I followed this guide perfectly.. everything went fine until step 8, the reboot. It's stuck at the black screen with the faint mi logo in the middle and the mi, dolby, dts and hdmi logos at the bottom. I tried to reboot into recovery by unplugging the power, holding back and power on my remote, and plugging the power back in but still getting the same black screen.
After a while, I finally got in, but it was hanging on the home screen, so I did an adb reboot recovery, and flashed it again, as well as wiping/erasing first. It then rebooted to the logo screen again for a bout 10 seconds, then black screen. After about 20 retries of rebooting it finally got to the android animation, then the "press button on the remote" screen, then to the "select language" screen. But then it just hangs on there. The remote doesn't do anything from here on and the screen stays on the "language select". Rebooted again and now it just sits on the black screen again. Can't adb into it anymore as when i did the wipe before the flash, adb usb settings/wifi settings are erased.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
So this has been a problem since a week or two before the android N update, so that isn't the cause. I had es file explorer pro sideloaded from my tablet to my shield tv, mainly because it comes with the send option, and they both were able to send from one to the other flawlessly. Then all of a sudden during a file transfer one day, the message "sender disconnected" instantly popped up, and I haven't been able to get it to work ever since.
I tried pretty much every combination of the older versions of the app on both the shield and my tablet, I tried other devices with the shield (my phone and tablet worked fine with each other, but neither can send to the shield), and I even tried the old, non-bloated android tv version that /u/sircod posted in here and still get sender disconnected every time I try to send a file from my tablet to my shield, while sending files in the opposite direction, from my shield to my tablet, works fine. Only the bloated android tv version is able to receive the file and that app sucks ass.
Has anyone else come across this problem, and does anybody know any fixes for it? I don't want to switch to another file manager either.
Thanks in advance for the help!
Hello everyone. I made the jump from a Roku 4 to the Shield TV last week, and I'm loving it. The only thing that is stumping me is that I can't transfer files from my Mac to the Shield. I've tried all the suggestions in this post including using ES File Explorer to set up a FTP server that my Mac can connect to, but when I connect, the folder is locked (as in, I can see the folders, but I can't add to them). Anybody have any suggestions?
Greetings I have been a long time lurker of Reddit, more specifically r/AndroidTV since I got myself two ADT-1's. Recently I came across a post in this sub about the Fire TV NCAA March Madness App having Leanback Support and the fact that it could be side loaded, so I started to research other Fire TV apps that could be side loaded, as the Google Play Store does not have a great selection of Network TV apps as Amazon does. However, while searching for some new apps to sideload I also discovered that there really is no source available to get Fire TV apps other than to ask on places like r/fireTV and hope someone extracts the apk you want, which does not seem to happen very often. Anyways I found someone eventually who was nice enough to rip a few apks for me to test on my ADT-1 and for the most part all of them work flawlessly and have leanback support. So I decided to make this thread to share these apps that work and hopefully help those who like me where scouring the internet trying to find some Fire TV apks. I will try and upload more apks as I find them I also welcome anyone to share any they have found.
Here are some instructions on how to sideload these apks and get them on your Android TV:
Download the Amazon App Store and sideload it onto your Android TV.
Download ES File Explorer File Manager from the Google Play Store. Now their are multiple ways to get the Amazon app store apk onto your Android TV. I personally use ES File Explorer's cloud option and upload the apks to my Google Drive.
Next download Sideload Launcher - Android TV from the Play Store.
If you have not done so already head into your settings and allow unknown sources.
Once you have installed the Amazon app store on your Android TV device open up the sideload launcher and log into the app.
After that simply download any of the following apks and install them like you did the Amazon app store. However, you will have to find and purchase the app(yes even the free ones don't worry you won't get charged) from your internet browser from Here after that the apk should load up without any problems and you can use any of these Fire TV apps on your Android TV!
Here is the list of APKS I have uploaded, like I said earlier I'll add more as I get them and I encourage people to share more apks and I will add them to the list. I have provided brief descriptions of how the apps behaved on my ADT-1.
APK List:
Animal Planet Go. The app launches but then crashes.
Animal Planet L!ve. Launches fine but the video feeds don't appear to work or function properly.
CNNgo. Loads fine except the menu only opens when you first start the app. If you want to go through the menu you have to exit and re enter the app. All the on demand content loads fine, only bug I have noticed is that the CNN live feed does not load, but CNNI and HLN live feeds work fine.
E! Now. Works perfectly.
NBC News. Untested.
NBC TV. Works perfectly.
NBC Sports. Works as it should.
NBC Sports Gold. Works as it should.
NCAA March Madness Live for FireTV. Works as it should.
The CW. Has the potential of working perfectly seems to be blocked though as the app throws up a connection error.
USA Now. Works perfectly.
Syfy Now. Works perfectly.
I recently invested in a 4k set that I assumed(wrongly) I would be able to use as a MediaPC without an external android box so bought a UHD set from Sony thinking I would be able to get 4k UI android desktop. After doing some research I bought a 8500D (x85D) which whilst I knew was running a 5.1.1 android system figured would have a relatively powerful CPU - being 4k and all.
Turns out Sony have the viewport hard set to 1920x1080 and whilst it can do 4k - it only does so through by passing off certain 4k streams to some non-standard api which can then dynamically resize the viewport to 4k. This only works in their version of the Youtube App. Running say Kodi or any other android app (including the play store version of youtube) results in a native 1920x1080 viewport See workaround I found that cannot be changed (certain content in their bundled version of kodi can hand off to the same pipeline that their youtube can, but that's it).
On top of this I get a huge amount of problems due to bad memory and scheduling handling (and omission of standard features like USB Audio DAC support) Including but not limited to
DVB-T not exposed in any usable way to android
No USB audio kernel module compiled (plug in any standard USB Audio Dac )
Severe slowdown after period of playback in apps
Modifying picture settings crashes playback (Use Kodi/Inbuilt youtube app, play a video then press action button to access picture settings - BANG! video playback crashes)
Random Shutdowns
Available sources are not compilable without Sony's buildchain and documentation
Loading a custom ROM seems to be impossible due to encryption on update blobs
Whilst some of these are underlying issues, some could easily be solved if community ROM loads were available such as the USB DAC audio support ommision. Others seem to be related to a not fit for purpose SOC in these sets. It seems pretty disingenuous that they market it as a 4k set when it can't do 4k properly from within the included UI.
So my question to those of you with Sony Set's are there any in there Line which don't have CPU underpower issues?
You can see my Community threads here :
http://community.sony.com/t5/4K-Ultra-HD-TV/bd-p/4K-Ultra-HD-TV
[edit - Further issues]
Ethernet port only runs at 100mbit - slower than required for many HVEC and MPEG modes (4k@60 FPS requires 120mbit)
HDR modes are not true HDR - rather more like applying an HDR effect to a render pipeline ; oversaturated reds and blues
Volume control becomes unresponsive under load/after a time using multiple apps
Keypress mappings even in the inbuilt settings are impossible for some menu items to use with the provided remote and require a usb keyboard (Try Changing the Text to Speech output language selection and installing a voicepack)
Unable to scale input when input is true 4k ( 4096x2160 ) - content is clipped in the X axis. Manual explicitly states 4096 will scale down to native resolution, but it doesn't and there are no zoom/scale/underscan options available in the UI
ASIX based USB3 Ethernet to Gigabit dongle not handled (missing Kernel module/Android mapping)
Wireless driver on this Soc is ath3k which IS NOT 802.11AC as advertised and only supports 802.11a modes in 5ghz client mode.
Regarding the wireless ; after a lot of people complaining about wireless performance I dumped the sources for my 85d series as well as the two new 'flagship' models. Big lies as the chip doesn't support wireless ac 802.11ac in client mode : These are using a weird atheros (qualcom) wifi SOC chip called the ath3k which is definately not a 802.11ac chip (I did this for the x85d, z9d, and x900e series sources) and it's always the same ath3k driver. It does support dual bands sure but it's not 802.11ac just wireless a (5ghz).
The 2.4ghz bands is an 802.11n chip so yes if you are lucky enough to live in an area without crowded spectrum I would expect it would be faster than 5ghz.
**[edit Whoops - wifi mis-id] **
the ath3k is just the bluetooth driver, unfortunately the RAlink 28xx which is used as the Wifi chip / driver suffers from the same problem. Not 802.11ac certified.Worse it's only draft N certified.
However all of these sets are marketed as having 802.11ac - which they clearly do not.
[Fixed Viewport Workaround]
I have found a way to force the Android UI to full 4k - the x85D is unfortunately underpowered even in 1080p so YMMV;
Enable adb over the network under developer options (which is revealed after clicking on the 'about' build number line several times repeatedly.
Ensure you have adb toolset on your machine (tested in linux; windows users can get adb tools easily by googling it or downloading the official android adk).
once enabled; connect to the tv $adb connect <YOURTVS IP> $adb shell
Once in the TV's shell run
$wm size 3840x2160
to go back to 1920x1080 do
$wm size 1920x1080
you might even want to take it down to 720p as the 85d is pretty terrible dual core arm.
$wm size 1280x720
[Another users great log of bugs/issues and Overview of the Defficencies in the platform]
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EPzlq_ipIPMCDoMqMgDl0IuKmTsMoZHeKKwE_zxbFUk/pub
There bug list
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16I2L2dKm3NGVkAilSOxO6i6fuylp2UEUi-DwE7CUPc8/pub
[More Bugs]
[FIX] 120hz 1920x1080 mode EDID
Please find attached an EDID.bin file that correctly supports additional modes not present in the as shipped TV's EDID this potenically can be used with other 55inch Sony's from the last couple of years. But I disclaim all responsibility if it breaks your stuff. Consider it GPLv3 licenced.
In Linux you can add it to the kms edid overide kernel module line (if running F/LOSS graphics stack) or if you are Running Nvidia proprietary you will need to add something like the following to your Screen section in xorg (adjusting the 'DFP-4' section for your output mode.
Option "CustomEDID" "DFP-4:/etc/X11/edid.bin"
Option "IgnoreEDIDChecksum" "DFP-4"
I have also removed the 4096 modes which the set does not actually support from the EDID; all SubChroma modes are present and work i.e 1920x1080@120 4:4:4 works fine.
There are little line/artifacts present but I have been informed this is common to all Sony sets capable of support 120hz
Cheers
@aenertia
Download Link to the EDID: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw2fu74VAaO5cTFUN3lwa2JvX1k/view?usp=sharing
I've been using Harmony smart control remote (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/logitech-harmony-smart-control-black/8574049.p?skuId=85740491ecdWCcyyZFWfpe9wES6-rClAMaAoAQ8P8HAQ) to control my Shield TV for a while now and love it, never have to recharge battery or hold that shitty controller. However the only thing it's missing would probably be a microphone, I was wondering if there is a harmony remote that has microphone support. Perhaps I must get that plug in remote microphone thing, Nvidia Spot, idk.