Kodibuntu Freezing Mystery

[Distracula]

I've had alot of trouble with my HTPC running Kodibuntu 14.0 not working, but so far thanks to the help from you guys on the forums, I can determine that its no hardware problem. My parts can be found here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2493569/htpc-parts-review.html

I had a defective motherboard as detailed here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2493127/gigabyte-h81-experiences.html

And have since obtained a replacement that works well.

Problem is, I'm having the same issue I did before, of the video freezing after about 20 minutes, while the audio keeps playing. At this point I have to restart the PC to regain control. I have very little experience with Linux or ubuntu, and thought something like Kodibuntu would be really user friendly and straight forward, but I'm not really sure how to solve a problem this specific. Any ideas to solve this mystery?

 

[spankmon]

Because the freezing always happens at the 15-20 minute mark, I think the problem is related to power management, screensaver, screen locker. In your system settings under power management make sure the screen locker is turned off. Make sure the settings are set to never turn off or dim the display... and disable the screensaver (if Kodibuntu has a screensaver). I'm not familiar with Kodibuntu, but these changes in settings are something I always do with any Ubuntu based distro I install for media use. However, you say the same problem happened with Windows, so my idea may be useless.

 

[Distracula]

Thanks for your replay. Well with windows its less consistent and it just lowers in framerate. I'll try what you suggested though and see if anything changes.

 

[Distracula]

All the power saving options seemed to be turned off (screen savers, auto shutdowns) as this OS is designed to be a media center, i doubt it would have a default setting which would stop a video from working after 15-20 mins. Also I should probably make it clear that I'm using the onboard GPU with the processor, and do not have a dedicated video card. Could there be some issue with that?

 

[skittle]

Can you try with OpenELEC? It just loads onto a USB. THe best way to diagnose these kinds of problems is to test if the same issues are present across several distrobutions.
http://openelec.tv/

IMO OpenELEC is the best HTPC software anyway 😉

 

[Distracula]

Can you try with OpenELEC? It just loads onto a USB. THe best way to diagnose these kinds of problems is to test if the same issues are present across several distrobutions.
http://openelec.tv/

IMO OpenELEC is the best HTPC software anyway 😉

Just tried OpenELC. Works great - thanks. I guess this problem was specific to Kodibuntu, and i'd still like to know why it froze. But I just watched an hour video on OpenELEC and it never froze, no problems in fact. Thanks for the suggestion 😀

 

[Distracula]

Can you try with OpenELEC? It just loads onto a USB. THe best way to diagnose these kinds of problems is to test if the same issues are present across several distrobutions.
http://openelec.tv/

IMO OpenELEC is the best HTPC software anyway 😉

Oh, um...since you seem to have some experience with OpenELEC, I figure you can answer this newbie question.

With Kodibuntu I could access the desktop, and since my HDD was fresh from NCIX, it had no media on it. Transfering the media was a matter of copying files from an external drive to the HDD through the OS, then making a path to it from within Kodi. In OpenELEC there doesnt seem to be a desktop of anykind, so how would I transfer media onto the HDD?

 

[skittle]

As you have found OpenELEC does not have a desktop!

Kodi has a built in file manager. It works similar to other file managers like MC.
System->File Manager

Alternatively you can acess file across a windows network (samba) and shuffle data around this way. Or you can ssh into OpenELEC and manager file this way. and many other ways!
http://wiki.openelec.tv/index.php/Accessing_Samba_Shares

 

[Distracula]

As you have found OpenELEC does not have a desktop!

Kodi has a built in file manager. It works similar to other file managers like MC.
System->File Manager

Alternatively you can acess file across a windows network (samba) and shuffle data around this way. Or you can ssh into OpenELEC and manager file this way. and many other ways!
http://wiki.openelec.tv/index.php/Accessing_Samba_Shares

Alright, thanks for the help. I got it working and I'm trying to learn how to use it.