boxee/xbmc on Apple TV

[avneron]

thanks to lots of hard work by Scott Davilla it is now possible to run boxee on Apple TV


http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/ (http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/)

how to install boxee on your Apple TV:

1. download the ATVUSB-Creator from http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/
2. insert a “bootable” USB drive into your Mac (Windows and Linux versions coming soon)
3. run the ATVUSB-Creator and select which plug-ins you’d like to install
4. remove the USB drive and plug it into your Apple TV
5. power on your Apple TV and the patchstick will run the ATV bootloader
6. after the bootloader finishes, remove it and restart your Apple TV
7. it now has options for Boxee / XBMC on the main menu
8. click on Boxee, then select update (this will download boxee from the Internet)
9. once boxee is done installing, restart your Apple TV
10. disable the Apple TV screensaver (set it to never)
11. click “Boxee”, then select “Boxee” in the sub-menu to start boxee.

[Gamester17]

HOW-TO install XBMC for Mac on ATV guide:
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=XBMC_for_Mac_on_Apple_TV

More detailed instructions that works for Boxee as well :D

[dave]

Make sure you create a patch stick with a Mac OS format; as most store bought USB drives are pre-formatted for Windows.

NOTE: Just to be safe, unplug any other Mac formatted USB drives just in case. You don’t want the Patchstick utility to OVER-WRITE the image to a big spinning disk… Trust me on this one. :(

Formatting instructions:
1. Open Finder
2. Go to Applications
3. Go to Utilities
4. Launch Disk Utility
5. Highlight the USB stick "parent" or top entry
6. Click the Unmount Button
7. Click Erase tab
8. Select Mac OS Standard
9. Click Erase button on lower right
10. Run Patchstick utility - click the "refresh circle" if the stick doesn't show up

Now you can boot off that USB stick in your Apple TV.

[dave]

NOTE: This was changed Oct 2:
Due to the way that AppleTV settings overrides the entire system's sleep mode, you need to turn that off in order for boxee and XBMC to not lose control of the remote, at this time in our alpha.

Until this is patched, you need to disable the screen saver in the Apple TV (not boxee!) menu, before launching boxee, or you will hear the remote "beep" but never regain control of it while in boxee or XBMC after the Apple TV screen saver times out.

In the future, you can update your boxee software (which should fix this) on AppleTV by going to the Boxee menu, then hitting update button. I'm sure our main man Tom will let us know when the fix is avail.

Here's how to disable your screen saver on Apple TV within the original Apple UI:

1. Power on Apple TV or exit Boxee / XBMC
2. Press "-" remote down all the way until you get to settings
3. Press ">" Play to get to the right side of the screen
4. Press "-" down to Screensaver
5. Press ">" Play to select Screensaver mode
6. Change timeout to never by pressing the ">" Play button
7. Hit the Menu button to exit back
8. Load boxee
9. (Boxee can use any one of its screen savers)

There ya have it. I just wanted to get this out here, until we can get new code out to fix the remote control wake up issue on the Apple TV!

[elight]

4. Launch Disk Utility
5. Highlight the USB stick "parent" or top entry
6. Click the Unmount Button
7. Click Erase tab
8. Select Mac OS Standard
9. Click Erase button on lower right


Maybe I'm missing something but, on Leopard, these are my options:

http://skitch.com/evanlight/ax7a/diskutility.jpg-1.0-rgb-1-layer-530x449

[Cave Man]

5. power on your Apple TV and the patchstick will run the ATV bootloader

I'm not getting past this point. I have run the ATV USB Creator beta 3 application with two different flash drives (512 mb and 2 gb, both initialized as Mac OS X Standard), I chose the Apple TV 2.0.2 DMG image that's on my hard drive (2Z694-5248-3.dmg). On the 512 mb stick, of the 490 mb formatted, there's still about 470 mb available after running the Creator app.

I plug the flash drives into the unplugged Apple TV, then connect power to the ATV. The LED on the flash drive blinks a few times, but then the Apple TV boots as normal. I do not have an internal drive - my ATV is eSATA (500 gb), but works as a normal ATV does.

After running the Creator software, here's my file structure on the PATCHSTICK flash drive:



[Office-Mac-Pro:/Volumes/PATCHSTICK] caveman% ls -alR
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 7 caveman staff 306 Oct 1 21:13 .
drwxrwxrwt@ 6 root admin 204 Oct 1 21:13 ..
drwx------ 3 caveman staff 102 Oct 1 21:13 .Spotlight-V100
d-wx-wx-wt 3 caveman staff 102 Oct 1 21:13 .Trashes
drwx------ 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 .fseventsd
-rwxr-xr-x 1 caveman staff 1161 Oct 1 21:13 patchstick.sh
drwxr-xr-x 3 caveman staff 102 Oct 1 21:13 payloads

./.Spotlight-V100:
total 0
drwx------ 3 caveman staff 102 Oct 1 21:13 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 caveman staff 306 Oct 1 21:13 ..
drwx------ 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 Store-V1

./.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1:
total 8
drwx------ 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 .
drwx------ 3 caveman staff 102 Oct 1 21:13 ..
drwx------ 3 caveman staff 102 Oct 1 21:13 Stores
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 348 Oct 1 21:13 VolumeConfig.plist

./.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores:
total 0
drwx------ 3 caveman staff 102 Oct 1 21:13 .
drwx------ 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 ..
drwx------ 38 caveman staff 1292 Oct 1 21:14 D88A7772-E96F-42ED-BB67-9F0270BB94D4

./.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/D88A7772-E96F-42ED-BB67-9F0270BB94D4:
total 944
drwx------ 38 caveman staff 1292 Oct 1 21:14 .
drwx------ 3 caveman staff 102 Oct 1 21:13 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 caveman staff 53248 Oct 1 21:13 .store.db
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 70688 Oct 1 21:14 0.indexArrays
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 1670 Oct 1 21:14 0.indexCompactDirectory
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 2056 Oct 1 21:14 0.indexDirectory
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 2731 Oct 1 21:13 0.indexGroups
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 4096 Oct 1 21:14 0.indexHead
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 32768 Oct 1 21:13 0.indexIds
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 1801 Oct 1 21:14 0.indexPositions
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 1831 Oct 1 21:14 0.indexPostings
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 0 Oct 1 21:14 0.indexUpdates
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 13 Oct 1 21:13 0.shadowIndexGroups
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 4096 Oct 1 21:14 0.shadowIndexHead
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 28 Oct 1 21:14 indexState
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 0 Oct 1 21:13 journalExclusion
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 0 Oct 1 21:13 journalLive
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 0 Oct 1 21:14 journalSync
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 65536 Oct 1 21:13 live.0.indexArrays
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 1024 Oct 1 21:13 live.0.indexCompactDirectory
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 8224 Oct 1 21:13 live.0.indexDirectory
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 2731 Oct 1 21:13 live.0.indexGroups
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 4096 Oct 1 21:14 live.0.indexHead
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 32768 Oct 1 21:13 live.0.indexIds
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 8192 Oct 1 21:13 live.0.indexPositionTable
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 4096 Oct 1 21:13 live.0.indexPositions
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 4096 Oct 1 21:13 live.0.indexPostings
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 8192 Oct 1 21:13 live.0.indexTermIds
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 0 Oct 1 21:14 live.0.indexUpdates
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 65536 Oct 1 21:14 live.0.shadowIndexArrays
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 8 Oct 1 21:14 live.0.shadowIndexCompactDirectory
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 2056 Oct 1 21:14 live.0.shadowIndexDirectory
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 1 Oct 1 21:14 live.0.shadowIndexGroups
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 4096 Oct 1 21:14 live.0.shadowIndexHead
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 0 Oct 1 21:14 live.0.shadowIndexPositionTable
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 0 Oct 1 21:14 live.0.shadowIndexTermIds
-rw-r--r-- 1 caveman staff 53248 Oct 1 21:14 store.db
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 4 Oct 1 21:14 store.updates

./.Trashes:
ls: .Trashes: Permission denied

./.fseventsd:
total 8
drwx------ 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 caveman staff 306 Oct 1 21:13 ..
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 0 Oct 1 21:13 000000003249926a
-rw------- 1 caveman staff 36 Oct 1 21:13 fseventsd-uuid

./payloads:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 caveman staff 102 Oct 1 21:13 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 caveman staff 306 Oct 1 21:13 ..
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 patchstick

./payloads/patchstick:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 caveman staff 102 Oct 1 21:13 ..
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 packages
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 plugins

./payloads/patchstick/packages:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 ..
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 20:24 binutils
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 20:24 dropbear

./payloads/patchstick/packages/binutils:
total 1152
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 20:24 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 caveman staff 585295 Sep 27 18:43 binutils.tar.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 caveman staff 498 Sep 28 23:20 install.sh

./payloads/patchstick/packages/dropbear:
total 440
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 20:24 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 caveman staff 220284 Sep 27 18:37 dropbear.tar.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 caveman staff 1504 Sep 28 23:17 install.sh

./payloads/patchstick/plugins:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 ..
drwxr-xr-x 5 caveman staff 170 Oct 1 20:24 BoxeeLauncher
drwxr-xr-x 5 caveman staff 170 Oct 1 20:24 XBMCLauncher

./payloads/patchstick/plugins/BoxeeLauncher:
total 120
drwxr-xr-x 5 caveman staff 170 Oct 1 20:24 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 caveman staff 6148 Oct 1 00:18 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r-- 1 caveman staff 49035 Oct 1 00:14 BoxeeLauncher.frappliance.tar.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 caveman staff 696 Oct 1 16:32 install.sh

./payloads/patchstick/plugins/XBMCLauncher:
total 120
drwxr-xr-x 5 caveman staff 170 Oct 1 20:24 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 caveman staff 136 Oct 1 21:13 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 caveman staff 6148 Oct 1 00:18 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r-- 1 caveman staff 49102 Oct 1 00:13 XBMCLauncher.frappliance.tar.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 caveman staff 691 Oct 1 16:32 install.sh
[Office-Mac-Pro:/Volumes/PATCHSTICK] caveman%


Since I have an eSATA boot drive, is there a way to run the patch from my Mac connected to the drive by its USB port?

[Cave Man]

Maybe I'm missing something but, on Leopard, these are my options:

http://skitch.com/evanlight/ax7a/diskutility.jpg-1.0-rgb-1-layer-530x449

"Standard" becomes a initialization option when you click on the drive ("7.7 gb Sandisk U3"); it's not available if you highlight the partition as you have in this instance ("Cruzer"). But it shouldn't matter - Standard and Extended should both work.

[cdude]

Maybe I'm missing something but, on Leopard, these are my options:

http://skitch.com/evanlight/ax7a/diskutility.jpg-1.0-rgb-1-layer-530x449

Usually you'll want Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

[cdude]

4. remove the USB drive and plug it into your Apple TV
5. power on your Apple TV and the patchstick will run the ATV bootloader
6. after the bootloader finishes, remove it and restart your Apple TV
7. it now has options for Boxee / XBMC on the main menu

I'm never reaching this point, either. My Patchstick boots the ATV no problem, but it seemed to run into a networking snag the first time, because it went for a while, then stopped with a bunch of linux-based ethernet adapter info (and adapter was apparently on loopback address (127.0.0.1). Slightly better with a long line dragged out and plugged right into the switch... at least it pulled an IP and left out some error messages, but the end result was the same.

I saw one thread that seemed to indicate the problem is the USB stick... but wouldn't it fail long before this point if it's just an incompatible stick? It DOES boot, and go through a usual linux-looking (or Verbose mode) startup process, until it ultimately gets to the error and stops.

I'm missing a couple of columns of text on the left, presumably because it doesn't like my TV (EDTV plasma at 480p), but it still seems to be ending the same way. Eventually the screen goes dark, and I give up and restart. AppleTV then starts up normally, and all screens are the same as ever... no Boxee additions. :(

Wireless error msg:
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/8953/patchsticknt7.th.jpg (http://img150.imageshack.us/my.php?image=patchsticknt7.jpg)http://img150.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

I'm going to try to find another USB stick I can use, but I'm puzzled why that would matter, since, if it wasn't going to boot from it, why would it get this far?

[davilla]

Are you sure you picked "atv-patchstick" and not "atv-bootloader" during the creation under atvusb-creator?

In the case of strange USB flash drives. Sometime the disk imaging process seems to work but two partitons are not created but the flash drive will boot.

The problem becomes two partitons are expected but only one is present. In geek speak;

/dev/sdb is the device.
/dev/sdb1 is the partition with patchstick.sh and the payloads
/dev/sdb2 is the actual partition used to boot the AppleTV, it's a special hfsplus (recovery) GUID format that OSX does not understand and cannot mount so you don't see it under OSX.

On strange USB flash drives, only /dev/sdb is present which is not correct.

So if you are positive you picked atv-patchstick, then your USB flash drive is one of the troublesome ones and you need to try another brand.

[cdude]

Are you sure you picked "atv-patchstick" and not "atv-bootloader" during the creation under atvusb-creator?

In the case of strange USB flash drives. Sometime the disk imaging process seems to work but two partitons are not created but the flash drive will boot.

The problem becomes two partitons are expected but only one is present. In geek speak;

/dev/sdb is the device.
/dev/sdb1 is the partition with patchstick.sh and the payloads
/dev/sdb2 is the actual partition used to boot the AppleTV, it's a special hfsplus (recovery) GUID format that OSX does not understand and cannot mount so you don't see it under OSX.

On strange USB flash drives, only /dev/sdb is present which is not correct.

So if you are positive you picked atv-patchstick, then your USB flash drive is one of the troublesome ones and you need to try another brand.

Positive I chose the correct option. If you choose bootloader, you cannot select AppleTV or Boxee. I definitely selected those two. (I tried again just now... if you have Boxee selected, read: available to select, you cannot have chosen any incorrect options.)

I'm trying to dig up another USB stick. I have like 3 of them at 256mb, useless, one 1gb which apparently is no good, and my main 4gb one which I have real stuff on and cannot wipe to use for this. So I'm down to stealing one back from my wife. LOL

[paul996]

XMBC and Boxee work really nicely.

If you already have SSH just pull the appliances out of the atvusb-creator file for the patchstick and copy them to the applications directory on your ATV. Run the update on each one and they work perfectly!!!

Path to find the apps in the atvusb-creator tar is: atvusb-creator\atvusb-creator.app\Contents\Resources\payloads\patchstick \plugins

copy them onto your ATV where your other plugins live.

[mnakad]

Hi,
Just got boxee setup/updated on ATV, no issues.
But I guess I did not ready all requirements.
I need an account by invite? I tried to register on site, but I got a message that accounts get created on Mondays and there is backlog....

Can this get done faster if I get invited? If so, does anyone want to invite me?

Thanks in advance

[cadeucsb]

XMBC and Boxee work really nicely.

If you already have SSH just pull the appliances out of the atvusb-creator file for the patchstick and copy them to the applications directory on your ATV. Run the update on each one and they work perfectly!!!

Path to find the apps in the atvusb-creator tar is: atvusb-creator\atvusb-creator.app\Contents\Resources\payloads\patchstick \plugins

copy them onto your ATV where your other plugins live.

thanks for the heads up, going to try this now.

[marcel]

@ mnakad go to this thread (http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=144) should get an invite quite quickly...:)

[mnakad]

@ mnakad go to this thread (http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=144) should get an invite quite quickly...:)

Posted in appropriate thread, waiting game now :)

[kirbypuckett]

Does the new update to AppleTV effect installing Boxee?

[cdude]

Read boxee blog, says no problem with ATV 2.2. I can't recall if you have to re-install (boot from patchstick again) but no settings are lost once it's back in.

[marcel]

just to confirm...

Apple released an update (ver 2.2)to Apple TV last night.

the USB Creator still works, so users who have not installed xbmc/boxee on their Apple TV can just follow the standard process.

if you already had xbmc/boxee installed you’ll need to boot from the patchstick again (following the same steps, starting with #4). the good news it that your profile and settings of xbmc/boxee are all kept, so you just login and get back your good old boxee experience.

how to install boxee on your Apple TV:

1. download the ATVUSB-Creator from http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/
2. insert a “bootable” USB drive into your Mac (Windows and Linux versions coming soon)
3. run the ATVUSB-Creator and select which plug-ins you’d like to install
4. remove the USB drive and plug it into your Apple TV
5. power on your Apple TV and the patchstick will run the ATV bootloader
6. after the bootloader finishes, remove it and restart your Apple TV
7. it now has options for Boxee / XBMC on the main menu
8. click on Boxee, then select update (this will download boxee from the Internet)
9. once boxee is done installing, restart your Apple TV
10. disable the Apple TV screensaver (set it to never)
11. click “Boxee”, then select “Boxee” in the sub-menu to start boxee.

[kirbypuckett]

Thank you.

I might end up buying an Apple TV this weekend.

[TXCraig]

I'm never reaching this point, either. My Patchstick boots the ATV no problem, but it seemed to run into a networking snag the first time, because it went for a while, then stopped with a bunch of linux-based ethernet adapter info (and adapter was apparently on loopback address (127.0.0.1). Slightly better with a long line dragged out and plugged right into the switch... at least it pulled an IP and left out some error messages, but the end result was the same.

I saw one thread that seemed to indicate the problem is the USB stick... but wouldn't it fail long before this point if it's just an incompatible stick? It DOES boot, and go through a usual linux-looking (or Verbose mode) startup process, until it ultimately gets to the error and stops.

I'm missing a couple of columns of text on the left, presumably because it doesn't like my TV (EDTV plasma at 480p), but it still seems to be ending the same way. Eventually the screen goes dark, and I give up and restart. AppleTV then starts up normally, and all screens are the same as ever... no Boxee additions. :(

Wireless error msg:
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/8953/patchsticknt7.th.jpg (http://img150.imageshack.us/my.php?image=patchsticknt7.jpg)http://img150.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

I'm going to try to find another USB stick I can use, but I'm puzzled why that would matter, since, if it wasn't going to boot from it, why would it get this far?

I get the same error on two different USB keys.

[marcel]

hi TXCraig

USB flash drives with U3 are bad, very bad. Hidden stuff on it that is very difficult to nuke. Avoid like the plague. If it says "bootable" on the packaging, odds are very high it will work fine.

Try this thread http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=658 it lists some usb that worked...

[brentopolis]

i also got the boot=patchstick failed message on my 5 year old USB drive. however, i was able to get everything installed anyway through the shell:

1) after the error message that the patchstick boot has failed, the appletv will print out a message about "starting telnetd". shortly after that will be an IP address. in my case the appletv was physically connected to my network via an ethernet cable; this may not work via wireless because you have no way to select a network.

2) from a computer on the network, open a terminal (or command prompt in windows) and telnet to that ip address. in my case the IP address was 192.168.1.7:


telnet 192.168.1.7

3) now we just need to manually get the patchstick to run. i figured out the following steps by poking around at the files on the usb drive:

4) mount the patchstick filesystem:


mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt/rootfs

5) run the patchstick installer:


/mnt/rootfs/patchstick.sh

a bunch of text showing progress should appear on your tv screen, including a notification to power off, remove the thumb drive, and restart. you should be good to go at this point.

note: i wrote all of this from memory a few hours after doing it, so hopefully i remembered everything correctly

[brentopolis]

2) from a computer on the network, open a terminal (or command prompt in windows) and telnet to that ip address. in my case the IP address was 192.168.1.7:


i forgot to mention that the username and password are both 'root'

[ndurantz]

So if you are positive you picked atv-patchstick, then your USB flash drive is one of the troublesome ones and you need to try another brand.

I have tried both a 512 MB and a 1 GB usb drive and the install fails everytime. The 1 GB is a Kingston DataTraveler 100, which I know others have used successfully.

Error message says something about device being busy?

Suggestions?

[goingtothestars]

I'm never reaching this point, either. My Patchstick boots the ATV no problem, but it seemed to run into a networking snag the first time, because it went for a while, then stopped with a bunch of linux-based ethernet adapter info (and adapter was apparently on loopback address (127.0.0.1). Slightly better with a long line dragged out and plugged right into the switch... at least it pulled an IP and left out some error messages, but the end result was the same.

I saw one thread that seemed to indicate the problem is the USB stick... but wouldn't it fail long before this point if it's just an incompatible stick? It DOES boot, and go through a usual linux-looking (or Verbose mode) startup process, until it ultimately gets to the error and stops.

I'm missing a couple of columns of text on the left, presumably because it doesn't like my TV (EDTV plasma at 480p), but it still seems to be ending the same way. Eventually the screen goes dark, and I give up and restart. AppleTV then starts up normally, and all screens are the same as ever... no Boxee additions. :(

Wireless error msg:
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/8953/patchsticknt7.th.jpg (http://img150.imageshack.us/my.php?image=patchsticknt7.jpg)http://img150.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

I'm going to try to find another USB stick I can use, but I'm puzzled why that would matter, since, if it wasn't going to boot from it, why would it get this far?

OK, guys... here's what I found:

When imaging your thumbdrive with USB Image Tool, you need to click the drop-down box and switch to "Device Mode" (if running Vista, 'Run as administrator').

You may first also want to format your thumbdrive with HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. You can download it here: http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197

Also, I ended up using a PNY mini attache 2GB thumbdrive, which worked just fine.

:p