Kodi on 4k Fire Stick Max

SoAdCrAzY

SoAdCrAzY

SoAdCrAzY

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Hi,

I have recently upgraded from an older Fire Stick model to a 4k Fire Stick Max.

I have installed Kodi and use it to stream my video collection on my PC via SMB protocol.

I have found out though that some video files do not stream properly. I have tried upgrading and downgrading the Kodi software and converting MP4s to MKVs as the later tend to generally work.

I have found out that the new stick has known issues with playing certain high quality h264 files so think the issue is to do with the hardware of the stick.

Does anyone have any possible solutions?

Thanks,
Matthew
 
hornetstinger said:
Can you install coreelec? I have zero problems with my AMlogic 905x3 box with coreeleac.

Definitely better than kodi ontop of android, better picture quality, no android settings to need messing around with, less resources, better video/audio codec support, proper native framerate, and likely true 44.1khz output.
Click to expand...
From what I can find, the COREelec software is incompatible with the Fire Stick 4k Max.
 
Last edited:
hornetstinger said:
Do you have a sample video that doesn't work on yours? I'll try it on mine.
Click to expand...

The latest file that refuses to work is probably too big to send nor I do I think it'll be the most legal of things. It is Aliens Director's Cut 1080p. Is there anything I can run it through to get the video codecs and stuff that it uses?
 
Here is the MediaInfo stuff on a movie that didn't work (Aliens) and one that did (Poor Things).

Aliens:

General
Unique ID : 181414339073471052971203285099265512913 (0x887B217BDD7872DD290DD695C1A5D5D1)

Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4
File size : 2.20 GiB
Duration : 2 h 34 min
Overall bit rate : 2 042 kb/s
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS
Movie name : mkv.264#trackID=1:fps=[email protected]
Encoded date : 2013-03-06 11:45:46 UTC
Writing application : Lavf59.16.100
Writing library : Lavf59.16.100
ErrorDetectionType : Per level 1
Language : und
VENDOR_ID : [0][0][0][0]

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2 h 34 min
Nominal bit rate : 1 942 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 036 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.85:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.041
Writing library : x264 core 129 r2245 bc13772
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=1942 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC LC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID : A_AAC-2
Duration : 2 h 34 min
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -125 ms
Default : Yes
Forced : No


Poor Things:

General
Unique ID : 90412253046550012678929462404482546275 (0x4404C43C80809501CA9503E87B9B3A63)

Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4
File size : 1.61 GiB
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Overall bit rate : 1 623 kb/s
Frame rate : 24.000 FPS

Writing application : Lavf58.76.100
Writing library : Lavf58.76.100
Comment
ErrorDetectionType : Per level 1

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 10.0 Mb/s
Nominal bit rate : 1 299 kb/s
Width : 1 790 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 5:3
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 24.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.217
Stream size : 9.94 GiB
Title :
Writing library : x264 core 164
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=2 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=4 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=34 / lookahead_threads=8 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=20 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=1299 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 320 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Bit depth : 32 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 778 MiB (47%)
Title
Writing library : Lavc58.134.100 ac3
Language : English
Service kind : Complete Main
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Text #1
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 15 min
Bit rate : 47 b/s
Frame rate : 0.200 FPS
Count of elements : 1627
Stream size : 45.0 KiB (0%)
Title
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Text #2
ID : 4
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 53 b/s
Frame rate : 0.256 FPS
Count of elements : 2175
Stream size : 55.4 KiB (0%)
Title : SDH
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

Text #3
ID : 5
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 44 b/s
Frame rate : 0.193 FPS
Count of elements : 1643
Stream size : 46.0 KiB (0%)
Title : Latin American
Language : Spanish
Default : No
Forced : No

Text #4
ID : 6
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 43 b/s
Frame rate : 0.165 FPS
Count of elements : 1400
Stream size : 45.5 KiB (0%)
Language : French
Default : No
Forced : No

Menu
00:00:00.000 : Chapter 01
00:04:51.666 : Chapter 02
00:08:12.125 : Chapter 03
00:11:12.500 : Chapter 04
00:15:42.375 : Chapter 05
00:20:07.875 : Chapter 06
00:25:42.250 : Chapter 07
00:31:38.000 : Chapter 08
00:36:54.000 : Chapter 09
00:41:05.958 : Chapter 10
00:48:28.166 : Chapter 11
00:51:27.708 : Chapter 12
00:59:05.458 : Chapter 13
01:04:49.500 : Chapter 14
01:09:36.333 : Chapter 15
01:15:48.666 : Chapter 16
01:22:32.208 : Chapter 17
01:24:11.250 : Chapter 18
01:30:57.833 : Chapter 19
01:37:16.625 : Chapter 20
01:43:33.125 : Chapter 21
01:45:18.833 : Chapter 22
01:48:23.041 : Chapter 23
01:51:10.750 : Chapter 24
01:58:14.208 : Chapter 25
02:11:36.666 : Chapter 26
02:15:57.000 : Chapter 27

---

I'm sorry if there are things I shouldn't have posted. I converted Aliens from mp4 to an mkv as that was the main difference I noted between the two but that didn't help.
 
Last edited:
Maybe my setup isn't needed. I have my PC connected to my TV anyway via HDMI but I have the Amazon Fire Stick as I don't like the Netflix or YouTube website (I use SmartTube anyway).
 
TheMightyTen said:
I was going to suggest network. Is the PC hardwired or on Wireless? If on wireless you're asking for a world of trouble there as there are so many links in that chain that could fail. If wired do a speedtest in network settings for the Fire Stick and see what it's coming back with. Also stick VLC or MX player on your firestick and play the file via that to see how it plays.
Click to expand...
I got an ethernet adapter for my Fire Stick Max and streaming wouldn't work at all with it connected. It is connected via WiFi but seems to be fine.

At the moment, I have installed Plex and got that working. Finally, I can rewatch Aliens!

I much prefer Kodi's interface (or maybe I'm just so used to it). I liked the ability to change the artwork, off-set subtitles and scan certain folders with different scrapers if information isn't accurate. I'm sure these settings are probably buried somewhere. I'll just have to find it. Thanks.
 
Last edited:
SexyGreyFox said:
I think PLEX is awful.

I'll repeat for the third time, delete KODI, go and find 19.4 and install.
See if that improves it.
Click to expand...
Thank you. I have been looking for a link to Kodi 19.4 but have had no luck yet. Everywhere says to go to the Kodi website which only has the latest version. Is it not possible to downgrade or do I have to remove all of my history and uninstall it?
 
I have just uninstalled everything and got 19.4 (I've taken several photos to restore my wife's TV show progress!). The issue still remains unfortunately. The video stops and the sound continues for a bit and then the whole playback fails.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
is this with every video you try and play?
Click to expand...
Strangely no. So I have posted an example of a film that failed (Aliens) and a film that didn't fail (Poor Things). Also TV Shows seem to be fine. Maybe it is a duration thing? I have tried converting files to mkv but that didn't work.

[EDIT] I just set the minimum and maximum SMB protocol to 3 on Kodi as I've heard that may help but it didn't.

[EDIT] I have turned off Hardware Acceleration and playback hasn't stopped yet. Fingers crossed that this has worked.
 
Last edited:
maj said:
Have you tried playing the files direct through something like VLC? If they play fine then it's not the 4k stick itself.

I've got a 4k stick at home and don't have any issues other than playing av1 which doesn't look to be supported. I use Jellyfin media server rather than Kodi though.
Click to expand...

I have and every file runs fine.
 
Kodi is now not working and I have gone off Plex. I'm not sure what the problem is. Watched a few films fine but Dumbo has just crashed.

TLDR; it seems that Kodi crashes streaming mp4 files (but if these are converted to mkv, it still crashes).

[EDIT] I have disabled hardware acceleration on Kodi which seems to have worked for now. I think I have tried this before though...
 
Last edited:
*bump* I thought I'd update this thread with a strange issue that I've just noticed.

It seems that disabling hardware rendering in Kodi has fixed the issue of films constantly crashing. Although, some TV shows (especially The Jinx) have a very choppy frame rate unless this is enabled.

Maybe this stick is just not up to the job. Or Kodi need to release an update for it.
 
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SexyGreyFox said:
Now this is weird but my wife always has problems with her Fire Stick in the kitchen so a month ago I replaced her Fire Stick Light with a 4K Max.
I set it up on my TV and it worked perfectly, put it into her TV and it acts up, so I tried it 3 other TVs and no problem.
Have you tried your Stick in another TV?
Click to expand...
No but that's a good idea. The only other screen in the house is my ultra wide monitor but I can try that. I may not get much chance to do that until the weekend but that'll narrow down the issue. Thanks.
 
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