locking up, I could understand. But locking up should on no account cause changes to the operating system which render it unable to boot! That's just inexcusably poor programming.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/threads/introducing-amiko-a3.335539/page-2#post-3469877

According to that post by Brian, I would assume that with a software (rather than hardware) tuner, a software based blind scan failure on the A3 could cascade quite rapidly affecting the tuner software and other aspects of the operating system to cause massive failure.

The Pansats mentioned above were all, if I'm not mistake, hardware tuners. I don't recall ever having a failure during blind scan with my Pansat 3500SD, I only recall the odd freeze while it was (overly long) scanning a transponder. Exiting the blind scan always corrected it for me (don't recall ever having to shut it off).