For that you would need OSMC
I think I’ve actually found another solution. I was asking ChatGPT for help troubleshooting (why not … 
) and it suggested CoreELEC which I did recognise and am sure I used it before I went OpenELEC, LibreELEC and OSMC. There is a build for the S905D as well and it seems to be working other than a popup message that appears for ~30 seconds after a reboot and says:
CoreELEC DT-ID not found. Please update /flash/dtb.img
It doesn’t seem to affect anything though as far as I can see so far and the Blu-rays all play perfectly. I haven’t plugged in any speakers yet but I will try that later and if that works then I think I’m good.
Well, other than the DT-ID error message on boot, which doesn’t seem to cause any problems that I’ve noticed, everything works well. I watched a Blu-ray last night and it played perfectly, which it wasn’t doing on Kodi 21.1 (there was a Blu-ray bug that was fixed in 21.3 according to the release notes).
[Edit]
I have fixed the DT-ID error now. I missed a section of the instructions that say you need to copy a .dtb file from the /flash/device_trees folder to /flash and rename it as dtv.img. The relevant file is apparently gxl_p230_2g.dtb, the error message has gone away now and everything seems to still be working.
CE has deprecated S905D support I believe. So our version of OSMC will be newer and better supported
Just not on the Vero 4K+ which you no longer support.
I don’t understand this comment. I was referring specially to Vero 4K and Vero 4K +
The last version of OSMC is more modern, up to date and has better support on Vero 4K/4K+ than CoreELEC will give you on your device.
If you install CE you are downgrading versions, security and hardware decode features. Neither OSMC or CE will give you Kodi v22 on your device.
Sam
The point is, you don’t support the Vero 4K or 4K+ any more so I cannot get any further updates to Kodi with OSMC. CoreELEC on the other hand is up-to-date with Kodi 21.3 and fixes bugs that exist in Kodi 21.1 (your last updated version) that were affecting my usage. Whether 22 is supported in the future is another matter entirely and not relevant to my current needs. If I cannot use 22 in the future I will just lock all my other devices at 21.3 and not worry about it until/unless I need a specific feature that only exists there.
Sorry Sam, but I don’t see what is so difficult to understand. You only provided me with two years of updates after promising five (which I commented on in your thread where you told everyone support was ending). While I appreciate you only intended to support OSMC for five years from initial release that is not what you promised in the ACTUAL wording, and I suspect people could take a legal issue with that should they choose to. I just chose to move on and find another solution.
Can you kindly remind me what’s in Kodi v21.3 that is not in v21.1? The two point releases have been very minor changes that have primarily targeted non Linux platforms.
I have released additional updates post the cut off date to ensure the very best possible send off for Vero 4K/4K+ users. We still have many users of Vero 4K/4K+ and I suspect some people will use them indefinitely in the way they have done for older Veros. We don’t really push new models down anyone’s throats and the only reason people upgrade is usually because a new codec comes out which the new model does not play.
My understanding is that CE won’t give you Kodi v22. I may be wrong and can’t speak for them but believe that is the case.
As such, whichever distribution you use will be stuck on Kodi v21.x.
The Vero 4K/4K+ will continue to receive security updates. The CoreELEC distribution will not.
Kodi v21.1 and 21.3 are point releases. There are no feature changes.
Hence why I ask what is needed from 21.3? If there’s a specific issue, I am sure a fix can be backported.
We promised five years of support from the product’s release date.
This ended up being eight years. I don’t believe in planned obsolecence or pushing people on to a new device. We could’ve been arseholes and cut support after 1825 days exactly but that isn’t our ideology. The plan was basically to offer a minimum of five years but support as long as practically possible, hence eight years. But now the device shows its age and it is increasingly unviable to support the software stack.
I believe this was worded clearly.
You are welcome to challenge it legally if you wish to do so.
We have made some efforts to supply hardware to kernel maintainers and developers so there is upstream support. In theory the Vero can be repurposed or be used as a media centre with the upstream kernel indefinitely. This was never an originally stated goal but is something we felt was important. Unfortunately upstream Linux does not provide feature parity compared to the vendor specific kernel used and released by OSMC.
If you intend to stick with Kodi v21.x, then my suggestion would be to stick with OSMC. I am happy to take a reasonable look at anything you want in 21.2 or 21.3 and backport it if there is a bug that needs fixing. You haven’t mentioned any specific issue or bug you want me to look at though, so it’s unclear
Cheers
Sam
The releases are visible at Releases · xbmc/xbmc · GitHub .
For one, I had issues on 21.1 with some Blu-ray rips not playing properly. These now work perfectly with CE on 21.3.
When I purchased my 4k+ I expected 5 years of updates - from when I bought it, not from release, as that was how it was worded. When you made your announcement I, and others, shared our disappointment and you responded clearly that it was badly worded as you stated you would try to make it clearer on the website.
See above. The Blu-ray playback issue has been fixed since installing CE. I know you wanted to move on, and I do appreciate that, but it would have been much better (in my opinion) if you had said you would support the 21.x line of Kodi and then finish. I have noticed others mention this while skimming the forum. If you want to do that I will happily try a release with 21.3, but CE seems to be working well and I don’t share things outside my network.
As for Kodi 22, as I understand it CE will stop supporting the S905X series. The S905D is newer and, while I don’t know until it is released, Kodi 22 may well work on CE. If not I will, as mentioned, just lock my devices to 21 until I need to buy new hardware.
Hi
I understand this. I am a member of Team Kodi. I know what goes in to a release (when, what). There are no CE members that are Team Kodi members to date.
Vero 4K is S905X
Vero 4K + is S905XD
The SoCs are the same family (GXL) and were almost released at the same time (March 2015 vs June 2015).
You could post on the CoreELEC forum and ask when they anticipate to deprecate support for these models. I do not think it’s fair for me to speculate and they may indeed wish to support Kodi v22 and beyond. But last time I checked that was not the case.
Try OSMC again and let me know what Blu-ray issues you are experiencing and I’ll see what we can do to address them
Thanks for replying Sam but, just for clarification, I didn’t ask when CE planned to stop supporting Kodi. They support it for the 21 series and that’s good enough for me, and I have a working system that I don’t need to tinker with now and don’t want to mess around with it any more. I appreciate you offering to try and address my OSMC issues but I don’t plan to revert to that now. If you want to do it to fix issues others stuck on 21.1 may be having then that would be great, but other than that I wish you and OSMC well, but it’s not something I will purchase again.
If I can offer one suggestion re the wording on how long you will support your devices, you might consider changing ‘five years of free updates’ to something that is more concrete. For example, I believe the Vero 5 came out in 2023, so maybe rewording to something like ‘free updates until 2028’ or ‘supported software updates until at least 2028’. There is little to no ambiguity there, and it lets those late to the party (like I was with the 4k+) know exactly when you plan to stop supporting a specific device.
Again, what specific issues do you want fixed with 21.1?
You are still getting security updates with OSMC. I have checked and 21.x is the end for GXL on CE.
So you are actually going to continue to get updates with OSMC longer than you will with CoreELEC. If there are some Kodi issues you want me to look in to, then I can.
Yes, we will move to a date based approach for updates.
I’m confident you will purchase a Vero V in future. If there is anything further I can do to re-assure you and make that a certainty do let me know.
Cheers
Sam