Serious usability problems with Live TV Guide on Fire TV 3rd gen

[pataphysician 0]

I have a Fire TV 3rd generation released in 2017, and Emby Stable server, and the Live TV Guide has too many usability issues.

 

1. If you choose a program from the main guide and watch it for an hour, then hit the back button on the remote to return to the main guide, it will scroll through all your channels as it updates the position of the current time. This then leaves the guide on the last channel on your list, so seriously bad.

 

2. There is a guide you can access which keeps the live video of the current station. Unfortunately the quickest way to bring this up, is the key on the fire tv remote with the three lines, and it also scrolls down to the next page of the guide, instead of your current station. Pretty bad.

 

3. You can also get the guide with live video, by hitting the down on the remote to bring up the info overlay and then hit down again and then right and then select the guide icon, this guide works properly, with your current station at the top. Unfortunately this is a lot of buttons to press.

 

4. Finally when moving around in the guide, it sometimes gets stuck on the previous selected item. The show you want is highlighted in the guide but the screen with more detailed info will show the previous item and if you select will start the wrong show. This is not slowness to update as you can wait forever and it won't change. The only way to get it to update is go back and then forward again.

[ebr 16172]

Hi.

 

I've never seen anything like number one happen.  Any chance you could take a video of that?

 

2 and 3 are functionally identical so this is very strange as well.  Almost seems like your Fire TV menu button is sending multiple commands.  You are using the actual Fire TV remote and not a universal, correct?

 

4 I have seen in very rare instances and I believe is just a matter of timing and trying to move very fast through the guide.  We will look to improve it.

 

Thanks.

[pataphysician 0]

I'll try and make a video for you.

 

It is the fire tv remote and not a universal, it works fine with everything else on the fire tv and also in everything else in emby, so I dont think its defective. I have figured out a slightly better work around, if I hit the down button to get the info overlay, and then hit the hamburger menu button on remote, the guide with live tv works corectly, also if I hit the up button to get the on now overlay and then hit the hamburger menu button, it also works correctly.

[pataphysician 0]

Ok Took some video of issue 1.

 

First video is watching CBS channel 2 within the first hour hitting back button and return to the guide, this works fine. I include this video because it show there isn't a problem with the remote, and the guide is fine until it needs to update time position.

 

https://imgur.com/1lEjbNZ

 

This next video is of the problem, I'm still on CBS Channel 2 but now over an hour has passed, hitting the back button causes the guide to scroll through all channels as it updates position, leaving me at my last channel 66.

 

https://imgur.com/Ytjh7F5

 

 

Thanks for your help

[ebr 16172]

Wow - that's interesting and certainly not intended .

 

I have a feeling changes in the current beta are going to solve that though.  So, if you would like to install the beta, please follow the instructions below:

 

Android Open Beta Testing

 

[tdiguy 99]

Honestly the new fire tv sucks in many ways. If your internet drops you have a paperweight you cant even playback anything stored on the fire tv itself.

Granted not really related to this issue but i hope people start dropping amazon like its hot after their last firmware blunder.

[pataphysician 0]

Actually you can access the fire tv without internet, it's actually in the most basic documentation on the fire tv. You can't access the home screen which is filled with content from the internet. But the fire tv has quick access to all your apps and setting by a long press on the home button. Choose apps and now you have a page of all your apps and you can launch any of them that you want. This is also great if you hate the home screen and just want an app launcher that you can organize how you like.

[tdiguy 99]

Actually you can access the fire tv without internet, it's actually in the most basic documentation on the fire tv. You can't access the home screen which is filled with content from the internet. But the fire tv has quick access to all your apps and setting by a long press on the home button. Choose apps and now you have a page of all your apps and you can launch any of them that you want. This is also great if you hate the home screen and just want an app launcher that you can organize how you like.

Very odd then that the amazon rep confirmed i would not be able to access any apps if the internet went out.

[Luke 42077]

I think they're assuming that most apps will be trying to stream internet content.

[pataphysician 0]

Well my Emby server updated to stable 3.3.0 yesterday, and now problem 1 in my OP has changed to being less severe, instead of scrolling down through all the stations after an hour, it only goes down 1 page, so much less annoying. I'm not on the beta of fire tv app yet. So this seems like it maybe fixable on server? I still have problem 2 though, but with my workaround it's not too bad.

 

Would server logs or app logs help you guys out?

[tdiguy 99]

I think they're assuming that most apps will be trying to stream internet content.

That could be very true, i did state i was using a media serve on my local network, but it would not be the first time an amazon rep virtually ignor half of what i say and jump to incorrect conclusions about using the product. Still I am working out details on the mi box because honestly right now i feel the google play store is superior at this point. I get quite annoyed with the apps that amazon wont allow like kodi and adult swim.

[ebr 16172]

Well my Emby server updated to stable 3.3.0 yesterday, and now problem 1 in my OP has changed to being less severe, instead of scrolling down through all the stations after an hour, it only goes down 1 page, so much less annoying. I'm not on the beta of fire tv app yet. So this seems like it maybe fixable on server? I still have problem 2 though, but with my workaround it's not too bad.

 

Would server logs or app logs help you guys out?

 

The beta of the app should solve it.

[ebr 16172]

That could be very true, i did state i was using a media serve on my local network, but it would not be the first time an amazon rep virtually ignor half of what i say and jump to incorrect conclusions about using the product. Still I am working out details on the mi box because honestly right now i feel the google play store is superior at this point. I get quite annoyed with the apps that amazon wont allow like kodi and adult swim.

 

Again, you are using the device in a way they did not intend and they are not going to expend many resources to support you .

 

Amazon did not create this device to give you a hardware platform upon which to run media apps.  They created this device to sell you Amazon content.  Period.  They make no (maybe even lose) money selling you this device.

 

So, you just need to understand that when dealing with them.

[pataphysician 0]

That could be very true, i did state i was using a media serve on my local network, but it would not be the first time an amazon rep virtually ignor half of what i say and jump to incorrect conclusions about using the product. Still I am working out details on the mi box because honestly right now i feel the google play store is superior at this point. I get quite annoyed with the apps that amazon wont allow like kodi and adult swim.

It was pretty easy for me to sideload kodi and spmc on the fire tv, also there is Mr.MC which is in the Fire store, it's kodi without the ability to add outside repositories. Adult Swim is not on Fire Tv because Cartoon Network hasn't made an app for fire tv yet, not because of Amazon.

 

There is no doubt, it is very hard to make decisions on what devices to buy because their are so many caveats, depending on what your usage is going to be, which really sucks.

Edited February 25, 2018 by pataphysician

[tdiguy 99]

It was pretty easy for me to sideload kodi and spmc on the fire tv, also there is Mr.MC which is in the Fire store, it's kodi without the ability to add outside repositories. Adult Swim is not on Fire Tv because Cartoon Network hasn't made an app for fire tv yet, not because of Amazon.

 

There is no doubt, it is very hard to make decisions on what devices to buy because their are so many caveats, depending on what your usage is going to be, which really sucks.

That is for sure. I love the simplicity of the fire devices. Its very user friendly and my wife and daughter have been able to use them without issue. Not having certain apps of them drives me up the wall though. The mi box i find is a pretty good box for the money but it also surprises me some apps that are not available on it, like i heart radio. On the bright side though having my own media server has resolved a lot of annoying issues i had with dish that made me jump ship from them and i now can easily take movies with me when the family goes on vacation without spending a fortune on specialized devices that will only work with 1 vendor.

[pataphysician 0]

The beta of the app should solve it.

OK

 

Not sure if I should have received anything yet to join the beta, but I did PM you with my email and checked my amazon preference were correct. No big deal if you haven't gotten to it, I really wasn't expecting any reply to my videos til Monday, you guys work too hard

[ebr 16172]

OK

 

Not sure if I should have received anything yet to join the beta, but I did PM you with my email and checked my amazon preference were correct. No big deal if you haven't gotten to it, I really wasn't expecting any reply to my videos til Monday, you guys work too hard

 

Hi.  I added you yesterday.  You should have received an email from Amazon at about 4:05 EST.

[pataphysician 0]

Hi.  I added you yesterday.  You should have received an email from Amazon at about 4:05 EST.

Sorry problem with email was at my end, got it and tested, problem number 4 is now very very difficult to trigger, so great improvement, but I was still having problem 1 and 2, so I decided to try amazons fire tv remote app on my android phone, which works perfectly when pressing the same virtual buttons. So I unpaired my remote and re paired it, which I did the first time I had this problem, but this time it worked and no more problem. Thanks very much for your great support, now I'm off to get my lifetime Emby Premiere.

[pataphysician 0]

Spoke too soon. It seems that re pairing makes the buttons work correctly one time, then after they don't, this is true with the fire tv remote app for android as well, but since my phone goes to sleep after 1 minute and the app re pairs when waking up, it seemed like it was working. 

[ebr 16172]

Not sure what the problem could be.  I haven't seen anyone else report these buttons behaving this way.

[pataphysician 0]

Ok now it's fixed for good, I did a factory reset and installed the beta, now no problems, if I install the stable emby app, it returns, and removing the stable emby app isn't enough to fix it, I need to factory reset again. I also tested factory resetting and installing the stable emby app, to see if that would work, but that failed. So it seems like there was something left from stable emby even when removed that might have triggered it.

[ebr 16172]

You probably just need to clear the app data instead of factory resetting the whole device.

 

Thanks.

[pataphysician 0]

Yeah, I couldn't find where amazon put settings for that, but now I have. The beta works great and solves a bunch of other minor problems I was having.