Dropping the MiBox, just can't do it anymore.

by ryaniskira

At first this thing was amazing. A $70 4K streaming Android TV box was too good of a deal to pass up to supplement my Shield TV. I moved the shield into the living room and the Mibox into my room and called it a day. It used to work perfectly but then little issues here and there started popping up.

  1. First it was just apps in general messing up. On both my ADT-1 and Shield I would only occasionally come across an issue that required force closing the app. On the Mibox I have this issue daily if not hourly. It is extremely annoying.
  2. The second issue was Netflix. Every time I would switch the Mibox into 4Kx2K mode Netflix would refuse to play anything whatsoever, and before anyone tells me to check everything else in the chain I already have, remember I do have another 4K capable streaming box. This continued on until I gave in and performed a factory reset.
  3. After the factory reset apps would still screw up every now and then but other than that it worked just fine. Netflix would play while the box was in 4k mode. Then lone behold more issues cropped up. Now the box will refuse to output sound until I switch to another input device and play sound through that first. This is highly annoying but still workable.
  4. The final dealbreaker for me. Now every 30 minutes or so the Mibox will just reboot out of nowhere no matter what I am doing. I have performed a factory reset and still no dice. The box just continues to reboot and interrupt my media consumption.

It was a nice try, but ultimately you get what you pay for. So for now the living room TV will have to contend with its smart TV apps for 4K content, and the Shield TV goes back into my room.

StraightThruTheHeart

Buy another one that works and return the bad one.

No problems with my 2 Mi Boxes here.

tone_capone

Sorry you are running into these issues.

Personally I havent run into any issues on either of my Mibox units. I haven't tried 4k since I own 3 1080p tvs, but I haven't run into any of the Netflix issues people have described, and have never had to reboot the Mibox out of the occasional reboots recommended for any computer.

I would encourage you to try exchanging it and see if most of your issues subside to see if you get a better experience.

rrainwater

I got the Shield TV (2017) after dealing with nothing but issues with the Mi Box. I couldn't be happier with my decision.

BiggussDikkuss

Ever hear of HDCP 2.2 copy protection ? This is used for 4K Netflix Android TV media players.

I suspect HDCP is the problem, especially when you read there are also occasional problems with the Shield as well.

Best idea would be to:

  1. Make sure your 4K TV has bang up to date Firmware
  2. remove any AVR's in the HDMI chain.
  3. Use the DRM-Info App to see if HDCP protection status is broken (unprotected)

If HDCP is unprotected then you have no hope of playing Netflix. Sort HDCP out first and you will get Netflix reliability.

The quick fix may be to simply select a different Display Resolution in Android settings. This resets HDCP.

Bodycount9

No issues here with both my Mi Box's. Works great with Netflix. No reboots. Even my ethernet dongle is starting to work better. I haven't had to reboot the box all week this week and it has stayed on ethernet.

Take it back and get another one.

timstephens24

I also have issues with Netflix 4K, and no matter what I do (even factory resetting) will still give me the issue. If I use it on my living room TV I don't have the problem, so I'm not sure what's exactly wrong with it. From talking to support it seems like it's a known issue and will be fixed in the update to Android 7.0.

But I do agree, there's some little things with the Mi Box that sucks, but there's a lot of good there too. Hopefully the big update in March or April will iron out the kinks.