Known / Common Issues with Boxee Box

[darcilicious]

This post is based on a list of issues compiled by user magnus33 which I updated to include a number of additional resources and work-arounds.

This post is for reference only:

• if you have issues you want to report, please use JIRA (http://jira.boxee.tv)
• if you want assistance from the Boxee user community, please use the thread linked to or search for an existing thread about the issue
• if you want official technical support from Boxee, please submit a support request.

Major outstanding issues:

HD Audio Drops (bitstreaming digital audio)
See: http://jira.boxee.tv/browse/BOXEE-7914
Status: Requires latest SDK from Intel and re-certification
Discussion: http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=38402


Flash Update
See: http://jira.boxee.tv/browse/BOXEE-10861
There's been no real official word on how Boxee is going to resolve this. Adobe hasn't released Flash 11 for mobile platforms / connected devices currently.

Latest news posted by Marcel from Boxee:

Just keeping you posted on the flash ...

Unfortunately due to the technical differences between Flash on a computer and Flash on a set top box, currently we do not have a quick way to upgrade Flash. Adobe does not support Flash 10.3 (the latest version) on connected devices like the Boxee Box. We are waiting to get a version and commence work - no timeline for that yet.

As soon as we have one, I will make it known.

Thanks for your patience.

And by Yuval from Boxee:

Boxee does not develop Flash. Intel is the licensee (and actually working with other 3rd party on porting Flash to their platforms and certifying it). The only thing we are doing is push Intel for updates and bug fixes. At this point, due to the situation with Adobe Flash for TV, there is no clear roadmap for updating to a newer version. This is why you see this "no comment". We don't have good news and we don't have bad news. I would love to have newer version of Flash as much as you guys would, but it is completely out of our hands. If there is any update we will let you know. At this point it's clear that Flash for video is dying and that Internet videos will be based on HTML 5 (either standard or other, more secure means where DRM is required). We are in a transition period, that's why it's so frustrating.

See this thread for general posts about the issue.

Supporting 3TB and larger external drives (connected directly to Boxee)
See: http://jira.boxee.tv/browse/BOXEE-7391
Requires a kernal upgrade via Intel's new SDK. Currently scheduled to be included in the release code named "Heidi 25"

Work-arounds:
1) connect the drive to a computer and access it over the network
2) format the drive to be usable by Boxee, see this post http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.ph...924#post210924 and other posts in that thread for more information.

Most common issues that some users experience:

Firmware updates: automatic updates may not update cleanly. Things to try if the Box is not behaving well (freezing, no longer scanning sources, can't reach network shares) after an update:

1) Re-apply the update manually via a USB stick (don't do a factory restore at this point, just the manual update)

2) For scanning issues, try clearing the Media Info Database via Settings>>System>>Advance. This will force Boxee to rescan from scratch

3) If all else fails, perform a full system reset by going into recovery mode and

• selecting "reset all settings"
• selecting "factory reset"
• update the firmware via USB

The Boxee Browser can be buggy and crash on certain sites. Report these sites to http://jira.boxee.tv/

Slow networking speeds over SMB for some users: many users have reported much better streaming at high bitrates using NFS instead. For Windows users, you can install and configure HaneWIN NFS Server, see this excellent thread: http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=54094

For Windows XP and most Windows Server releases, there is a free NFS server included in Windows Services for UNIX Version 3.5

This link documents more about using NFS on WHS.

SMB permissions and access issues for some users: see this thread for helpful hints: http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=41948. If all else fails, download the trial version of Network Magic (from Cisco) and see if that resolves your problem. Alternatively, try using NFS instead. (see directly above).

Scanning and identifying: can be slow for some users. If using SMB, try switching to NFS. UPnP should NOT be used generally as sources (Settings>>Local Files).

You can also vote and comment on this issue here: http://jira.boxee.tv/browse/BOXEE-12253