I’ll be honest and say it seems I have made an oversight with HDMI cable selection.
During the ‘evaluation’ phase for peripherals I measured the quality of the cable but did indeed omit checking CEC compatibility.
My focus (trying around 10 different manufacturers) was to see which one had the best shielding and least noise across the cable, but it seems like CEC is problematic with these, and for that I do apologise! Even more oddly: price does not seem correlated to cable construction quality at all. You can get one for $5 or even bundled with a PS3 that is better than the ‘premium’ aftermarket cables that can run up in to the $70 range…
Nonetheless, CEC was not working until this update, but it would’ve sure saved us some time had we known this in advance.
Hi Sam,
I have a Samsung ES8000 and tried 3 different HDMI cables and CEC not working so not sure if its your HDMI cable as I tried yours on our other panasonic vero and cec works fine with it. just thought I’d let you know.
OK, just swapped out the HDMI cable with another I had lying around. Had no idea if the new cable worked with CEC or not. Hot-swapped the cable to the same input on my Samsung TV, powered up the TV and wham, Anynet recognized and listed Kodi without any further action – no need to refresh.
The only Samsung remote functions that seem to work, however, are Play, Pause, Stop, Fast Forward and Rewind once a video is playing. The arrow and select (OK) buttons on the Samsung remote don’t do anything as far as I can see. Should I be seeing any additional functionality with CEC?
The exact buttons you are able to use via CEC depend entirely on the model of TV, however you should generally be able to use the transport buttons (play, pause, stop, rewind, fast forward etc) the OK/Enter button, and direction arrows at minimum.
Typically you can also use Exit, Return, all number buttons, Guide, and the four coloured buttons. My TV is a Samsung H6700 and all of these buttons work via CEC out of the box. (Although not all of them do useful functions without remapping using remote.xml - for example return does nothing but can be remapped to do something)
There are a couple of different ways you can troubleshoot this - both require ssh access. The first is to put kodi into debug mode (debug overlay appears in the top left) then tail the log file, watching the log file in real time while you press buttons on the remote. You can do this with:
tail -f .kodi/temp/kodi.log
If the TV sends a button code it will appear in the log even if it isn’t mapped to do anything, if nothing appears at all in the log when you press the button then your TV is not sending the button.
A lower level test is to use cec-client. First you have to stop Kodi to free up the CEC port:
sudo systemctl stop mediacenter
Then run cec-client:
cec-client
After a few seconds it should say it is connected. You might need to go into your CEC menu in your TV and refresh and you should see CECTester.
Now press buttons and they should be logged by cec-tester. Again, if nothing is logged for a particular button, this means your TV is not sending that button.
Occasionally some TV’s have a magic button combination you can press to enable more CEC buttons, but typically you’re stuck with what you get.
Thanks, DBMandrake. I tried the CEC_Client and discovered not only all the buttons you mention that are detected, but the Channel Up, Channel Down, Channel List, Previous Channel and Record buttons, too.
Now, how do I get to the remote.xml file and edit that to map some of these keys (without screwing anything else up!)?
UPdate: Installed the Keymap editor, and that seems to work well and enabled me to map the Return key and set up keys for subtitles and volume control.
Well, I suspect for most it is cheaper/easier to just buy another cable than to ship the current one back. For those who already have another cable that works, what’s the point? For those who don’t, it means not being able to use Vero at all until the new cable arrives, and you have not even established an availability date yet.
I guess it’s true what they say about pioneers being the ones with the arrows in their backs.
We’ve been aware of this problem for less than 24 hours… The new cables will need testing and evaluating to make sure they are fit for use and then a bulk order must be placed.
We bundled the HDMI cable as a convenience for customers to get up and running as quickly as possible – we were originally not planning to bundle one at all. I’m sorry the cable has given you some troubles
"We bundled the HDMI cable as a convenience for customers to get up and running as quickly as possible "
Yes, I certainly wasn’t exptecting one so it was a nice surprise when I opened the box to find one.
I consider this cable a “freebie” so won’t be giving any hassle about a replacement!
Can confirm that switching the cable did the trick. I used the cheap one to my set top IP TV box that doesn’t support cec anyway (the box obviously, not the cable ). It got the Vero one and now I’m using both raspbmc and Vero with cec on the same AVR.
I installed the latest update and swapped the hdmi cable. SEC works fine for me now. Just swapped the vero cable with the one I used for my Xbox. No need for rma for me.
Thanks for fixing SEC so quickly.
Installed the update this evening, Kodi now shows up in my Samung-Anynet device scan. I can select a couple of Samsung on screen menu options such as “Kodi MENU” and “Kodi TOOLS” - when I do I hear the GUI make the ‘click’ noise so I know something is going on.
What model of Samsung ? I use my Vero on a Samsung UE48H6700 and see the same menus you describe, however CEC works fine for me.
Have you tried going into Tools, Anynet+ then where you see the list of devices, choose refresh, and make sure that you have Kodi as the selected device ?
It’s possible that Kodi Menu and Kodi Tools don’t do anything - off hand I think that’s the case.
The best way to troubleshoot this is to enable debug mode in kodi, and then via ssh tail the log file:
tail -f .kodi/temp/kodi.log
As you press the buttons on the remote which should be passed to Kodi they will be logged, regardless of whether there is a mapping assigning that button to do anything.
Buttons which are not logged are not being sent by the TV.
Hey all,
So I have changed cables 3 times with different cables and keep getting this error message in streaming log.
13:00:18 T:1933571104 ERROR: CecLogMessage - AllocateLogicalAddresses - failed to allocate device ‘0’, type ‘recording device’
13:00:18 T:1933571104 ERROR: CecLogMessage - failed to find a free logical address for the client
13:00:18 T:1933571104 ERROR: CecLogMessage - failed to register the new CEC client - cannot allocate the requested device types
13:00:18 T:1933571104 ERROR: CecLogMessage - failed to register a CEC client
13:00:18 T:1933571104 ERROR: OpenConnection - could not opening a connection to the CEC adapter
is there something else to try or is my Samsung ES8000 no good for CEC and kodi.
Cheers Peter
EDIT: Ok after disconnecting the Panasonic BlueRay Player and scanning again Kodi showed up in the CEC list, connecting the Blueray player back up Kodi disappears and the error messages return. Can 2 devices run at the same time ?
I have a Samsung UE40H6400 - I suspect the issue is not with Vero but with my Onkyo AV receiver (TX-SR507). I had exactly the same issue with my RaspBMC setup previously.
If anyone in this thread also has an Onkyo AV receiver in the middle of their HDMI setup and either has the same issue or has resolved the issue please let me know! HDMI-Control is enabled on the amp…
Cool, changing the cable did the trick for me! The buttons mapping is a bit different than it used to be in the rasbmc. Return button (in a samsung tv remote) does something else than return, then again Exit does the trick. So I need to learn to use the other button or fix the button mapping somehow. But anyways, now I don’t need to use the Vero remote anymore!
). It got the Vero one and now I’m using both raspbmc and Vero with cec on the same AVR.