Generally poor user experience; slow response, fickle remote(s), and network oddities

[darwindesign]

Wifi cutting out combined with the OSMC remote (which is RF as well) acting in a very uncharacteristic manor (it should not be slower than CEC) makes me wonder if there is radio interference from a nearby device.

[zekepliskin]

@darwindesign

Wifi cutting out combined with the OSMC remote (which is RF as well) acting in a very uncharacteristic manor (it should not be slower than CEC) makes me wonder if there is radio interference from a nearby device.

Agreed. I have a Logitech keyboard set with an RF USB dongle and it regularly gets blocked when stuff like laptops are in the way of the keyboard/mouse. To be honest I haven’t found the bundled OSMC controller to be as susceptible. Is it in the 2.4GHz band then?

If the OP is looking for something less sluggish, I’d point out I’ve just set up a pretty decent FLIRC USB dongle template for my Vero 4K and it’s pretty snappy in use; much faster than the Xbox 360 IR I tried before. From what I understand that tends to be the best workaround if you aren’t using Bluetooth or RF.

[darwindesign]

@zekepliskin

Is it in the 2.4GHz band then?

Yes

[marriedman]

I got up early today for no reason and had plenty of time to play with this today. Since correcting the resolution, scan, and refresh rate, I have had absolutely zero issues with my LG Magic Remote! I have even used it to switch back and forth to my old Raspberry Pi with no slow down or stutter with commands being passed through. It’s truly remarkable!

I do have my laptop on my lap almost always when watching the TV, so that might have something to do with the included remote being laggy. I will test that some more. I just had another network issue pop up yet, but I think I should move that to it’s own topic. I am happy enough to mark the remote issue solved though.

[marriedman]

@sam_nazarko

As a quick aside: don’t use overscan - it’s better to set Just Scan or 1:1 pixel mapping on your TV. If you let us know the TV brand we can tell you the exact setting.

As you have an LG remote it sounds like an LG TV, so the option would be Just Scan.

@fzinken

Ok, first another suggestion for your configuration (not related to the network issue).

We recommend people with 4K TV’s set their user interface (UI) to 1080p. Kodi’s UI is not optimized for 4K yet and this can put unnecessary demands on your device and can lead to a suboptimal picture quality, as well as potentially cause other issues.

The settings we recommend are as follows…

Settings>System>Display>Resolution> 1920x1080p
Settings>System>Display>Whitelist> (empty) *
Settings>Player>Videos>Adjust display refresh rate> On start/stop

Some televisions may also need, or benefit from, the following being set…

System>Display>Force 4:2:2 colour subsampling> (enable)

With the above settings your UI will be output in Full HD and your 4K content will be output in 4K. *Information regarding the whitelist can be found here. If you have any doubt, feel free to upload some logs so we can verify that your settings are indeed correct.

I cannot explain why, but these changes allowed my LG Magic Remote to work without issue.

[darwindesign]

@marriedman

I do have my laptop on my lap almost always when watching the TV

That should be okay. I’ve spent countless hours with a laptop on my lap and two different models of the OSMC remote connected to two different OSMC devices in a spot that is relatively noisy in the 2.4ghz range. I’ve not experienced what you describe. You might try re-pairing the remote by holding down the home and OK buttons which may get it to use a different frequency.

[djbloc]

@marriedman

I was poking around with the web interface and I noticed a notification that the websocket connection was lost. It was only momentarily before the connection was restored. I have left the page up and continued to poke around and noticed that it happens frequently just scrolling through the settings. Do you know if this is normal? Could this be another bit of info?

Are you noticing the websocket error when accessing the Kodi web interface through a browser? I ask as I’ve sometimes seen this as well with reliable wired connections.

I would also check websocket connections are enabled on Kodi. I can’t remember which one of the settings changes it but I would check under Settings > Services > Control that the following are ticked/checked:

(You will need to enable Expert mode)

• Allow remote control via HTTP
• Allow remote control from applications on this system
• Allow remote control from applications on other systems

If you made a change, reboot Kodi before trying again