This is something we have to legally put to comply with CE requirements.
Appreciate that, but this is the case when any electronic device goes wrong. It’s an absolute PITA when you experience a problem, but it does happen.
If your plumber had fitted you a new bathroom or toilet (even if slightly beyond the guarantee), would you still try fix it or yourself, or contact them first?
Your car is designed to have the bonnet opened. You have bonnet clips to keep it open. The Vero V wasn’t designed like this. Sadly modern cars aren’t either and computers (ECUs) make self repair more difficult.
Digression aside, I’m not sure the analogy is the same. Would you open your TV if it went funny suddenly? I am genuinely curious where you would draw the line. I have attempted (some successful, some not) repairs on things in my life, but I’ve always contacted the manufacturer first.
The problem is that the end result is that it typically saves no time or money for either party and actually results in more damage and frustration.
It’s that “absolute PITA” that I’d be trying to avoid if I wanted to open up my Vero V. OTOH, if it was smoking, I wouldn’t bother trying. Where I draw the line depends on the nature and circumstances of the failure. Once upon a time I had the internal engine parts of my (2nd) car spread out on my living room floor, but these days I generally let my local garage do the work.
I can appreciate that typically the repair attempts of your customers do more harm than good. But then, you never see the successes, and some customers are no strangers to electronics.
& just to add, the only reason some of us have opened the case is to unplug the dongle from the internal USB, & plug it in to the only remaining active port, which is external. By doing so, we have lost all recourse for any solution. In hindsight, if I’d known this, I wouldn’t have done so, but was hoping OSMC would have been more “accommodating” to those of us in this situation - lesson learned.
In your description I recognize my same attitude when confronting some technology…
I have an extensive background in electronics but I often approach also mechanical stuff with the same attitude.
My motorcycle, vintage ‘98 model, rarely sees any repair shop since, back in the days when she was younger & fresh, after a few maintenances done with questionable prowess in Honda’s authorized shops, I decided that I couldn’t do more harm than what the bike was receiving there…
My car, being a modern one, is a different beast as nowadays several ECUs rule any single vehicle but since I am usually a good observer/troubleshooter, most of the times, when a problem arises, I can provide valuable information, if not actual help, to shop people…
In some occasions, and for the very same reasons, I can be a true PIA for those who try to play tricks on me, but that’s another story.
So, as you said, when I have some piece of technology acting-up on me, and the warranty terms have expired, first thing I do is looking under the proverbial hood, cautiously, to see if there is something trivial/obvious that I can do to save me further hassle.
This, I already knew beforehand but had further confirmation here, sometimes is not appreciated and fires back, but has already saved my @ss quite a few times…
If I was gonna do something I’d contact the supplier first
If I was going to open something, as I have with plenty of devices in the past, I’m under no illusions that I’m on my own then - it’s not a consumer repairable or upgradeable device.
Two sides, I guess. A device where the designer has gone out of their way to obscure how to open the box (i.e. hidden the screw heads) is telling you all you need to know about repairability and you should expect not to open it till it’s beyond warranty period.
On the other hand, given that it has come out that the problem could be solved at zero cost and with zero shipping/delay by opening the box and simply moving a USB dongle from point A to point B, it is a little frustrating that that’s not a supportable option.
Is the specs of a suitable RF dongle published somewhere so people can shortcut this and go straight to “fixed” without all the additional fuss?
True… and if my device was still covered by warranty when the issue showed-up, I wouldn’t have opened my unit, of course…
But my warranty was over by a few months already and, as a matter of fact, at that time there were no other complains about loss of Remote/USB functionality. Or not that I was aware of, anyway.
So, I tought it was just my unit at fault and I was out of luck with regard to warranty coverage.
I could not fathom, at that time, that it could be a more common fault that, possible, would have induced some "flexibility” in the warranty period.
Exactly…
But, anyway, I am now probably at the same point where I would be if I hadn’t opened my unit: a partially faulty Vero V with a working Dongle in the only working USB port on its side.
Unless, of course, I didn’t decide to undergo the hassle and the expense of an international shipment on my cost, and the unconmfort of being for (Up to…) 20 weeks without my media player.
Didn’t mention it so far but, years ago, and people in this market since a while may recall that, there was a company called DVICO (HK based, if my memory serves me well…) that produced one of the most advanced Mediaplayers at the date, the TViX.
They had some troubles with the first batches of that device and these were strikingly similar to what’s happening with these faulty Vero Vs: Too much heat inside the unit spoiling the party for early birds that had acquired those units.
Well… DVICO went the full lenght supporting its customers and arranged an hassle free replacement of these units, even if out of the warranty period! RMA, DHL pre-paid shipment for the faulty unit and for a new unit delivered at no cost to the customers.
Tha was back and fort from HK… half world away from EU…
I know this as a fact, as I was also among these early birds! :-/
“Solved” for me .. I didn’t have plans for the USB3 port anyway .. I don’t think it’s unsaleable but it’s certainly going to be more difficult to sell if it were to be a straight fight with a device where this hadn’t happened.
Such is life. No disrespect to Sam and the team, this situation is of course irritating for those of us who are impacted, and you’ve got to expect some grief, where some might have an expectation of goodwill solutions even after the warranty expires. Even if all that means is you’ll chuck an RF dongle in the post for those of us who need one.
Well, given I was already out of warranty, and I wasn’t interested in going through the rigmarole of emailing and sending things back or waiting a very long time, I opened it up, moved the remote dongle to the external usb2.0 port and powered back up. Voila, the remote is now working. I didn’t try the external 3.0 port. Perhaps I will later. Not that important. I’m in no way recommending this approach. Please reach out to support for guidance.
The OSMC remote control dongles are custom built hardware for OSMC as are the remote controls themselves. Anyone who experiences an issue with their internal dongle can usually get a replacement they can just plug into the external port just by contacting support@osmc.tv. Sam has been known to be quite generous with free replacements over the years even to customers that are out of warranty.
This is of course assuming your preference is using the OSMC remote. It should be noted that the supplied remote is only one of many choices for controlling your Vero/Kodi. Universal infrared or Bluetooth remotes, keyboards, third party RF USB remotes, CEC, and Kodi remotes apps are some of the other options out there.
For those who know better, I’m still hoping to get more info, if not here at least in private message, about the possibility implied in these comments:
In rare circumstances, the temperature generated by the set top box during long term operation combined with external usage environments is too high. This can cause the USB port to not be recognised. This is repairable via an air-gun.
As noted, I have clues about what can be done, and I’ll probably try something later on (At my own risk, of course…) but, having a few more details may be of good use to me…
Let me preface this by saying I have zero inside knowledge about this issue. Additionally please don’t take my mod badge as my comments having anything to do with Sam or OSMC as they are nothing more than my own personal opinion.
How I interpret Sam’s comment is that if you take a Vero V and run it through out of spec heat cycles then there is at least one solder joint that can break contact. The statement about a repair being possible with an air-guy seems to indicate that we are likely talking about a surface mount chip with bottom mount contacts. I’ve not done this kind of repair myself, but from what I’ve seen watching various repair videos over the years this kind of repair normally consists of covering the chip in flux and then using a heat gun and tweezers to pull the chip up. You would then use soldering wick to clean the pads of old solder and then remove all the flux with isopropyl alcohol. You would then add fresh flux, add new solder that is designed for this kind of application (not the same kind of solder that one would normally use with an iron), place the chip back in the correct orientation and then flow it in with the heat gun before cleaning everything with isopropyl alcohol.
I honestly don’t think this is the kind of thing someone should attempt if they don’t already have some practice under their belt doing this kind of work. It is possible to break other connections in the area your working on which could lead to a device that is completely broken. One may run across some half assed advice on the interwebs about just heating up a component to reflow the solder but this rarely works for very long. There is reports of people using their ovens to “fix” their GPU’s and Xboxes with red ring of dead but the problem is that when you have solder that has cracked due to thermal cycling the solder itself has changed its physical properties such that it is too brittle and is highly prone to cracking again. This is why the solder has to be replaced.
My advice would be that anyone who has not opened their device that has an issue just email Sam and see what you can work out. I’ve been around here for quite a few years now and have experienced and talked with Sam about some of the support that happens outside of this forum. He really does seem to go out of his way to make sure customers feel like they are well taken care of.
For anyone who has opened their devices and are finding themselves SOL perhaps some perspective is in order. Your Vero breaking sucks, I’d be annoyed if it was me, but in this case your mainly only losing USB 3 connectivity. There is no content the Vero can play that requires more bandwidth than USB 2 provides. Things could be worse.
Of course, I’m also imagining a similar scenario and countermeasures, and I know that fixing a case of poor chips’ solderings, or anyway solderings that have gone bad with time and/or heat it’s something not trivial at all…
But I have resources to cover that up and I was asking for some more details to just avoid approaching the thing with a random, trial and error method. Given that someone has already gone through the hassle of doing that, some more details may help save time. Of course I know that devices don’t all break the same way, even if symptoms may suggest that, but if we are facing a scenario like the one you depicted, probability that most of us have a similar fault are high enough to try similar fixes first.
Oh… and about that scenario… very likely that that was exactly what has happened, but I wouldn’t say that the unis shave been exposed to “Out of Specs heat cycles”, tout court…
Most probably a borderline situation with temps at the higher temp range… not so high to cause failures at component level, but enough to make the (modern, damned…) solderings to fail!
The device has no active ventilation and I’m in south Italy… temps in summer get quite high in the upper 30s *C, but my home is never that hot, as I don’t bear such high temps myself and, BTW, I don’t think that Vero V has been designed to be used only from the Alps up north!
Thank you for your sympathy… it’s very appreciated, but I wouldn’t bar the USB3 ports (That’s 2 out of 3!) as a minor thing.
As others have already pointed, apart from possibly being a limitation for some use cases, this makes the unit close to impossible to be sold on second hand markets, as it should be flagged as a defective unit, if we want to be honest.
It could be worse, yes… but that enough to spoil the feelings about an otherwise excellent product with excellent product!
As per Joe & Darwin’s comments, re the “out of spec heat cycles”, my unit is in a well-ventilated area, in a cool room, sits on a shelf on it’s own. Usage is quite low (only a few hrs per week).
Seems that most have had this failure as a result of the update process, so I can only guess that something in the update is causing the extra heat, would that be a fair assumption?
Feels like this is a coincidence to me. Heat and updates don’t have causal relationships. (Unless the device driver changes its attitude to temperatures and disables itself pro-actively.)
On the topic of the bus that’s broken .. in fact it’s the USB 2 bus that’s dead. The USB 3 bus is working fine, and will accept USB 2 devices. On mine, at least. Maybe others have experienced other types of failure? What else was on the USB 2 bus? Hopefully not the bluetooth support .. ?
I wasn’t meaning to imply that anyone here had operated their unit out of spec. I was just interpreting Sam’s comment here as the OEM having run thermal tests and not finding an issue except when run outside of expected ambient temps.
I’m of the opinion that this was update related as well. Happened to me to as a result of the update. Remote worked before the update and then didnt after. I have a harmony remote so just got that working with the vero v so its no big deal to me and I dont use the usb ports. Just wanted to chime in because I keep seeing the same story that the remote worked before the update and didnt after. What else could it be if everyone has had the same issue? With all that said if you opened your device before reaching out to Sam thats on you. The support here has always been top notch and its the #1 reason I continue to buy devices. I’ve had all kinds of devices going back to the popcorn hours and these have always been the best.
