[ROM] [UNOFFICIAL] Cyanogenmod 13.0 for Shield TV (all variants)

Steel01

Recognized Developer
Dec 14, 2008
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Similar to my TWRP / Multirom thread, this is temporary until xda decides to add this device to the dev db list. A few comments and a known issues list will be all in this post. Please report any and all problems you find. This is still very early in the development process.

NOTES:
This will only install using my TWRP build here because I'm have to do some hacky things to support a unified build. I may eventually find a cleaner method.
This doesn't yet contain my attempt at controller pairing. The framework patches are there, but not the apk. It will be tested and included in later builds. Wifi doesn't work, so pairing wouldn't work anyways.
I had to use aosp libs to make this boot, which is different from my Portable and Tablet releases. The hdcp libs seems to be very different, so I have no idea if 4k works at all and I seriously doubt youtube and netflix drm will verify correctly.
You will have to wipe data to install this, make a backup first. Do note this is just /data, not the entire internal sd.

KNOWN ISSUES:
Wireless controller pairing not implemented
No audio over hdmi (so, no audio at all)

SOURCE:
device
kernel
vendor

CURRENT RELEASE:
cm-13.0-20160224-UNOFFICIAL-foster.zip

OLD RELEASES:
cm-12.1-20150819-UNOFFICIAL-foster.zip
cm-12.1-20150720-UNOFFICIAL-foster.zip
cm-12.1-20150709-UNOFFICIAL-foster.zip
 
Last edited:

badxmaru

Member
Jul 21, 2010
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3
0
missing default android keyboard?

installs fine boots into CM - displaying in 1080p on my monitor just fine.

missing android keyboard.
works fine with usb keyboard (logitech k400r)
amazon app store installs fine, recognizes all apps - minecraft PE crashes on start
touch pad / mouse freezes intermittently
netflix installs but does not play

great start, looking good.
 
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Steel01

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Dec 14, 2008
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I'm finding all kinds of interesting things working on this... Well, I got the stock libs 'working'. HDCP (or something in the graphics stack) locks up the system on boot when using a custom built kernel. From within CM or even from Nvidia's aosp tree. It will only boot with the kernel pulled out of an official boot image. I compared the ikconfig out of the official kernel with what I'm building in CM and they match. So, I'm kinda lost as to what black magic is at work here... Is something doing a crc check? Is there black box GPL violations in the stock kernel? I don't know. And I had a custom kernel booting stock when I was first trying multirom stuff. So that makes me *really* confused. For the moment, I've disabled kernel compiles in my device tree and I'm shipping a blob kernel. And I hate doing that.

Haven't looked at the missing keyboard yet.
Wifi is closer, but still not there. The wlan0 interface seems to init, but the p2p interface fails and brings it immediately back down. I'll do some more research into that over the weekend.
The screen flickers at times. Don't know why, but I think I saw some system props that affects the screen drawing on stock, once I find those again I should be able to fix that.
The OMX libs work now. Which means game streaming works. I tested a grid game already. Don't have Windows, so I can't test local streaming. And theoretically the aforementioned Netflix problem should be fixed by this as well.

I'm kicking off a build to run overnight (takes 4+ hours for a clean release build [on a AMD FX 9370, no less]), so I should have this stuff up first thing tomorrow morning (pending life (r)).

Edit: And... build failed. Starting over... So, looking at this afternoon now.

Edit 2: Well... I can make it boot when I tinker with it manually, but I'm not having much luck making a reproducible build from source. So... I'll have a release eventually, but with 4 hour rebuilds, I can't say when at this rate.
 
Last edited:

aniel300

Senior Member
Jan 30, 2013
183
11
0
Similar to my TWRP / Multirom thread, this is temporary until xda decides to add this device to the dev db list. A few comments and a known issues list will be all in this post. Please report any and all problems you find. This is still very early in the development process.

NOTES:
This will only install using my TWRP build here because I'm have to do some hacky things to support a unified build. I may eventually find a cleaner method.
This doesn't yet contain my attempt at controller pairing. The framework patches are there, but not the apk. It will be tested and included in later builds. Wifi doesn't work, so pairing wouldn't work anyways.
I had to use aosp libs to make this boot, which is different from my Portable and Tablet releases. The hdcp libs seems to be very different, so I have no idea if 4k works at all and I seriously doubt youtube and netflix drm will verify correctly.
You will have to wipe data to install this, make a backup first. Do note this is just /data, not the entire internal sd.

KNOWN ISSUES:
Wifi doesn't enable. (ethernet works fine, though)
Keyboard not installed

SOURCE:
device
kernel
vendor

CURRENT RELEASE:
cm-12.1-20150709-UNOFFICIAL-foster.zip
screenshots ?
 

ElwOOd_CbGp

Senior Member
Aug 11, 2014
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Dallas, TX
Glad to see ATV gettin some action ... ooooo hel I'm excited. I've been fastbooting your twrp img. for a few things and its working quite nicely on my pro model. BIG BIG thanks for that @Steel01 Does it look like there will be any issues reguarding which version console its running?
 
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Steel01

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@aniel300: Screenshots? It's Cyanogenmod. The same Cyanogenmod as on any other device...
@ElwOOd_CbGp: Like mentioned in the OP, I do a hacky thing or two to support unified builds. It have the pro version myself, so that's what I test on. I'm pretty sure it will work with no extra problems on the 16 GB model, however.

Alright, I *think* I finally ironed my build problems (all related to using a prebuilt kernel... got to figure out a way to not have to do that), so theoretically I'll have a build out tomorrow. Probably won't be able to test much until the afternoon, so I doubt it'll be out bright and early.
 
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aniel300

Senior Member
Jan 30, 2013
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@aniel300: Screenshots? It's Cyanogenmod. The same Cyanogenmod as on any other device...

@ElwOOd_CbGp: Like mentioned in the OP, I do a hacky thing or two to support unified builds. It have the pro version myself, so that's what I test on. I'm pretty sure it will work with no extra problems on the 16 GB model, however.

Alright, I *think* I finally ironed my build problems (all related to using a prebuilt kernel... got to figure out a way to not have to do that), so theoretically I'll have a build out tomorrow. Probably won't be able to test much until the afternoon, so I doubt it'll be out bright and early.
is it a hybrid rom ?
 

Steel01

Recognized Developer
Dec 14, 2008
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@[email protected]: Kodi is of great interest to me as well, so I'll work to make sure works well.
@aniel300: No, it's pure CM. I plan to make the TV stuff accessible, but it won't be there by default.

I finally got a bootable build, but it does show more problems. The launcher and some programs lag terribly. Not locking up, but slow enough to trigger ANRs. Netflix does still crash when loading a video, hopefully that won't be hard to fix once I can read the logs. The interface still flickers, but only the interface, not videos or games or such. I'll do some more testing this afternoon and unless an even worse problem shows up, I'll release.
 
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Steel01

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New build is up. It appears the netflix bug affects others things too, like youtube. Appears to be audio related, but I don't have time right away to try and track down the root cause. So, consider this another bug hunting build and not truly usable.
 

Steel01

Recognized Developer
Dec 14, 2008
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I've fixed an audio problem, so sound and YouTube and all that works again. Netflix is still confusing me a bit, though. It appears to be a problem with the OMX libs, but not one seen on any other Shield device. Haven't spent too much time looking the last few days.

I'm in the process of restructuring the build setup on my dev machine. Like moving the build trees to a faster spinny disk and ccache to a ssd. That should get builds going a lot faster. 4 hours per build gets old real fast. And 45 minutes for a one package change. I plan to release a new build once I get that all sorted out.
 

patt2k

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Mar 22, 2009
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It seems Forge has unlockable bootloader they posted instructions also for home images so it's a start it should be easy to flash recovery if there was one. Sorry for going little off topic but this seems more active here :D
 

Steel01

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Dec 14, 2008
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New build up. Seems the OMX libs are only partially working. Youtube works, but mxplayer and kodi fall back to their software decoders. Wireless appears to finally work, but logcat messages lead me to believe it's still not completely there. Oh, and the UI flickering is still there.

So, I loaded this build up and promptly installed HALauncher and Kodi. With the controller wired in, this seems to be a pretty usable setup. As things begin to stabalize, I'll probably start to recommend that launcher as a replacement for leanback. Now if only I can find a replacement for the leanback keyboard, I won't have to include any Google blobs... Suggestions are welcome for a free and preferably open source dpad enabled keyboard.
 

Steel01

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Dec 14, 2008
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Really good progress tonight. Barring something patentably bad happening, I should be releasing a new build tomorrow. List of progress:

1. Interface flickering is way down. Don't know if it was something I did or if upstream CM tweaked stuff. Either way, it's bearable now. I only notice it on some transitions, whereas before it was all the time on builtin android interface stuff.
2. OMX libs work. Hardware accelerated video and movies, plus game streaming and grid works now.
3. Leanback IME (controller enabled keyboard) is part of the build. It's smaller than on stock, but still usable.

Some things still need work, though:

1. Netflix still fails to play a video. At least it doesn't crash to desktop anymore...
2. Wireless controller pairing fails. The app runs and it tries to set stuff up, but seems to hit the same problem the Portable does most times. I have got the Portable to pair once or twice, though, so some people might be more lucky than me and it'll actually work.

All in all, this looks like a very usable test build, if not a daily driver for some use cases.
 

duanim

Senior Member
Feb 20, 2015
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Hi steel01
I am planning to buy this device, pro version, but its true that the SSD storage drive has some problems about performance and response, speed, looking all around for a good review about this and nothing found yet,unbelievable, I want to be sure the 16 GB or pro version.
Counting on you,like you doing on the shield tablet,interesting approach with CM,look forward, when I get it I will install the Zulu99 full android ROM first and them....cm
Good luck on this, thank for you hard work
 
Last edited:

Steel01

Recognized Developer
Dec 14, 2008
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I haven't had any lag problem with the Pro edition, but I also haven't done anything IO intensive. So, I'm not really a good yardstick for that. However, the pro edition does have the 16GB hardware, just needs some tweaking to be able to access it. Probably could do some boot image trickery to get /system on that device. Haven't looked at that yet since CM and multirom are higher priority in that order.

Other stuff came up today, so I didn't get to test the new build. As soon as I drag it back across the house to reflash it, I'll verify the build and upload. Maybe tomorrow afternoon.
 

duanim

Senior Member
Feb 20, 2015
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I am just a thinker, its possible to use all the best feature of CM and put it in android tv or viceversa.
I dont own yet a android tv device, but is like no to manny peoples like it, may restrictions from google, its entirely new or old UI, developers needs to port their apps to android tv platform, maybe we like the custom launcher or just the regular launcher, well its until everybodys decision.
Multirom sound good, but i like the basic and fast, what about if we can have two launcher in the GUI or UI, can be possible, there is a really need an apps to be ported to android tv platform, why google put restriction, we can sideload to get what we want, i think this is confusing android OS is android.
I think the best thing to do its going back to the basic.
 

Steel01

Recognized Developer
Dec 14, 2008
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Well, I didn't get to testing today either. I think I'll run another build tonight and try to get to a test tomorrow night.
@duanim: That is my end goal for my device. The Shield TV running CM with a 10 foot launcher (that isn't leanback) and everything accessible from the controller. The current build isn't too bad for that, but not all the way there. CM and HALauncher works pretty well. But the controller still needs help wirelessly.

There's one major problem with running android and android tv simultaneously. It seems the play stores are different. You either get the TV apps or the normal apps, not both. If someone knows different or a way to work around this, I'd love to hear it.
 

Steel01

Recognized Developer
Dec 14, 2008
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Still can't get the dumb wireless controller libs to package the way I want. So the latest build is missing some, causing the app to continuously force close, making the build unusable. I'll split it like I didn't want to and should have a releasable build tomorrow.