Can't connect on 2.3 (Gingerbread)

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xbmc remote can't connect to devices running any version of Gingerbread 
(2.3.x). 

I run the app on a G1 & Desire HD with 2.2 and everything works fine. 

On Desire HD with 2.3.2 it won't connect; just the remote function is working 
(even if the app tells you that you are not connected). 

Tried it on a Nexus One running official Gingerbread and it also didn't work.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by kalischn...@gmail.com on 12 Mar 2011 at 7:14

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Using Droid1 with GB installed and all works fine

Original comment by NLcloth...@gmail.com on 17 Mar 2011 at 2:46

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I have the same problem.

CyanogenMod 7RC2 GB 2.3.3

Other apps like PRemoteDroid operate without problems

Original comment by patrickg...@gmail.com on 17 Mar 2011 at 6:05

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[deleted comment]

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I tried it with CyanogenMod 7 RC1 (#22 nightly) and CyanogenMod7 RC2 - can't 
connect on both.
I will try on other Gingerbread-roms, but i think that it is a Gingerbread 
problem and not a Cyanogenmod related one. 

Original comment by kalischn...@gmail.com on 21 Mar 2011 at 9:26

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You guys sure you didn't add any spaces or something to your host config? No 
problems here at all on my Nexus S and Gingerbread emulator.

A log from one of you would be great so I can debug this.

Original comment by phree...@gmail.com on 22 Mar 2011 at 8:29

• Changed title: Can't connect on 2.3 (Gingerbread)

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Having similar problems on Nexus One CM7 (#31 nightly).
Phone seems to connect and remote works fine, but trying to browse music, films 
etc
just hangs until disconnect. CM6 works perfectly.

But, works fine using EXTERNAL ip address on wifi and 3G.

Original comment by chappie1...@gmail.com on 26 Mar 2011 at 10:22

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How can i create a log-file?

Original comment by kalischn...@gmail.com on 28 Mar 2011 at 11:11

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http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=70243

paragraph #16

Original comment by Gabor.Fo...@gmail.com on 28 Mar 2011 at 12:01

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...and I thought that i'm the only one with this issue. I had the problem a 
while ago with stock gingerbread 2.3.2 on nexus s and i fixed it with a manual 
entry in the host-file (needs root).
I switched now to CM7 RC4 and the issue appeared again. So it's definitly not a 
rom problem.
I have attached a network trace, may you can use it.
Devices generating traffic:
192.168.1.1  DSL-Router
192.168.1.16 Android 2.3 Device
192.168.1.48 XBMC Dharma

Original comment by adrian.b...@gmail.com on 3 Apr 2011 at 1:36

Attachments:

• capture_wlan1.pcap

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Remove the username/password from both the XBMC and the Remote and try again.

Original comment by Gabor.Fo...@gmail.com on 4 Apr 2011 at 8:56

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Same here. It some time logs in but disconnect as soon as you enter 
tv/music/picture section. 

Running CM7 RC4.

Its not a password problem cause when my password is wrong it tells me so.

FYI, I had to change some stuff in the HTTP connections for synodroid because 
Gingerbread was causing disconnects, this might be the same problem.

Original comment by steve.garon on 6 Apr 2011 at 12:05

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Same problem here.
I have updated my N1 from CM 6.1 to CM 7.0 stable released yesterday.
Xbmc remote doesn't connect (only the remote works, as said before)

Original comment by grozan.m...@gmail.com on 12 Apr 2011 at 4:48

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Same problem here. We have 3 Android devices and the remote world fine only on 
the one running gingerbread:
Samsung Galaxy S with stock Froyo: works perfectly.
Google Nexus One with Cyanogenmod 7 Gingerbread: not working
Google anexus S with stock Gingerbread: not working

It seems to have a huge lag while connecting. A DNS issue is plausible. But not 
all the phones are routed so the hosts hack is more a workaround than a 
solution.

Original comment by damien.b...@gmail.com on 22 Apr 2011 at 9:52

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Went from Fresh 3.5 to CM7 stable and ran into same problem on my EVO. WiFi 
wouldn't connect consistently and would never bring up my library even when it 
did finally connect, 3g had no issues all, and remote control worked on both. 
Set a static IP on my EVO for my local WiFi and all is working now.

Original comment by jonas4...@gmail.com on 24 Apr 2011 at 6:55

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Well, same issue here. Just upgraded my HTC Desire HD phone to 2.3.3 and xbmc 
stopped working. App hangs on connecting, only remote works fine

Original comment by miguel.c...@gmail.com on 20 May 2011 at 9:05

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This is strange. I myself am running CyanogenMod 7 on a Nexus One without any 
problem. 
It would be great if you guys could help a bit more with some details:
- What phone are you using?
- What ROM?
- Post your Android log.
- What are your connection settings.

Original comment by till.ess...@googlemail.com on 24 May 2011 at 8:50

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same issues since gingerbread update on desire hd,strange but i get further 
than more seem to do. My remote connects to the stage where the main screen 
shows the options listen to music etc etc but when i click on the option to 
bring up the file lists it just hangs there.

Original comment by rla...@gmail.com on 25 May 2011 at 9:09

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I managed to connect on gingerbread with a static ip on my desire hd. Looks 
like some routing issues in gingerbread itself. 
I have the same problem with all kind of remote control apps (remote for 
itunes). They all can't connect, but with a static ip they work.

Original comment by kalischn...@gmail.com on 25 May 2011 at 9:15

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I also tried setting a fixed IP but it doesnt work for me.
I am on a Desire with GingerVillian (CM7)

Original comment by jantenh...@gmail.com on 25 May 2011 at 7:08

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Still no progress there?
I have seen this issue on the following devices:
 - Samsung Galaxy S (2.3.3 Official, 2.3.3 Darkyy ROM)
 - Google Nexus S (2.3.3, 2.3.4 Official, CM7.x)
 - Samsung Galaxy S2 (2.3.3 Official)
 - (no device) Android Virtual Device with 2.3

With root and hosts hack, everything worked. I think it has something to do 
with the ptr-queries (reverse dns) that you can see in the wireshark trace. the 
android device tries to find the dns-name of the host-ip configured, but it 
never gets an answer.

Original comment by adrian.b...@gmail.com on 21 Jul 2011 at 10:47

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I saw an available download labeled "Text Fix 1" fir gingerbread. Has anyone 
tried this? Any feedback? I just tried from work and it seems the same (not 
connecting or connecting then immediately losing connection when a menu option 
is selected), but I will test on my home network to be sure.

Original comment by alex.cia...@gmail.com on 12 Aug 2011 at 5:32

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adrian: so you're using host names in your settings? did you try using the ip 
address directly?

Original comment by phree...@gmail.com on 13 Aug 2011 at 8:18

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Issue 543 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by phree...@gmail.com on 13 Aug 2011 at 8:18

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Issue 518 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by phree...@gmail.com on 13 Aug 2011 at 11:35

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Okay my official info:

What steps will reproduce the problem?
- Anytime you open the remote it just sits "Connecting" and at some point will 
give a a socket timeout.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
- Connecting immediately as it has in the past.

What version of XBMC Remote are you using?
Pulled from Git 8/12/11

Which Android device are you using (and which ROM, if custom)?
Nexus One with CM7 nightlies since RC1 was released (issue has been consistent).
IntersectRaven Kernel 2.38.8

Which XBMC revision are you running and on which platform?
XBMC 10.1 on Ubuntu 9.10

Please provide any additional information below.
I have been debugging through eclipse and see some some occasional socket 
timeout exceptions but have not been able to discover the source.

Will provide more details as I continue to debug. 

Original comment by alex.cia...@gmail.com on 16 Aug 2011 at 12:55

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Attached a log of the behavior where I do finally get a set of menu options 
(besides just remote). Once I select "Movie Library", it goes to that intent 
but shows no movies, nor any of the shares I have mapped.

Original comment by alex.cia...@gmail.com on 16 Aug 2011 at 1:24

Attachments:

• android-xbmc.log

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Further digging shows that for some reason the XBMC version is often not 
reported by getSystemInfo. I cannot see exactly why and at this point am taking 
a break for the evening.

One thing I did do that *seemed* to improve the behavior slightly (actually got 
movies library to load once or twice) was replacing all URLConnection's with 
HttpURLConnection. Maybe it was just my imagine thought that this made some 
improvement, because the behavior is so sporadic I just cannot be sure.

When I did get the movies library to display, it started downloading covers. 
During this process I watched logcat and every few requests it would call 
getSystemInfo() and return "VERSION =" (with no version). I cannot tell if this 
is strictly related to this specific request to the http server, or if it is an 
issue affecting all calls to the HTTP API.

I'm sharing what I find as I go so anyone else looking into this issue can 
avoid some of the rabbit holes I have already gone down. I will try not to 
clutter the issue thread too much though. Hopefully we can get this resolved, I 
really miss my remote!

Original comment by alex.cia...@gmail.com on 16 Aug 2011 at 3:25

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Alex: Your investigations are much appreciated. When testing, make sure you use 
the IP address and no host name, since DNS resolving seems to be a problem in 
some cases, something I don't see we can do much about.

Otherwise I must say I'm kind of clueless. When debugging, I would assure 
myself first that it is really a problem of the app, not some generic network 
stack issue. You could do that by using the stock browser for the HTTP calls, 
or another remote and verify that none of the problems mentioned occur.

Original comment by phree...@gmail.com on 16 Aug 2011 at 11:17

• Changed state: Accepted
• Added labels: Milestone-Release1.0

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Well before I went to sleep last night I decided to try something else. I 
reverted all the way back to CM7.1 RC1 and the included kernel (2.6.37)... low 
and behold it works. I only tested for a few minutes but did not see any of the 
usual issues. 

I feel silly that I did not attempt this much earlier... but with other people 
reporting the problem I made the assumption it was related to gingerbread, 
regardless of ROM/kernel. (Yes, I do know what happens when people ASSume 
things :/ ) 

So I guess it would help to know exactly what kernel versions the previous 
reporters were using. I am going to try to get in touch with IntersectRaven and 
see if he is aware of any regressions in 2.6.38 (because I *really* like his 
kernels)

At this point though you are probably right in that it is a network stack issue 
and not app related. It would be nice to hear from anyone else still 
experiencing this issue on *stock* CM7 and what specific kernel revision their 
phone reports.

Original comment by alex.cia...@gmail.com on 16 Aug 2011 at 1:18

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Interesting. I personally am running 2.6.35.7 on CyanogenMod-7.1.0-RC1 as well 
on a Nexus S without problems.

Original comment by phree...@gmail.com on 16 Aug 2011 at 2:21

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@phreezie:
I use the ip address as I have no dns in my lan.

Original comment by adrian.b...@gmail.com on 29 Aug 2011 at 6:39

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Just to chime in here, my HTC Desire running gingervillain (latest version AOSP 
2.3.5 based on CM7 running kernel 2.6.38-4) has the exact same issues as 
described, constant disconnects, sometimes shows library but not for long. 
Wife's HTC Desire running Leedroid (sense based Rom 2.3.3 running kernel 
2.6.35-10) has no issues whatsoever and can use xbmc remote ax intended. Hope 
this helps in some small way to track down what's causing this!

Original comment by chikkens...@gmail.com on 4 Sep 2011 at 9:15

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This is definitely kernel related.  Just flashed between savaged-zen and stock 
CM7 kernels and XBMC remote and library works with stock CM7, but only remote 
works with savaged-zen.  

Original comment by t...@t11m.info on 17 Sep 2011 at 4:37

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This is the fix for root phones ...

edit the host file the follow -

"the htpc ip backwards".in-addr.arpa

for example edit the host file the following: 
1.1.168.192.in-addr.arpa

you are all welcome.

Original comment by danmo...@gmail.com on 18 Sep 2011 at 6:20

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Are you talking about /etc/hosts?  Do you mean to add that as a single line?  
It doesn't seem to be a legal format for /etc/hosts.  Please explain your fix 
in more detail.

Original comment by m...@boutiquing.com on 19 Sep 2011 at 1:00

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I've looked into this and can confirm it can be replicated on AVD running 2.3.3.

Using Adrian's packet capture and some local testing I've determined the 
problem occurs under the following conditions:

1) An IP address is used as the host name
2) A DNS PTR query for that IP (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.in-addr.arpa) gets no reply.

Note - for #2 the problem occurs specifically when there is no reply from the 
DNS server. If the DNS server sends a "not found" response there is no problem. 
Most people will get the "not found" reply and have no problems. This will only 
be an issue where no DNS is configured at all, or the DNS server is 
malfunctioning.

When it's broken there is a long delay in connecting while it waits for the DNS 
lookup to timeout. I don't know why Android is doing this lookup. The delay 
happens in the httpapi/Connection.java file, specifically on the 
uc.getInputStream() command.

To test in AVD remove DNS settings on your computer before you launch the AVD. 
After it's running you can put the settings back. (This worked for me in Linux).

Original comment by cg6...@gmail.com on 20 Sep 2011 at 3:13

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This is a confirmed Android bug: 
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=13117

There is a workaround provided - I'll attempt to test.

Original comment by cg6...@gmail.com on 21 Sep 2011 at 9:56

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The Android bug is about HTTPS, we aren't using HTTPS...

Original comment by till.ess...@googlemail.com on 21 Sep 2011 at 10:05

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revert to stock CM kernel=FIX

Original comment by kruyk...@gmail.com on 18 Oct 2011 at 2:05

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Had the same problem. Socket time-outs but remote control worked. I had always 
used static IPs, so that wasn't the problem. My XBMC host is windows-machine, 
running server on port 80. Then, I tried to configure host again, when I had 
tried to reconfigure my remote several times with no luck. I changed the port 
back to default 8080, and rewrote the password. Suddenly, remote connected with 
no issues. I do have dns server in my LAN, don't know if that changes anything.

For side note, when I tried to connect to the host with other computer before 
reconfiguring, it time-outed. Which is strange because it worked before :P That 
began to work after reconfigure though.

CM7.1.0 without any (other) hacking, HTC Desire GSM.

Original comment by siikak...@gmail.com on 18 Oct 2011 at 10:30

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Been having this issue since i updated to Gingerbread on HTC Desire.
Found solution.

Edit hosts file
192.168.254.x   localhost

where 192.168.254.x is your htpc ip

Library mode works like a charm after that.

cheers...

Original comment by rohitb...@gmail.com on 19 Oct 2011 at 2:48

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Updated to v0.8.8-beta1 and this seems to be fixed for me (without having to 
edit the hosts file). Can anyone else confirm?

HTC Desire running Villain_Au 3.3, AOSP 2.3.7 with 2.6.38.4 kernel, which is 
the same kernel that did not work previously.

Original comment by robertdu...@gmail.com on 5 Jan 2012 at 12:07

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Still experiencing this issue. I'm running Android 2.3.3, with kernel 2.6.35-10.
My xbmc is version 11.0 and the xbmc android remote softwaree is version 
v0.8.8-beta1 (rev. 808).
I tried to edit '/etc/hosts' but it's a read-only filesystem. I suppose that 
means I should root the system as mentioned. 
Before I go down that road, is this a definitive fix and/or is there any other 
way?

Original comment by jaapkr...@gmail.com on 9 Apr 2012 at 11:21

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I'm having same issues (slow media browsing on android remote) I'm running 
Android 2.3.4, with kernel 2.6.32.9. using Openelec 1.95. and the xbmc android 
remote software version v0.8.8-beta1 (rev. 808). I have 2 rpm 7200 HDD and I 
don't know what gives it takes 20 - 40 sec to load music or videos to be able 
to navigate. forget trying to browse from the remote. It used to work 
beautifully now after I reformated openelec 3x and still have same issues occur 
I'm at a loss for words. wifi signal is strong. I don't root phone so haven't 
tried editing the host file & haven't factory reset phone yet, I will if 
needed. any other ideas?

Original comment by carsonac...@gmail.com on 25 Apr 2012 at 7:14

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I'm having the same problem on my Samsung Galaxy S with Android 2.3.4, was 
working ok before updating. I tried installing the app v0.8.8-beta1 and 
modifying the hosts file, but neither of them worked. Ran out of ideas..

Original comment by fsfulc...@gmail.com on 2 May 2012 at 12:41

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having similar issue here. The sequence is like this:

1. I use HttpURLConnection class to access a test server by its IP address, 
2. HttpURLConnection.connect() triggers DNS PTR query (reverse lookup). 
3. The reverse lookup gets no reply; Android retried for 4~6 times then gives 
up, 
4. Android goes straight with the given IP and everything is fine after this 
point.

Of course the reverse lookup caused huge delay (~20s).

I am running HTC sensation, Android 2.3.4; kernel 2.6.35.13-gbf669cc

Original comment by huei2...@gmail.com on 9 May 2012 at 3:48