getting boxee on AppleTV 2.3

[tsella]

as sdavilla works his magic, getting us all a 2.3 compliant atvusb-creator and launcher/updater, you can try the following to manually install boxee.

first, get latest and greatest atvusb-creator from http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/downloads/list

after making a usb stick, and booting the ATV with it, you should be able to ssh into the ATV:

1. figure out the IP address of the ATV via Settings > General > Network, for this example, i will use 10.0.0.8.
2. ssh to ATV
   

   - mac/linux: use terminal and type
   

   ssh frontrow@10.0.0.8

   the password is frontrow
   

   - windows: get putty, and connect to 10.0.0.8

3. at the prompt, run the following commands, when asked for password, its frontrow:
   

   wget http://atv-xbmc-launcher.googlecode.com/files/XBMCLauncher-0.6-debug.run
   
   wget http://atv-xbmc-launcher.googlecode.com/svn/tags/xbmc-info/scripts/launcher-update-0.6.sh
   
   sh launcher-update-0.6.sh XBMCLauncher-0.6-debug.run
   
   wget http://dl.boxee.tv/boxee-0.9.4277.dmg
   
   wget http://atv-xbmc-launcher.googlecode.com/svn/tags/boxee-info/scripts/alpha-0.9.4277_update.sh
   
   sh alpha-0.9.4277_update.sh boxee-0.9.4277.dmg
   
   sudo reboot

and presto, boxee is up and running.

new remote behavior:

1. long "select" switches between now playing and ui
2. long "menu" takes you home
3. back on login screen takes you out

known caveats:

1. with the update to 2.3, Apple broke a few things, one being the ability of the app to consistently appear in foreground. till this is figured out, if you run boxee, and get a black screen, you need to back out of boxee by clicking menu on the remote, and try launching boxee again.
2. under some circumstances, if upgrading an older boxee install, the remote may not work under boxee. please reboot, ssh into the ATV, and do:
   

   rm -rf /Users/frontrow/Library/Application\ Support/BOXEE/UserData

[mindplunge]

Pretty fast respond on the ATV upgrade. Nice job!

[zerock]

will updating to 2.3 and then installing boxee this way, will leave my local music on the appletv intact?

[tsella]

Originally Posted by zerock

will updating to 2.3 and then installing boxee this way, will leave my local music on the appletv intact?

yes. boxee does not touch your atv existing resources.

[sterno3]

Hi,

I have boxee installed already, but haven't gotten the apple 2.3 upgrade yet.

Can I just ssh & following the instructions, wget the new version? Or must I use a new patchstick to upgrade?

[Tom Dibble]

"wget http://dl.boxee.tv/boxee-0.9.4277.dmg"

Wait! Is that a new version for AppleTV (from 4166)???

Any notable bug fixes there?

Also ... is 'wget' on AppleTV Take 2 without copying it over? Do we need to download the wget binary somewhere (http://www.finkconsulting.com/opensource/wget-1.9.1.dmg for instance)?

Looking forward to upgrading ...

[nace33]

Make sure that when you create the bootstick that you include both ssh and the bin tools. I don't know if I am technically correct, but the "wget" command wasn't recognized unless bin tools was included on the patchstick.

Upon loading boxee I have gotten a black screen that won't go away. This forces me to reboot through ssh. I have gotten Boxee to load, however, the remote doesn't work, so I can't navigate.

Anyone have any suggestions on the remote?

[Tom Dibble]

Originally Posted by nace33

Make sure that when you create the bootstick that you include both ssh and the bin tools. I don't know if I am technically correct, but the "wget" command wasn't recognized unless bin tools was included on the patchstick.

Maybe wget is a more recent addition to the patchstick (I'm not in front of my AppleTV right now, just going from memory based on the patchstick created in the middle of October). Sounds like we need to re-patch (create the 0.8 patchstick, reboot with it in, etc), then?

Do we have to factory restore the AppleTV before re-patching? Or, will it work on a patched-then updated to 2.3 AppleTV?

[mastrmind77]

Created 1.0b8 patchstick and ran all the ssh commands successfully, no issues. Tom, I ran the update and re-patch on a patched 2.2.

First time trying boxee it black screened and could not exit, rebooted ATV.

Second time boxee loaded, but same problem as nace33, no response to the remote.

@tsella on twitter said to fix this run this command in ssh then reboot:
rm -rf /Users/frontrow/Library/Application\ Support/BOXEE/UserData

Did that, and now my remote is working again. :-) (thanks @nace33!)

[nace33]

I left out the possibility that Boxee may be freezing and the remote was actually working fine. I don't know if that is what the issue was but here is how it was fixed.

I tweeted with Tsella and he was able to fix my issues with the remote in about five min. He are the steps he told me to follow.

1. See if there is a boxeeservice running. "ps aux | grep boxeeservice" EDIT: [I am not sure this is necessary to fix the remote problem, could have just been a diagnostic step].
2. if So, delete it the user data. "rm -rf /Users/frontrow/Library/Application\ Support/BOXEE/UserData"
3. Reboot.

That did the trick. No more black screens or freezing. Running Great. It appears that people who upgrade from previous versions may have this issue.

Thanks @Tsella and @boxee. I am super impressed with Boxee and its support team.