Yesterday, this happened: https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidTV/comments/9am2ik/mibox_suddenly_unresponsive_to_both_remote/
Everything was fine and seemed stable with 2179. But today I paused I video playing on VLC to take a phone call. When I came back I found the screen black with the Mi, Dolby, HDMI and DTS logos. It looks like this:
And I just stays like that. Apparently forever.
I tried rebooting. I tried unplugging all the devices from the power and then rebooting after 10 minutes. Neither worked. It's connected directly to the TV via an HDMI cable. (Update 1: I have now tried it on a different TV. No change.)
Any ideas? Or should I just throw in the towel and shell out for an Nvidia Shield, which I don't really want to do. I've been happy with my MiBox until the last two days. But if this device is so buggy that I need to wipe and reinstall everything twice in 24 hours -- well, that might be the end.
-- Update 2 --
I was able to get into the Android recovery screen. Tried clearing the cache and looking at the logs. This is what I found:
https://i.imgur.com/T8BA7Ct.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ZcgDO3Q.jpg
So I decided to try to reinstall 2179. It was a total failure:
https://i.imgur.com/77O3a6d.jpg
I suspect this piece of junk is probably bricked.
Do you think I have reached the correct conclusion?
-- Update 3 --
I tried another idea below. Didn't work. I got no response on the other MiBox forum. I'm pretty sure this is a hardware failure of some kind.
But I have resolved the problem. I just ordered a Shield. I am completely sold on the Android TV platform. But I want a better, more robust implementation, and I think the Shield will offer me that.
Ever since the Oreo update it's been downhill with my MiBox. First there were just a few annoyances -- mainly audio issues. I was willing to live with them and wait for the updates. But then my MiBox froze, which seemed to be caused by a wifi and bluetooth issue. I updated to the beta build to recover from that. I was hopeful that'd resolve the problems because I really wanted to keep the product. And it did resolve the problems for about 12 hours. But then I think I had a hardware failure, and without being able to read or write to the disk, there's just no recovery. And rather than buy like for like and likely continue with a glitchy experience, I'm just spending the extra money for a Shield.
I hope it works out well.
Anyway, thanks for all your help.
Though it seems to start up normally, my MiBox is suddenly unreponsive to both the remote an the AndroitTV app. Indeed, it won't even show up on the app, despite being connected via the same wifi network. (Edit - Already replaced the batteries in the remote about a dozen times. No effect.)
I am at my wits end.
Any ideas?
-- UPDATE --
It wasn't a problem with the remote and bluetooth or wifi. The damn thing was just crashing for one reason or another. No resolution other than a full wipe and manual update to build 2179 according to these directions:
***** ALL DATA (app data, Downloads ...) on the Mi box will be ERASED ***
Prepare a USB Stick with Fat32 file system (as usual).
Create a file on the USB stick with the name "xiaomi_update" and the text: --update_package=/udisk/update.zip (all in one line, no empty lines) Under Windows us a program like notepad++
copy the downloaded file to the USB stick and rename it update.zip
Do the next step WITHOUT inserting the USB stick
Boot to recovery and select "Wipe data" from the menu. This can take several minutes. Don't reboot after this step
INSERT the USB stick
Select update from the menu in the recovery menu
Select update from udisk
Update is starting and rebooting the system two or three times. Don't interrupt this process.
Mi box is booting to the oreo system. Update process is complete and system setup (language...) is starting.
https://xiaomi.eu/community/threads/mibox-3-global-new-oreo-update.45660/page-5#post-439933
Get 2179 here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidTV/comments/9702jp/mibox_new_oreo_update_released/?st=jlco46bu&sh=90c671cc
I'm the author of cryptovoxels, a virtual world where the different buildings in the city are owned on the blockchain - and I've got a version of it that runs really well on the shield TV. Should I package it up and put it on the app store? Exploring the city and checking out art galleries and so on while you lie back on the couch is really relaxing. :)
