{"id":591,"date":"2019-05-22T19:08:49","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T19:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/james-batchelor.com\/?p=591"},"modified":"2019-08-06T18:07:01","modified_gmt":"2019-08-06T18:07:01","slug":"osmc-on-pi-3a-problems-switch-to-libreelec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/james-batchelor.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/22\/osmc-on-pi-3a-problems-switch-to-libreelec\/","title":{"rendered":"OSMC on Pi 3A+ Problems \u2013 Switch to LibreELEC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For years, since it was XBMC on the original Pi I have been using OSMC as my Raspberry Pi media player. And following on from a whole home Pi redeployment for to include a CCTV system the latest installment was to install OSMC to two Raspberry Pi 3A+.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raspberry Pi 3A+ <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"Raspberry<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Pi 3A+ plus is the cut down little brother to the latest\n3B+ much akin to the original Pi B and A models. Both have the same quad-core ARM\nv8 processor, Broadcom Videocore-IV GPU and importantly the 2.4GHz and 5GHz\n802.11b\/g\/n\/ac Wi-Fi module for faster and stable WIFI out of the box. What\u2019s cut\ndown is the RAM, halved at 512MB, USB ports are reduced to one due to the removal\nof the onboard USB and gone is the ethernet port.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the power without the ports make its perfect as a media player,\nall that\u2019s needed to connect is the HDMI, with remote control provided via a CEC\nequipped TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue with OSMC<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Here are the issues I experienced with OSMC on the Pi3A+,\nthis is in no way a snarl at the developers who are doing an amazing job. I\nbelieve the 3 A+ is still a new and niche model so it\u2019s understandable that development\nis slow for this product. I\u2019m just hoping this will eventually be looked into and\nresolved, and putting it out there in case others have the same issue. Performance\non the 3B+ is still exceptional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From boot, selecting a 720p file (via Samba and h264 encoding)\nis fine, with subsequent auto-play files playing with no issues. However, with the\nnext selection the issues start, selecting a file loads it but doesn\u2019t play, having\nto go to the main menu and selecting Full-Screen to play the file. But then it buffers\nconstantly. On the third play this workaround fails, and selecting Full-Screen results\nin a black screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, even from boot any 1080p content fails to play with\na black screen in its place, and playing h265 encoded files results in an\nimmediate system crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

480p content remains unaffected and plays perfectly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LibreELEC to the rescue<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Without resorting to buying a 3 B+, your media experience can still be made on 3 A+ by using LibreELEC, an alternative to OSMC that has the same goal of getting Kodi on the Raspberry Pi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

This distro gives the exact same experience, assuming you use\nthe Kodi default Confluence skin and not the custom default on OSMC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Installation is just as easy with installer package available\non Windows, however its not as refined as the OSMC equivalent, first there is no\noption to pre-configure the wireless settings needed on the Pi A models, but is\nincluded in the setup wizard when booting up on your TV. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, and the point if this post, the Windows installer as\nproblems overwriting SD cards with an existing file system, and gives a write error\nbefore the program hangs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To overcome this, the SD card needs to be purged of its previous\npartitions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a File Explorer window, right click This PC and click Management<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Computer Management, click on Disk Manager<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Identify the SD card in the lower graphic, the best way to achieve this is to match the drive capacity of the SD card, in this case it is the 8GB drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Right click every allocated partition, identified by the upper blue band, and click delete volume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When complete, the drive will look like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From here, re-run the installer and choose the drive that matches the SD card capacity, the installer should now write to the card with no issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

LibreELEC in action<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you are moving from Pi 2\/3 B model to a 3A+ then it\u2019s business\nas normal, 1080p h264 files, and up to 720p h265 files play without issues. Although\nthose hoping for 1080p h265 encoded playback will be eternally disappointed\ngiven that this exceeds the Pi\u2019s hardware capability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One curious note for a UK resident, there is no regional setting\nfor the United Kingdom, so have to resort in using an Isle of Man profile to get\nthe correct time, and manually setting the region variables.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years, since it was XBMC on the original Pi I have been using OSMC as my Raspberry Pi media player. And following on from a whole home Pi redeployment for to include a CCTV system the latest installment was to install OSMC to two Raspberry Pi 3A+. Raspberry Pi 3A+ The Pi 3A+ plus … Continue reading “OSMC on Pi 3A+ Problems \u2013 Switch to LibreELEC”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[245,243,244,116,246,63,70],"class_list":["post-591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-raspberry-pi","tag-htpc","tag-libreelec","tag-media","tag-osmc","tag-playback-issues","tag-raspberry-pi","tag-rpi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/james-batchelor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/james-batchelor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/james-batchelor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/james-batchelor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/james-batchelor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/james-batchelor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":601,"href":"https:\/\/james-batchelor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions\/601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/james-batchelor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/james-batchelor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/james-batchelor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}