AIS Playbox losing internet connection when waking from standby?

[SooKee]

On 11/24/2018 at 6:19 PM, Pib said:

All right!!!!....tinkering underway....I'm proud of you.  ????

 

P.S. I will take no responsibility if it don't work out (a.k.a., the Donald Trump train of thought)   

So, problem came back today. Turned on Playbox to be greeted with the AIS splash screen and 'Internet Connecting'.

 

At the router, DHCP range was set (following the last tinkering) from 100 - 200.  Playbox had a reserved IP address ending 10 (so below and outside the DHCP range).  Lease time at the original 86400.

 

Went into the router again, reset the DHCP range to 2 - 254 so the reserved (and unchanged) Playbox reserved '10' IP is now within the DHCP range.  Will see how that goes.  If it crops up again will revert to a two day lease time.  After I altered it the Playbox came to life.  No need to reboot.

 

@Pib  Where are you seeing remaining lease times?  I can only see Access Time under Network > Clients.  Can't find anything about remaining lease time so far.

 

Edited November 26, 2018 by SooKee

[maxpower]

12 minutes ago, SooKee said:

So, problem came back today.

 

At the router, DHCP range set from 100 - 200.  Playbox has a reserved IP address ending 10.  Lease time at the original 86400.

 

Went into the router again, reset the DHCP range to 2 - 254 so the reserved IP will be within the DHCP range.  Will see how that goes.  If it crops up again will revert to a two day lease time.

Read my last post #60

 

Old work colleague in Bangkok tells me his AIS Box holds DHCP off settings without problems but you guys tell me yours will not. Strange.

Edited November 26, 2018 by maxpower

[Pib]

49 minutes ago, maxpower said:

I am at work now but can give snap from a local device displaying exact same info as my home router would. It has one mobile connected from DHCP and three static ip devices on LAN which we cant see because the static devices do not require a lease from DHCP. 

Snap from router DHCP lease table showing device that have been given leases from the DHCP server. Static devices with DHCP off are not shown. If we had a device with reserved ip in DHCP it would be shown also.

 

Yes, understand the DHCP leases showing. 

 

But the router is still issuing out a static IP based on end device saying it wanted static IP of a certain IP address.  So I would think somewhere in your router the static IP would be shown and also a lease time of X hours, infinite, N/A or ??? as that is the IP address the router and end device are using to talk to each other.

[Pib]

28 minutes ago, maxpower said:

Read my last post #60

 

Old work colleague in Bangkok tells me his AIS Box holds DHCP off settings without problems but you guys tell me yours will not. Strange.

The DHCP on the "new" model Playbox will stay turned off if just going from standby to on, on to standby, etc.  But if there is a power outage (even very brief) or if physically turning the Playbox's power switch off and on, the DHCP setting will turn on by default and a person needs to go into the settings and turn it off if he don't want to have a DHCP IP for some reason .  This is how it works on the new model boxes with the neutered firmware (i.e., only runs AIS Play, doesn't allow running of other apps like Youtube, Kodi etc)...or at least it works that way on my two new model boxes and I think SooKee confirmed the same for his box.

 

Can't speak to the "old" model box, whether neutered or unneutered which some (many) people still have which your friend may have.   I use to have one of those old model boxes running an earlier version of Android and also unneutered, but that was probably around 18 months ago....can't remember what IP settings it had/allowed.

 

But one thing for sure the new model neutered box has a DHCP turned on by default and will only retain the off setting as long as power is applied in the standby or on state.  When no power to the unit it does a hard reboot which turns DHCP on.  With brief (second or less) and longer power outages being very common in Thailand....even Bangkok, and such an outage possibly occurring when you are asleep or away from home, the DHCP On setting in the Playbox is going to be what is running on people's new model neutered Playboxes.

[Pib]

57 minutes ago, SooKee said:

So, problem came back today. Turned on Playbox to be greeted with the AIS splash screen and 'Internet Connecting'.

 

At the router, DHCP range was set (following the last tinkering) from 100 - 200.  Playbox had a reserved IP address ending 10 (so below and outside the DHCP range).  Lease time at the original 86400.

 

Went into the router again, reset the DHCP range to 2 - 254 so the reserved (and unchanged) Playbox reserved '10' IP is now within the DHCP range.  Will see how that goes.  If it crops up again will revert to a two day lease time.  After I altered it the Playbox came to life.  No need to reboot.

 

@Pib  Where are you seeing remaining lease times?  I can only see Access Time under Network > Clients.  Can't find anything about remaining lease time so far.

 

Both my Playboxes still working fine with their IPs set outside/below the DHCP range and lease time of 86400 seconds (24 hours).

 

To see lease times remaining by devices, go to the 86U menu "System Log, DHCP Leases." It will show when the lease time expires on your different devices.  Since my lease time is 24 hour (86400 seconds).  Leases inside and outside of the DHCP scope will appear here.

 

As mentioned earlier if you have just reset the router's master lease time it might take hours or close to one day for all  your devices to appear in DHCP leases section based on my experience.  When I reset the lease time from 1 to 2 days and then 2 day to 1 day, the majority of the leases disappearred each time from below section, but gradually reappeared over the next 24 hours assuming you turned the device on after a router lease time change.

 

[maxpower]

16 minutes ago, Pib said:

The DHCP on the "new" model Playbox will stay turned off if just going from standby to on, on to standby, etc.  But if there is a power outage (even very brief) or if physically turning the Playbox's power switch off and on, the DHCP setting will turn on by default and a person needs to go into the settings and turn it off if he don't want to have a DHCP IP for some reason .  This is how it works on the new model boxes with the neutered firmware (i.e., only runs AIS Play, doesn't allow running of other apps like Youtube, Kodi etc)...or at least it works that way on my two new model boxes and I think SooKee confirmed the same for his box.

If your box switches DHCP back on during power cycle then its game over and you are in the hands of the AIS nanny who has destroyed a basic network setting most likely to keep DHCP away from the support desk. Why dont they do it properly and remove it from the menu?

[SooKee]

57 minutes ago, maxpower said:

Read my last post #60

 

Old work colleague in Bangkok tells me his AIS Box holds DHCP off settings without problems but you guys tell me yours will not. Strange.

Cheers.  Missed that.  

 

Yes as Pib confirms you can change the settings on the PB but, if there is a brief power outage it will reboot and set to defaults.  For that reason I don't want any options changing on the PB as you just lose them with either a power out or reboot.

 

I've read back through Pibs post and found the lease times in the log.  It shows lease time for reserved and non-reserved devices.  Oddly the device names don't show up for some devices which are just marked *.

[SooKee]

8 minutes ago, maxpower said:

If your box switches DHCP back on during power cycle then its game over and you are in the hands of the AIS nanny who has destroyed a basic network setting most likely to keep DHCP away from the support desk. Why dont they do it properly and remove it from the menu?

Indeed.  I think they have nuked as much user setting options as possible to avoid constant service calls.  Gets tiresome constantly trying to 'fix' these things.  I'll see how it works out with reserved address within the DHCP range and with the lease set to 1 day.  If it crops up again I'll reboot the Playbox and try again.  If that fails, back to two day lease.  Bored now LOL.

 

I really like the PB and the new firmware much more than the old one, the new box is much better too.  That said, some of the design / firmware update decisions  make me wonder ????

Edited November 26, 2018 by SooKee

[Pib]

4 hours ago, SooKee said:

I've read back through Pibs post and found the lease times in the log.  It shows lease time for reserved and non-reserved devices.  Oddly the device names don't show up for some devices which are just marked *.

Regarding the * showing up as a device name sometimes, below is how RMerlin answered someone who had the question why does the * shows up for some device names.   But the person generating the question was taking about it showing up in the the "Client List" area which you look at on the main page of 86U or any Asus router.    See my comments below the snapshot taking about the * appearing in the "DHCP Lease" menu.

 

 

Regarding the * showing and names of devices showing up in the "DHCP Lease" menu apparently it does not use layman's names you may have assigned the device in the router....like AIS Playbox.  Instead it queries for a name from the device itself (not from an assigned router name) and sometimes that name may be a layman type name, mabye a Android-xxxxxxxxxx which the x's being a bunch of alphanumerics, and maybe an *.  

 

When I checked DHCP Lease menu names a few hours ago I had 5 devices on my home network showing up as an * in the DHCP area but when comparing the IP/MAC addresses also shown those IP/MAC addresses matched up to my devices on the routers main page where I could see the layman's name I may have assigned within the router.  

 

And when I checked just before writing this post I had 4 devices showing up as an * in the DHCP area, but their IP/MACs were devices on my home network which could be seen with their layman's name back on the 86U Client List main page.

 

Yea, in that DHCP Lease area the client names showing may be an * or some other name it picks up directly from the device itself; not a name you may have assigned that device from within the router.

 

 

[SooKee]

Turned the box on today. Problem back again. Rebooted this time. If it comes back again tomorrow I'll change back to a two day lease time.


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[Pib]

Still no problem on ether of my PBs.  Still on a 1 day lease time.

[SooKee]

20 hours ago, Pib said:

Still no problem on ether of my PBs.  Still on a 1 day lease time.

Glad yours is still working.  Turned the darned thing on today and AGAIN, same problem.  Jeez, what do they do to screw these devices up so much!!!!!  Not one single other device, hard wired or wifi has this problem.  Reset it AGAIN to two day lease.  Hope that fixes it.  If it does, no further experiments.

 

Makes you wonder just what it is that's causing the problem given that your changes to one date lease have kept the problem away.  It's sure bloody infuriating!!!

 

So far for me:

 

1) 2 day lease, reserved IP, within DHCP range fixed the problem.  Or at least it did!  Hopefully it will again!

 

2) 1 day lease with reserved IP outside of DHCP range, problem came back.

 

3) 1 day lease with reserved IP within DHCP range, problem persists.

 

4) Just reset the POS to 2 day lease within DHCP range.  Fingers crossed.

 

If it's the lease time / DHCP setting that's 'fixing' it, you'd think it would work as a fix commonly across the boxes using the same router model.  As it is, it doesn't.  It may be that changing those settings affects something else, that something else being something I've yet to replicate.

 

Might take me a while to post up if it works as using TV at the moment is problematic with real lengthy page load times.

[Pib]

Both of my PBs still working fine....knock on wood (my head). 

 

On 17 Nov when you identified how you had had success with a 2 day lease time I changed my router from its default 1 day to 2 day lease time since I was experiencing the same problem as you.  No PB internet connecting problems since then. 

 

After being on the 2 day lease time for 3 days up to 20 Nov my curiosity got the best of me and I then changed it back to a 1 day lease time to see if internet connecting problem came back....it didn't.  Been back on the 1 day lease time since 20 Nov with no problems.

 

Anyway, it's now 29 Nov and it been 12 days since 17 Nov....no PB problems over those 12 days with either a 2 or 1 day router lease time...a 1 day lease  time for 9 of those 12 days. 

 

On the surface the lease time appears to have magically fixed/reset something in either the PB and/or router.   We both have Asus 86U routers and the same model PBs running the neutered firmware.  Have tried the same IP changes within and outside the DHCP scope.  If the lease time change was the magic fix, why do you still have the problem and i don't....makes no sense...must be something else in play.  What I simply don't know based on all the tinkering I've done over many months working the problem....none of which helped until I made that lease time change. 

 

Oh well...the mysteries of the universe....keeping my fingers crossed the problem don't come back.  But I will not be surprised (just disappointed) if it does.  

 

 

[SooKee]

Too early to break out the champagne yet but back to two day lease from yesterday, no problem today.

 

Hard to fathom exactly what's breaking / fixing it or whether there's a fail safe routine when changing from 2 back to 1 day lease that's keeping it working.  I doubt our routers are set any different.  For sure I won't be changing it again if the 2 day lease provides a permanent fix.

Edited November 30, 2018 by SooKee

[SooKee]

Touch wood - no further problems since switching back to 2 day lease.

 

I'm wondering if, when the problem came back when I switched to a one day lease, if it was related to tinkering with other settings like changing the address reserved for the PB etc. How they manage the boxes and FW is sure a mystery to me though and I don't plan to risk breaking it again by trying it again.

[Pib]

Last night/3 Dec I got the no internet connection message on "one" of my two PBs.  As talked earlier this is the first time I've seen that message on either box since 17 Nov when doing the 1 to 2 day lease change but 3 days later on 20 Nov changing back to a 1 day lease.  

 

So, I made it 16 days without getting the message on either box.  I did a hard reboot to get the connection back...in fact I had to do it twice since the first hard reboot did not get the connection back.    

 

I have not changed any router setting due to this error last night...like the lease time.   Been almost 24 hours with the box being turned off and on several times since last night....still OK.   As mentioned, I not going to touch the router settings....see what happens over the near term. 

[SooKee]

I find the message comes back on a two day lease if I don't use the box for a day or so.  Might try a longer one too.

 

Not related to internet connection but I notice of late they seem to be having numerous problems with HBO / Cinemax streams.  Was watching HBO HD about 4 days only to suddenly have the screen go black.  After a while a 'Video cannot be played' message came up.  Switched to another HBO movie channel only to have that go black too, along with Cinemax.  Other channels fine.  Only posting this today as I was watching a non HBO channel and opened my favourites from where you can normally scroll down and across to see what's playing now / next and again, all HBO channels and Cinemax were blank.  Selecting one of the channels brings up a message saying 'Can not watch'.  Don't know if I've missed any announcement, hope they aren't dropping HBO, but the outages are getting common enough to complain about paying for a service they're not delivering.  I've mailed their call centre and asked them to pass it to the fibre / Playbox team.

[SooKee]

Just tried to call the call centre to report the problem. All agents busy. Had to leave my number for a call back. Wouldn't be surprised if they have a lot of call traffic with this problem. Wonder if the demand on those streams is heavier today and has made the servers go down. Doubt I'll be checking soon today, off out now :)

[Pib]

On 12/25/2018 at 11:43 AM, SooKee said:

I find the message comes back on a two day lease if I don't use the box for a day or so.  Might try a longer one too.

 

Not related to internet connection but I notice of late they seem to be having numerous problems with HBO / Cinemax streams.  Was watching HBO HD about 4 days only to suddenly have the screen go black.  After a while a 'Video cannot be played' message came up.  Switched to another HBO movie channel only to have that go black too, along with Cinemax.  Other channels fine.  Only posting this today as I was watching a non HBO channel and opened my favourites from where you can normally scroll down and across to see what's playing now / next and again, all HBO channels and Cinemax were blank.  Selecting one of the channels brings up a message saying 'Can not watch'.  Don't know if I've missed any announcement, hope they aren't dropping HBO, but the outages are getting common enough to complain about paying for a service they're not delivering.  I've mailed their call centre and asked them to pass it to the fibre / Playbox team.

On 12 Dec I changed the router lease time back to 2 days from 1 day since on 8 Dec the upstairs PB gave a no internet connection message and then again on 12 Dec.  The downstairs PB did not have this issue on these days.  I figured after these two no internet connections over a 4 day period it was time to try the 2 day lease again since I had only tried the 2 day lease setting for 3 days in earlier testing.  Earlier testing had been pretty much just used a 1 day lease setting.

 

Since setting the least time back to 2 days on 12 Dec I haven't had any "no internet connection" problem with either box.  Well, on the morning of 20 Dec while still sleepy-eyed, waking-up the problem appeared for approx 3 seconds on the upstairs bedroom box but then made a connection without needing to power off-on.  However, I think I caused this problem by turning the box off-on while it was still booting which confused it.  I wasn't sure I had pressed the remote on button, pressed it again which probably turned the box off while it was still coming out of standby, etc.   So, I'm not going to count this as a "no internet connection" re-occurrence since it did automatically make a connection about about 3 seconds and it could have been caused by me confusing the box by pressing the on-off remote button multiple times while it was booting. 

 

So, I haven't had the no internet connection issue since 12 Dec on either box using the 2 day lease setting.   Both of my boxes are used daily...neither one is never off for more than approx 15 hours...so I can't say if the no internet connection appears if a box if left off for over 2 days.

 

I have't experienced the movie channel problems during the time period you talked.  However, I have experience similar problems before on all channels.  The last time was probably around 3 to 4 months ago for about an 8 hour period from around 7pm to a little after midnight....just some AIS TV server problem I guess as my internet connection was zipping along fine on my computers, Shield box, etc.

 

And I did a router firmware update on 14 Dec.  Since I had changed the lease time to 2 days on 12 Dec I wondered if this might cause the PB no internet connection problem to reoccur at least once immediately or shortly after the upgrade, but it didn't.

 

Happy Holidays.

Edited December 26, 2018 by Pib

[SooKee]

Think I got to the bottom of the movie channels. I have the respective channels saved in Favourites and normally try to select them from there. It was from there that I got the blank banners under those channels when scrolling down them. Then I accidentally selected the All Channels option and noticed that those channels all had a Watch Free label on them complete with programme detail underneath. Selecting those channels I could add them to favourites again and select from there despite the fact that the original Favourite channel labels were still there. Thought that maybe they'd changed the channel numbers but no. So now I have two instances of each channel in Favourites, one with the green label that you can select/watch and ones without that you can't. Of course, as you can't select the non working channels you can't remove them from Favourites. Odd.

I'll leave it until the watch free offer ends and see if the channels / Favourites revert to normal operation, if not I'll just reset the box which, given it now only runs AIS, is not to arduous to set up again. Sure get some raised eyebrow moments over how their boxes are programmed. Took me a few tries originally to find that you can't add / delete channels to Favourites from the menu strip for instance, you have to select the channel and add / delete it while it's being actively watched.


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[Pib]

Last night on one of my two Playboxes I got a message that software download was complete and the box needs to reboot to complete install. Basically AIS has pushed a software update to my box.  My new model box is already neutered by AIS around a year ago.   A person has no choice at this point as you can't make the notice go away without a reboot.  So, I do the reboot, it does a Android system type update like where you get the kind of logo like a the little green robot but for the PB they use a white circle instead of green robot.  After 30 seconds to a minute the update was complete.   I figure maybe AIS has updated the Android operating system software...maybe a new security patch, etc.  However, I thought to myself that didn't take long for an Android-system type update....just seemed too quick.

 

When checking the Android system info it's still the same....ver 7.1.2, android security patch date the same, kernel version date the same, etc.  However,  when checking the AIS Launcher Software Version it's now 7.8.9; where before it 7.6.38.   So this update appears to have just updated the core AIS launcher/AIS Play app software....not update of the core Android system.

 

But now when I turn the PB on where it took a flash screen of "one" AIS Play logo appearing for approx 15-20 seconds total time before the TV channel starts playing, the AIS Play logo now appears 3 times and 30-35 seconds total time before the TV channel starts playing.   Now after the AIS Play app is up and running changing between channels is quick like before...it's just the initial startup I'm talking about.

 

This 3 logo flashes and 30-35 seconds start up time is how it operates before (and now) when starting the box "from a cold start/power off-on" like using the the PB power switch off-on switch...unplugging...plugging back in it power cord.   Appears this update may simulate a hard start even when bringing it out of standby/sleep.  Maybe the hard start simulation is to help reduce "no internet connection" message some people get and which we've talked about a lot in the is thread....like how starting the box with its power off-on switch in many cases causing the "no internet connection" to go away...the box makes a connection.

 

My other box has not got the update yet....I even did a Check for Update via Network Connection this morning which is suppose to force any update that may be available to be downloaded....it came back saying no update available.   The PB running the older ver 7.6.38 still starts playing after "one" AIS Play logo flashscreen and in 15-20 seconds. 

 

So now, my identical "new model" PBs are running different AIS software....one Ver 7.6.38 and one 7.8.9.  

 

The box that updated last night to Ver 7.8.9  is hooked to a 11 year old Philips TV without any CEC function showing in the TV setup menu, but before the update last night when I turned the PB on it would cause the TV to come on also "just a few seconds later."  They are connected together via HDMI cable.  But now the PB does not automatically turn the TV on until around the "30-35 seconds mark" which would be right at the end of the 3rd AIS Play logo flash/the TV channel starts playing.    So, this latest update apparently affects the PB's CEC function also as to when it sends a signal to the TV via HDMI to turn on....it don't send the turn-on signal via HDMI until the very end of the AIS Play app bootup instead of during the beginning of the bootup.

 

Now the other PB not updated yet hooked to a 1 year old Samsung TV, the CEC capability on the TV is more robust and I basically just turn the TV on and off using it's remote and it automatically turns the PB on and off.   Turns it off and on within about 5 seconds.  But with my 11 year Philips TV its CEC capability does not cause the PB to turn on (i.e., TV telling PB to turn on), but it will accept a CEC command "from the PB" for the TV to turn on.  Just different CEC capability/specs between my two TVs hooked to the two PBs.

 

But what about the "no internet connection" message after the software update?  Well, I did get that several times right after the upgrade and a lot of turn-offs and turn-ons as I play with the PBs after this software upgrade, but when that occurs that message goes away in less than 5 seconds and the TV channel is playing.  And I'm pretty sure some of those no internet messages were caused by me actually turning the box "off" when it was really "on" and still booting up...but I thought I hadn't turned the PB on.  Since the PBs power on/off lite is either a red when off or a "dim" blue when on it can be hard to see that light and I was relying on my TV turning on after only a few seconds of PB turn on.   Summary: probably just me pushing the remote power on-off button too fast...confusing the PB...causing the "no internet connection."  

 

But for the last 30 days or so, the "no internet connection" message that was intermittent but still way too frequent sometimes and hard to get rid of sometimes has apparently been solved by setting a 2 day lease time vs 1 day lease time on my ASUS router.  Just something about a 2 day lease time that makes the PB happier.

 

If anyone else is running "Software version 7.8.9" on their "new model" PB I would be interested how many times you PB flashes the AIS Play logo and approx how long it takes before the TV channels starts playing.  Thanks.

 

 

 

[SooKee]

Been watching this over the last couple of days and it seems that mostly I get the black screen with AIS logo for about 20+ seconds following my box being updated. IIRC previously it used to just start playing the selected channel with no logo, either that or the logo would pop up briefly on the channel.

It will still play the selected channel now but after the blank logo I get the Main Menu screen open up which then auto closes after my set time out (which I extended as kept closing before I got chance to properly look at what was playing and up next). One thing I have noticed is that I had the 'no internet' message pop up about twice and both times it has sorted itself out and started playing whereas before it would need me to pull the Ethernet cable every time. Wonder if they were getting complaints over that internet message and that's what the firmware addresses? Not seen any other changes.


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[SooKee]

And......next.  Always seems to be some annoying problem cropping up with these.  Latest one is that if I try to click on several of the movie channels like Fox or WB I get a message saying “You need another package to watch this Channel”, clicking the link it takes me to a screen to subscribe to Platinum HH, the package I already have!  So, mailed them again, will wait for it to be sorted again.  Much as I like it, AIS or the company they contract out to seem to make bloody hard work of managing this service, always seems to be something.

[SooKee]

3 hours ago, SooKee said:

And......next.  Always seems to be some annoying problem cropping up with these.  Latest one is that if I try to click on several of the movie channels like Fox or WB I get a message saying “You need another package to watch this Channel”, clicking the link it takes me to a screen to subscribe to Platinum HH, the package I already have!  So, mailed them again, will wait for it to be sorted again.  Much as I like it, AIS or the company they contract out to seem to make bloody hard work of managing this service, always seems to be something.

AIS did call me quickly to be fair, said she could see the subscription was all valid.  Sorted in the end with a factory reset triggered from the AIS end.  No big deal as there's not so much to set up again with the boxes now, just language preferences and Netflix sign in details.  

[Pib]

On 1/20/2019 at 12:12 PM, Pib said:

Last night on one of my two Playboxes I got a message that software download was complete and the box needs to reboot to complete install. Basically AIS has pushed a software update to my box.  My new model box is already neutered by AIS around a year ago.   A person has no choice at this point as you can't make the notice go away without a reboot.  So, I do the reboot, it does a Android system type update like where you get the kind of logo like a the little green robot but for the PB they use a white circle instead of green robot.  After 30 seconds to a minute the update was complete.   I figure maybe AIS has updated the Android operating system software...maybe a new security patch, etc.  However, I thought to myself that didn't take long for an Android-system type update....just seemed too quick.

 

When checking the Android system info it's still the same....ver 7.1.2, android security patch date the same, kernel version date the same, etc.  However,  when checking the AIS Launcher Software Version it's now 7.8.9; where before it 7.6.38.   So this update appears to have just updated the core AIS launcher/AIS Play app software....not update of the core Android system.

 

But now when I turn the PB on where it took a flash screen of "one" AIS Play logo appearing for approx 15-20 seconds total time before the TV channel starts playing, the AIS Play logo now appears 3 times and 30-35 seconds total time before the TV channel starts playing.   Now after the AIS Play app is up and running changing between channels is quick like before...it's just the initial startup I'm talking about.

 

This 3 logo flashes and 30-35 seconds start up time is how it operates before (and now) when starting the box "from a cold start/power off-on" like using the the PB power switch off-on switch...unplugging...plugging back in it power cord.   Appears this update may simulate a hard start even when bringing it out of standby/sleep.  Maybe the hard start simulation is to help reduce "no internet connection" message some people get and which we've talked about a lot in the is thread....like how starting the box with its power off-on switch in many cases causing the "no internet connection" to go away...the box makes a connection.

 

My other box has not got the update yet....I even did a Check for Update via Network Connection this morning which is suppose to force any update that may be available to be downloaded....it came back saying no update available.   The PB running the older ver 7.6.38 still starts playing after "one" AIS Play logo flashscreen and in 15-20 seconds. 

 

So now, my identical "new model" PBs are running different AIS software....one Ver 7.6.38 and one 7.8.9.  

 

The box that updated last night to Ver 7.8.9  is hooked to a 11 year old Philips TV without any CEC function showing in the TV setup menu, but before the update last night when I turned the PB on it would cause the TV to come on also "just a few seconds later."  They are connected together via HDMI cable.  But now the PB does not automatically turn the TV on until around the "30-35 seconds mark" which would be right at the end of the 3rd AIS Play logo flash/the TV channel starts playing.    So, this latest update apparently affects the PB's CEC function also as to when it sends a signal to the TV via HDMI to turn on....it don't send the turn-on signal via HDMI until the very end of the AIS Play app bootup instead of during the beginning of the bootup.

 

Now the other PB not updated yet hooked to a 1 year old Samsung TV, the CEC capability on the TV is more robust and I basically just turn the TV on and off using it's remote and it automatically turns the PB on and off.   Turns it off and on within about 5 seconds.  But with my 11 year Philips TV its CEC capability does not cause the PB to turn on (i.e., TV telling PB to turn on), but it will accept a CEC command "from the PB" for the TV to turn on.  Just different CEC capability/specs between my two TVs hooked to the two PBs.

 

But what about the "no internet connection" message after the software update?  Well, I did get that several times right after the upgrade and a lot of turn-offs and turn-ons as I play with the PBs after this software upgrade, but when that occurs that message goes away in less than 5 seconds and the TV channel is playing.  And I'm pretty sure some of those no internet messages were caused by me actually turning the box "off" when it was really "on" and still booting up...but I thought I hadn't turned the PB on.  Since the PBs power on/off lite is either a red when off or a "dim" blue when on it can be hard to see that light and I was relying on my TV turning on after only a few seconds of PB turn on.   Summary: probably just me pushing the remote power on-off button too fast...confusing the PB...causing the "no internet connection."  

 

But for the last 30 days or so, the "no internet connection" message that was intermittent but still way too frequent sometimes and hard to get rid of sometimes has apparently been solved by setting a 2 day lease time vs 1 day lease time on my ASUS router.  Just something about a 2 day lease time that makes the PB happier.

 

If anyone else is running "Software version 7.8.9" on their "new model" PB I would be interested how many times you PB flashes the AIS Play logo and approx how long it takes before the TV channels starts playing.  Thanks.

 

And this morning, 22 Feb 19, my second Playbox updated to verson 7.8.9.   And now like described before it takes approx 35 seconds before before a channel starts playing when first turning the box on compared to approx 15-20 second before the update. 

 

Also, the CEC interface between the TV and box are different now.  Use to on my Samsung TV when I turn the TV on it would also turn the Playbox on....now that does not happen.  However, when turning the TV off it will turn the Playbox off.  No setting to adjust/change CEC function...just as before.

 

Also, one thing I didn't realize until days later after the first Playbox updated is YouTube is now available. The menu selection on the left side with a globe/earth icon label in Thai (the Thai means Browser) opens up a menu where you can use Youtube.  Before the update when opening that browser selection I would just get an error message.  And my second box that updated today now can use Youtube.