Posts by provels

If you mean what's called "catch up", the earlier programs shown in the EPG with the dotted circle and play button, I have the same trouble. It's the provider. It's marked as playable but will never load. I only had one provider where that worked well, and I miss the function greatly.

I installed the last firmware, didn't help. Did a factory reset and set it up from scratch (no backup). Still on/off problems recording entire schedule. Friday night I was set to record 9, 10, 11 PM shows. Turned on the TV with the TV's own remote while the 10 PM show was recording. I did not do anything with the Formuler remote, since I know if you do anything with it while recording the box won't shut off when it's over. I got the banner saying that the 11 PM show would start recording in 5 minutes. I just waited. The 10 PM show finished, the recording indicator went out and nothing more happened, no new recording.

Is this a lost cause? Does Formuler even provide support using logs from this unit anymore? Thanks for reading.

Quote from SAM

You could change your sub to Stalker MAC/ID and test with this protocol.

Except then I would lose my second connection. Last night my 9/10/11 PM shows recorded but then the box didn't shut off. My 5 AM recording didn't start and the box just created the rolling 2 hour buffer file again. Is the Z8 Beta firmware going to be released as Final soon?

XC, thanks.

So last night it recorded 9 PM, skipped 10 PM, recorded 11 PM, turned itself on at 5 AM but did not start recording.

So what's next? Scratch build it again w/o the backup? Time to move on? Nvidia?

Quote from Gallin

The reason is that my z8 does not get software updated last two years despite it functions great.

My RX-7 is 31 years old. No updates and functions great, too!

My Z8, not so much.

Now I'm back to Day 1. Recordings setup for 1000 PM, 1100, 1200, 100 AM. No recording at 12 or 1, apparently never turned off. No recording, but started timeshift files later at a bit after 3 AM (likely after the provider's connection came back up after whatever they mess with at 0250). Still creating more now at 10 AM local. Are there any logs I can look at?

Quote from henkie

Maybe its related to Cloudflare blocking iptv?

No, don't use it. My internal DNS talks to the roots only (Resolver).

Setup another test recording today, came off without a hitch. Weird.

Day 3

None of my 4 programs recorded. Z8 was on when I woke up, HDD was accessible via Samba, no data in either /media_rw/sda1/Recordings or the /media_rw/sda1/timeshift .ts_ location. Turned on TV, black screen on channel, and still black screen on channel change. Connections showed as connected. Disconnected, reconnected, had picture and sound. May be a provider issue. So many of these guys are half-baked.

No real need to reply at this point. Set up a recoding for later and I'll see what happens.

And now last night all went fine. No explanation. No changes made since 48 hours ago when the box was reset and restored. WTH

Something hiccupped but damned if I know what.

Quote from SAM

How do you turn off the box, standby or power off? Try with other power off method if scheduled recordings starts and you not use the box.

Also check if play limit in MOL2 Settings is off when using standby method.

I power off, have done that ever since I found out the box had enough smarts to turn itself on. Playback limit is off. Haven't had a real issues up to now. Here's what happened last night:

(Edit - Before doing below, I had factory reset, updated and restored a backup.)

Last night's recording start times were 10 PM, 11 PM, and 12 Midnight. 10 PM, 11 PM shows recorded OK.

Third show not shown in recordings. Neither was the next morning's 5 AM show. So I browsed the \media_rw\sda1 folder and found a 4GB .ts_ file as well as a .001 file currently being written to. I renamed the .ts_ file to .ts and opened in VLC. It had the third evening show, complete, as well as the not-scheduled 6 hours following, plus the start of the 5 AM show. My goofy provider does something every day at about 2:50 AM that drops the connection, must be rebooting something on schedule, so there was a break there but it picked up again shortly after. 4GB file stopped at ~ 6 AM.

I also copied off the .001 file and renamed to .ts for viewing in VLC and it was a continuation of the 5 AM show. The recording never closed and the .001 file continued until about 10 AM, which was when I copied it off. At this moment , the original .001 file is still open and being written to. It's approaching 4GB now, so I expect it will close and roll over to .002 if I don't change the channel

That's all I have for now.

Good day. Started a new problem with my Z8 recently. I have a recording schedule set up to record shows at 9, 10, and 11 PM and 5 AM the following day. Recently, the 11 PM and the 5 AM program fail to start recording. The box starts up, connects and goes to the correct channel, but recording doesn't start. I deleted and recreated the entire schedule without benefit, getting the same results. It's not a case of the storage (1TB HDD) getting disconnected (something I've seen very occasionally and have chalked up to Android) which I normally resolve by disconnecting power from the Z8 and cold booting. This AM the 11 PM recording was missing and the 5 AM had not started recording. The storage was connected, as I was able to browse to the HDD from my laptop and could hit the Record button and get things started. Any thoughts? I suppose it's a matter of resetting it and starting over. Ugh.

Thanks for reading and any replies.

Shouldn't the original remote have a warranty?

On my Z8 I would get a security prompt every time I logged into Google. I wenot into Settings, Accounts and removed the account there. HTH

Also, check if CEC is enabled on your TV. My Samsung is always looking for company!

Sounds like a captive portal, like coffee shop or hotel.

Not a fan of flash for this purpose. It's the write/rewrite issue. With Timeshift enabled, every time I change the channel, the file is erased and restarted. I use a standard 1TB laptop HDD in an external USB powered enclosure. YMMV.

Hi there! I downloaded the apk directly from the - https://github.com/ProtonVPN/android-app/releases

Installed on my Z8 using File Manager. Currently using v5.5.68.0 from Aug 21. Have not tried the latest, but working fine. HTH

Revisiting this problem it turns out my connection problem was caused by an ad block list in my firewall. Everything I read at the Proton app development site shows the app requirements are indeed Android 6, so maybe their support just blew me off. At any rate, app now working fine on the Z8.

I have only a 150Mbs line and have only very occasional buffering issues, most likely VPN-related. Likely your provider is overloaded at their end; whether network, servers, or both. Happens with the cheapest providers in my experience. On a side note, I don't really understand why there is even a buffer setting in the app. Buffers don't cost anything. Why wouldn't you want a 10 second buffer at all times?

Quote from Kruijf

Proton works from android 6 so that's not the issue.

After chatting with them, they say it needs 8 for the current client. If that's indeed the case, don't upgrade like me, at least from Google Play. I found older releases at

Releases · ProtonVPN/android-app

Official ProtonVPN Android app. Contribute to ProtonVPN/android-app development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

I'll try downloading the APK's from July and see if that works. Thanks for the reply!

Good day. I'm having an issue with my Z8 and a ProtonVPN (paid) connection. I have no issues connecting to servers on any other device, wired/wireless, Windows, Android, FreeBSD.. When I launch the app, it briefly connects to Estonia of all places for a second or so, then drops. I'm not able to connect to any other servers (or even Estonia) after that. Un/Reinstalled, confirmed subscription, no help. I'm wondering if the newest Proton version is incompatible with whatever (so old) Android version is on the Z8 (is it Android 7.0?). Any thoughts? Thanks for reading and any replies.

Do Formuler devices no longer offer Samba for network access?

Just asking, but how much bandwidth do you even need for video? I've never seen more than ~15Mb even for 4K/Dolby 5.1...

Looks to me like the operating system storage, not memory, has failed. After a reset, I'd make sure the system has all the latest updates from the Market.

FWIW - My Z8 gets stuck at 7 PM when it can't find the DNS/NTP server so it can get the current time. Maybe the Z11 is similar.

It's not you, it's provider. Garbage in/garbage out.

I have a Z8, so maybe yours is different. Look for CEC in Advanced Settings and turn it off. Some TVs like my Samsung are always listening and will turn on if the box turns on. HTH

RE. Formatting - I would suggest formatting NTFS with 64K clusters. Best for file systems that use large files like multimedia, avoids fragmentation.

Thanks for the info. Hmm, looking at my Z8 recordings done to an actual mechanical HDD I have a max file size of 4GB before it splits. Drive is formatted NTFS, 64K clusters since files are large. Don't know if the Z11 has such a a limitation. Good luck.

No solution here, but what application are you using to merge?

VLC Media Player should read them without issue.

Hello! I'm having an issue with a Monday-Friday scheduled recording. It works for the initial 5 days, but the schedule disappears the following week. Is that expected behavior?

There are additional weekly (single instance) recordings that are scheduled for a single day. They seem to work fine and are carried over to the following week. What's happening?

Thanks for reading and any replies.

I wonder if this may be actually upload congestion on the providers end. For example, I have one channel that offers SD, HD, and FHD. The higher the resolution, the more buffering I experience, even with the buffer set at 10 seconds. This is on a Z8 on a 75Mbs line and 4k only seems to take around 16Mbs. Not that concerned though, since the TV upscales to 4k anyway. Yeah, I know it's not REAL 4k but acceptable.

I have a Z8, but it sounds like we have the same provider.

JMO, but if they kept upgrading the Z8, they probably wouldn't that many Z11s. Like how my 2021 Motorola phone is still on Andriod 11...

Same here earlier. Wait until the provider straightens thing out...

The only place I see a misc folder is on my external HDD. It's only contents are related to SmartTube Next. Perhaps in your case it's installed programs? Dunno. Maybe you can uninstall a few programs and get control of things. Maybe it's .apk's. Can you enable Samba and browse the storage from another computer?

Quote from gheagy

I assume this means it's possible to watch some TV programming that has already occurred. That could be useful.

It is, and when you come in on a show or movie that's already started, you can just pop back to the beginning. Or if 2 shows overlap, watch one then the other.