Amiko Alien 2 Triple Tuner Combobox

Argo foc yourself

I purchased a Amiko Alien 2 Triple Tuner Combobox before Christmas and really disappointed with it. I find that he freezes regularly and needs a hard reboot. the EPG is very slow to navigate and you really have to point the Remote Control directly at the box - very low range on it.

Any others have any comments? is it just mine is configured wrongly or is this a common problem.

There was another thread on this box but the Mod closed it so starting a new one

illdoit2morrow

The discussion thread is still very active.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057246284

cyndale

I have the box and in Spark it works consistently and reliably all the time.

I downloaded a version of the Hyperion V4.5 from this forum and it too works perfectly. No lagging, channel changes very quickly!

capistrano

I have an AA2+ as well. It seems some enigma2 images are unstable. Mine came with ViX4E2 preinstalled and it kept hanging. Do you know what is on yours? I have PKT Hyperion 5.4 on it now and it's very stable.

cyndale

capistrano wrote: »

I have an AA2+ as well. It seems some enigma2 images are unstable. Mine came with ViX4E2 preinstalled and it kept hanging. Do you know what is on yours? I have PKT Hyperion 5.4 on it now and it's very stable.

For me Hyperion V4.5 has been the most stable image I have used. Not inclined to change it, don't want to go back to too many green screens! From what I gather 5.4 doesn't offer anything more.

mjatkey

cyndale wrote: »

For me Hyperion V4.5 has been the most stable image I have used. Not inclined to change it, don't want to go back to too many green screens! From what I gather 5.4 doesn't offer anything more.

Guys, I have messed with these and other enigma boxes for a good few years now, image wise it would be toss up between Hyperion and Vix4Projects, but one thing on any image is to make sure you set everything up correct, tuners, hardrive, swap files etc.On a correctly set up box channel changing, remote distance etc should all be good, on a badly set up box everything can get glichy and sluggish. There is great reading and expertise right here in this forum.
Just ask and there will be people there to help. Thanks Martin

capistrano

Good to know that ViX4E2 can work stably on AA2+. I have to say that I really like their look and feel but the regular hangs have put me off. If anybody have an image with a stable Saorview/Freesat setup for Ireland that would be great?

I read elsewhere that CrossEPG is causing hangs in ViX4E2 so maybe I'll try it with EPGImporter instead.

cyndale

capistrano wrote: »

Good to know that ViX4E2 can work stably on AA2+. I have to say that I really like their look and feel but the regular hangs have put me off. If anybody have an image with a stable Saorview/Freesat setup for Ireland that would be great?

I read elsewhere that CrossEPG is causing hangs in ViX4E2 so maybe I'll try it with EPGImporter instead.

I got Fresh Pots Hyperion V4.5 image from this thread, I can't remember how far back, maybe January 2016, but it has worked perfectly for me. All the Saorview/Freesat channels with RTE player. Absolutely no sluggishness, remote responds quickly and no green screens. I am sure somebody on the forum can point you in the direction of Fresh Pots link.

mjatkey

capistrano wrote: »

Good to know that ViX4E2 can work stably on AA2+. I have to say that I really like their look and feel but the regular hangs have put me off. If anybody have an image with a stable Saorview/Freesat setup for Ireland that would be great?

I read elsewhere that CrossEPG is causing hangs in ViX4E2 so maybe I'll try it with EPGImporter instead.

I switched our Amiko to the ViX4project from Hyperion, now at 2.0.0.9 very good image very solid and nice feel to it, best to start from scratch, doesn't take long. Put the base image on, change tuner type to terrestrial, configure sat tuners one or two, mount hard drive, configure swap, configure epg, scan channels, configure autoboquets, plugins-download oscam, enhanced movie player,cache flush, add rats picons or another, change a few minor bits, size of menu lists etc and bobs you uncle. Thanks

fergiesfolly

mjatkey wrote: »

I switched our Amiko to the ViX4project from Hyperion, now at 2.0.0.9 very good image very solid and nice feel to it, best to start from scratch, doesn't take long. Put the base image on, change tuner type to terrestrial, configure sat tuners one or two, mount hard drive, configure swap, configure epg, scan channels, configure autoboquets, plugins-download oscam, enhanced movie player,cache flush, add rats picons or another, change a few minor bits, size of menu lists etc and bobs you uncle. Thanks

I read that post as " beep, boop, squigly, spongebob, molasses"
I'd love to be able to setup my receiver, but last time I tried, I nearly bricked the box, even using the well written tutorial on here.
If anyone here wants to volunteer to do it for me, feel free to PM me😥

mjatkey

fergiesfolly wrote: »

I read that post as " beep, boop, squigly, spongebob, molasses"
I'd love to be able to setup my receiver, but last time I tried, I nearly bricked the box, even using the well written tutorial on here.
If anyone here wants to volunteer to do it for me, feel free to PM me😥

Hi Fergie, where are you, if you are any where near Dub 15 PM me and drop box round and I'll set it up for drink. Thanks

fergiesfolly

mjatkey wrote: »

Hi Fergie, where are you, if you are any where near Dub 15 PM me and drop box round and I'll set it up for drink. Thanks

Thanks mjatkey, but I'm in Galway.
If you're willing I wouldn't mind posting it to Dublin (obviously pay for p&p back ) and give you a few quid for your trouble. PM me if interested.

Thing is, I used to be quite technically minded, but these yokes have me flummoxed.
I've upgraded hardware and software on PC's, installed, fixed or upgraded loads of gizmos, gadgets of all sorts for loads of people, but I've spent more time staring confused at these boxes than anything else I've worked on.
Are these more complex than other electronics?
Is there a knack I'm missing?

mjatkey

No probs will PM you my address. Will need a memory stick min 4Gb for the box to run it correctly, do you have wireless adapter or LAN connection can set them up on either.Thanks

fergiesfolly

mjatkey wrote: »

No probs will PM you my address. Will need a memory stick min 4Gb for the box to run it correctly, do you have wireless adapter or LAN connection can set them up on either.Thanks

I have la lan connection and have a 500gb hdd attached. Is that OK, or would a smaller USB stick be better.
PM sent

Nedge

Hi. I have an amiko alien 2 and a mini. Everything is working great on them. But the epg auto download ( I have it set to download at 4am ) but it crashes/freezes while downloading. I have vix4project on them both. I have tried 3 different hard drives. But still crashes. Can anyone help??? I would like the picons working but havent looked in to that as i want the epg working first.

Thanks

capistrano

I had the crashing during the 4am EPG download too when I was using CrossEPG. I switched to EPGImporter and all is well now.

lawred2

Mine is a dream. Runs latest Vix4E2.

Nedge

Ok. How do i do that? Thanks.

Nedge

Is vix4E2 a different software? I have vix4project on it about 3/4weeks. Just befor christmas.

capistrano

Nedge wrote: »

Ok. How do i do that? Thanks.

It's already installed. First got to the CrossEPG part of the Setup Menu and disable the scheduled update (at 4am). In the same Menu structure there is also EPGImporter, go in there and enable it's scheduled update (I think it defaults to 6:37am!). You'll also need to select the source for EPG download; I set it to Rytec UK and it seems to be working well.
On you other question. ViX4E2 and ViX4Project are the same. There is another image called OpenVix which is unrelated.

Nedge

Cool ill try that out. Does the hard drive need to be on fat32 or anything? What do i do for picons?

capistrano

Hard drive can be anything Linux can mount. FAT32 should be fine but ext3 or ext4 would be better.
I've shared my picons here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v1nuwftb4w07bz2/picon.zip?dl=0
Extract the zip contents to /usr/local/share/enigma2/picon.

Nedge

Ok i tried the epg-importer but froze again last night. Im going to re install vix4project on it. I have it set up with saorview on it as well. So i get RTE HD. Will look in to the picons once i have the epg working. Thanks.

Argo foc yourself

I updated the system and seems to be a bit more stable. However all the sky lists are coming in on the EPG. obviously I dont subscribe to I get nothing.

how do i get the FTA channels?

NickNickleby

Greetings,

I'm running the VIX 2.0.0.9 Blue. It was already installed and channels set up when I bought it in December, but of course I 'broke' it. So I did a reload from USB. I know nothing about Autobouquets, I simply created new bouquets and added channels to them. With help from these threads, I figured out how to mount my 500GB disk and pointed my movies and EPG at it. My timeshift is pointed at the same disk. However....

Scenario:
RTE 6.1 News about to start, so I press Timeshift and go serve up the dinner. An infobar pops up (I think people call this the progress bar), then the VIX screensaver appears.At the same time I see the red LED flashing on the disk which I presume is the timeshifted channel being saved. 30-35 minutes later, we all sit down in front of the TV and I press 'play'. Which works perfectly - for a while. At some point thereafter, the screen/sound starts stuttering, ie its like there are bits of data missing. This continues until the the box freezes requiring a hard reboot.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Here's a theory: I think the stuttering might start when the playback reaches the point at which the live broadcast had reached. I think of this way, for 35 minutes, the Timeshift recorded the news. Then I pressed play. Now the box starts reading the disk from point '0', while trying to add live data to the end of the file, and for whatever reason, this kills it. Just a theory, and with no concrete evidence to support it. I'm going to document everything from now on to see if the problems occur when Timeshift reaches the point where we started watching.( I'm almost confusing myself here hope you can get my drift).

So, any suggestions?

Cheers,
Nick

Gerry Wicklow

Would it not be easier to set a recurring timer for the news each day. You can begin watching the recording even if the live program isn't finished yet?

NickNickleby

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Would it not be easier to set a recurring timer for the news each day. You can begin watching the recording even if the live program isn't finished yet?

THanks Gerry, I'll give that a go and see what happens.

Watch this space!!:D

Nick

NickNickleby

NickNickleby wrote: »

THanks Gerry, I'll give that a go and see what happens.

Watch this space!!:D

Nick

Well, that bombed!

Watching some other channel. Pressed EPG, then the button for 'Recordings' think it was the green button. All I got was a digital patchwork quilt and stuttering sound. Pressing the OK button caused a short display of the info bar, at the end of which was a field called 'time remaining' . This value kept jumping all over the place, about 3 or 4 times a second.

So, I'm thinking its not disk format because the timeshift works for a while. When setting upt the record function I notice that it said it had discovered 2 sources and both were selected. I couldn't find how to remove one or other. Perhaps this is significant. I'll report after a bit more experimenting.

mjatkey

Nedge wrote: »

Hi. I have an amiko alien 2 and a mini. Everything is working great on them. But the epg auto download ( I have it set to download at 4am ) but it crashes/freezes while downloading. I have vix4project on them both. I have tried 3 different hard drives. But still crashes. Can anyone help??? I would like the picons working but havent looked in to that as i want the epg working first.

Thanks

Hi, first replace the HD with just small usb stick, 2Gb is fine. Best if you can to format it to ext4 by using the Spark side of the box to this. Then with box back in enigma make sure box mounts the drive and the crossepg config is set to use the external drive for its text and db files. Then give it a try by just forcing download from either plugins or crossepg download now.
If this works try it again and again by forcing it to download. You can check it is updating the files if you use something like filezilla and look in the crossepg folder on the hdd cross.epg log.
If all of that works substitute the usb stick with one of the hd's and try the force download again.
If it doesn't work on rear usb port try the front one, have found that a few times where front works rear doesn't (could be something to do with current draw from the HD) not sure but give it ago. Thanks Martin

Argo foc yourself

Nedge wrote: »

Ok i tried the epg-importer but froze again last night. Im going to re install vix4project on it. I have it set up with saorview on it as well. So i get RTE HD. Will look in to the picons once i have the epg working. Thanks.

did you manage to combine the saorview and sat channels onto 1 epg. I had it that way but had to reinstall enigma and now when i click on epg I get bouquet with

ALL CHANNELS (displays saorview only)
HD CHANNELS
ALL CHANNELS (displays sat only)
ENTERTAINMENT
ETC

capistrano

ABM seems to create an empty "Favourites (TV)" bouquet into which I put all my favourites across Saorview and Freesat. This way I have a single EPG view with all the channels I want.

Argo foc yourself

capistrano wrote: »

ABM seems to create an empty "Favourites (TV)" bouquet into which I put all my favourites across Saorview and Freesat. This way I have a single EPG view with all the channels I want.

will chk that out. thanks

capistrano

Best place for picons: https://gitlab.com/picons/picons

gar

This still the best box for going free to air and saorview? Have it myself but a few relations are looking to ditch virgin for FTA

capistrano

The AA2 specs are a bit dated now.  If I was upgrading I'd go for a SAB Alpha Triple Tuner or an Edision OS Mega Triple tuner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyf5JaQ6-is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoJfEnx56PM