My Mi Box is feeling like a disappointment, despite the low price

by _fck

I'll start by saying that I already know some of you will say "I haven't had any of these issues", and that's fine and believable, but I'm just giving my own experience so I don't really care

First of all, the "Android TV" app for my phone, which is used as a remote, can NEVER connect to my box. Google's support website says to try it with Bluetooth instead of wifi, and it STILL won't connect for me (it will show my box on the list of available devices, though). I have tried the app with multiple iPhones and I was only able to use the app within the first month or so of me buying the Mi Box. This could very easily be an issue with the app itself, but it's still part of the Android TV ecosystem and it's worth mentioning. Plus the app is still being updated so it's not even a case of abandoned development.

In terms of the actual device itself, the YouTube app will always begin playing a selected video, but it will pause and show a black screen until I press Play again. Not a big deal, but an annoying inconvenience. Further, when I try to cast a video from my phone to my box, the Mi Box will close the YouTube app as soon as I minimize the app on my phone.

Moving on to the Hulu app, I'd say 70% of the time when I go to start a video, it will begin playing with a black screen, forcing me to back out of the video and begin playing it again. Luckily I can usually get it to play properly right away after doing this, but there have been times when it took a few tries.

Thirdly, there are times (although infrequent) in which NO APP will play a video. I go to YouTube, get an error on every video I try to play. I go to Hulu, same thing. Same situation for every streaming app I have installed. This persists until I reboot the box (which is a pain in the ass in and of itself, but that's not an actual bug).

Does anyone else have a similar experience? Perhaps it's all the fault of the individual apps' developers, but the last issue I mentioned definitely isn't. And even if it DOES fall on the devs, there's no excuse for it still happening after we've had these devices and apps for so long. Nevermind getting shafted by Xiaomi in terms of software updates (which I'm still pissed off about), but then we get shafted by the app devs too? There's no way I'm the only one having these issues, even if nobody who replies to this has experienced it themselves.

Overall the box is still a big convenience to me, especially since I no longer use an Android phone. But these little issues have been annoying the hell out of me just because there's no excuse for it. I know the box is relatively cheap, but these are not issues akin to the hardware not being powerful enough to stream 4K video, for example (that reminds me, my TV is only 1080p so the resolution shouldn't be the cause of these issues).

PalebloodSky

Despite the low price, the Mi Box is a disappointment given that it's basically abandoned by Xiaomi. Unfortunately the competition is 2.5x the cost. That been said, mine works well for what I use it for.

onestepatthistime

Have the box for close to 2 months, no issues thus far. But, I don't use it much for heavy use, except for Youtube and Kodi. Chromecast works fine too.

svogon

I now have 4 Mi Boxes, do everything want. We have two identical Vizio TVs, but one was having the black screen and YouTube video issue so I doubted one Mi was "bad" or that I had a weird TV. I did a factory reset on the Mi Box AND replaced the HDMI cable since I was mucking around. That fixed it, but I don't know which of the two did it.

I occasionally get the paused playback, but only with YouTube. I suspect it's a lag issue and the app is pausing it because it has run out of content in the first second or two of streaming. It happens more if my connection is pegged by the rest of the family and almost never when no one is using it. Again, only my suspicion and agree that it should handle it more gracefully if so.

JimboLodisC

This might be a final step before getting rid of the box, but maybe try factory resetting it and setting it up in another home to see how the experience differs. Sometimes its easier to do this than try and troubleshoot what the network could be doing to cause these problems. If the issues persist on an entirely different network, then we know the box is junk.

Bodycount9

Mi Box is a major disappointment.

That's why I own two of them for over a year now and had no issues like you describe.

I know you said some of us will say just that and that you don't care but you gave your opinion so you need to listen to my opinion even if you don't care.

shadywhere

I've never had a MiBox, but it uses an AmLogic S905 chipset, and I didn't have these issues with other Chinese boxes I've owned with this chipset.

It's a software issue. You might look into flashing the Android N beta to see if it's resolved in that version of the software.

Ausernameneeded

Do you have any sideloaded apps? Have you played around with developer settings in Settings? Have you played around with display settings on the box?

Did it always do this for you or happened later on? Have you tried to reset the device to factory settings?

How is your internet (not speed but strength and stability)?

Sorry for all the questions, but it seems like there is probably a specific issue that is only affecting video playback.

Tapsaffnoo1

I think it's the Android TV OS or an app issue because I've had and have a lot of similar issues on my Shield TV. Specifically I could never get the Android TV remote app to work successfully with my Nexus 6, but it worked ok on 2 successive phones.

I also frequently have an issue where I need to reboot the Shield for anything to work. It happens for me usually when using the HDhomerun app, it will crash and then no other video apps will play anything as if it's no longer connected to the internet. I'm thinking it could be a network problem on my end (but don't have issues with any other connected devices)) or it could be the HDhomerun app itself which I do find buggy on my Android tablet with frequent crashes also. I should really try factory resetting to see if that has any effect but can't find the time at the moment

refthemc2

A factory reset fixed any lag issues I was having

DuduMaroja

my mibox is fine.. my only complains is with android tv plataform itself..

my mibox show none of theses behaviors.. the only one mine had was the remote app not working, but it was fixed by a factory reset

Tonight---YOU

I have the mibox and have the video playback issue you are describing. Most noticeably in youtube a video will play for 5 seconds and then pause, requiring me to hit play again. Sometimes netflix will play about 10-30 seconds of a video and then throw an error that it cant be played right now, which only a reboot will fix.

Sometimes if I cast a video on my phone from chrome to the mibox it will try to load and then go back to the homescreen.

None of these are a total deal breaker, specially when the only legit competition is so much more money. However I'm really disappointed with Xaiomi's support of the device, and honestly somedays using the Mibox feels like death by a thousand papercuts.

diogosena

My mibox only started to work with the remote app when I updated to nougat 1028, marshmallow never worked.

dragonmere

I have been entirely happy with my Mi Box for about a year give or take. Then I got a Google Home Mini for Christmas. Now I see why people are disappointed/have problems with the Chromecast built in to MiBox. It does not function as expected if it all. :(

sglville

I have youtube issues when I cast but not when I go to the youtube app and browse then play. I have similar Hulu issues but when I upgraded to the commercial free version they are basically gone leading me to believe that The Hulu app is at fault when it tried to add commercials. Also lots of little hangs and jitters the longer the box is ip so I basically just reboot before I use it now and it works much better.

Strayresearch

I have the same issue with the Android TV app.

TheMonarchsWrath

I went back to the Nexus player, but to the honest this whole platform kinda sucks ass. The shield might be better, but I don't want to invest in this platform anymore. Once the Youtube TV app is on AppleTV I'll never turn on these android boxes again.