Guide is different on separate Roku devices

I hadn’t thought of using RasPi for server purposes. I bought an ACEPC AK1 mini PC for my HD Homerun as a cheap stopgap when I was setting things up. Might try that RasPi idea.

I use the RasPi 3 because it uses very little power to run continously 24x7. I connected two drives to it but they each have their own power supply and don’t rely on the RasPi’s USB ports for drawing power. For software I use MiniDLNA (free) which most devices such as Roku & LG comprehend the DLNA protocol. MiniDLNA takes all of 8k memory - a small footprint given the RasPi’s smallish memory (1 gb). The RasPi server shows up as a video source automatically on the LG and Rokus.

I also added this free memory paging\compression software which really makes the RasPi performant - ZRam (haven’t had the server freeze or go down in 2 years):

Also if the RasPi dies, I can easily replace it for just $35.

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That is fantastic! It’s great when you can pull so much usefulness out of so little. Those are very thin resources, this is something that would not have occurred to me. I dumped $170 on an ACEPC AK1, thinking that was a skinny server. I’m going to take these ideas and experiment around, this will be fun.

If you ever need any help, PM me - I did a lot of tweaking of the configuration files to get this working smoothly. I also reboot the RasPi once a month automatically through a script when everyone is sleeping to clear all the buffers, caches and file markers - memory cleanup.

Talking about memory, the native 1 GB plus the ZRAM makes it the equivalent of 2 GB. Then I added for good measure a disk swap file of another 2 GB giving the RasPi about 4 GB of memory! Runs very smoothly and performs quite effectively.

Raspbian + MiniDLNA take up about 127 meg of ram of the 4 gb. A very slim system. The rest of the memory is taken for caching videos rather than the OS.

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Its amazing just how much the honey-do list gets when you have a busted wing and cannot work on the list…

So…The Cradlepoint MBR95 router has failed altogether on its WiFi. All kinds of noise is present in the signal. It has since been replaced by a fancy new-to-me (oem certified) Linksys WRT3200ACM. This is a very sweet router, as long as you don’t put a 3rd DNS into it. Then it becomes unable to route.

Under the new router, the problems have all but disappeared. Both ROKUs (Ultra & Premiere+) have much stable-er signal when referring to the “secret wifi screen”. In particular, the Ultra is darn near rock stable with only 1-2 glitches occasionally per second. The WiFi signal / antenna1 and antenna2 meters are not dropping out. No dropped packets. And even more importantly, the temperature seems to have dropped by about 4C, it now runs 73/74C. Still a lot higher than what I prefer, but at least the bar isn’t turning red.

Tablo channels are still not right. I suspect it is going to be a hold-over from when I was running on the Cradlepoint router. Perhaps I have a damaged config from wifi dropping so much. Sometime tomorrow, I am going to uinstall the Tablo app from both ROKU devices, then set it back up again on one or the other. Once I get the channel list appearing correctly, I will be trying to do the same on the other ROKU.

On a slightly different note: The surround sound errors are beginning to piss me off. The device you are connected to does not support surround sound… Um, yeah it does. SS works in the other apps… Oh yeah, somebody has been monkeying with the soundbar again. And the audio settings on the ROKUs. I am this close to installing an IR transmitter and if you want to watch and hear TV, you will have to wear headphones. BBuy has a nice setup, incl 4 sets of headphones. I can just hear the silence coming… Ahhh.

Late update, but got culprit nailed down. I think.

After finally got network straightened out / optimally configured, both Roku were reset. …And guide has not had any repeat of problems. Until recently.

Stayed overnight on different network while on extended trip. Roku would not connect to router at home, but I planned for that. Used a VPN through laptop and hit my router, roku saw tablo, and guide problems crept back in but this time was on the Premiere device I brought with me. Secret wifi menu also indicated rapidly increasing glitch count.

Logs indicate there was a high latency at the time (200-500ms). I suspect, though cannot prove, that Roku Tablo channel gets full channel list, and then is updated to remove channels. This “remove channels” broadcast, I think, was being missed. I can’t reproduce at home as all is working at home as it should.

I am surprised that VPN solution worked at all honestly. Different network 500 miles away, connecting to internet via 3G cellular using a mifi box, in a fringe area, and was able to maintain a 2.5Mbps data stream coming off my router at home.