This Is Good For A Laugh, or When In Doubt, REBOOT!
One of my setups for the past 10 years has been on a 17 year old xps laptop. I've been running 16.1 on it for the past couple of years. I finally upgraded to 17.4 two weeks ago since it's been working fine on all my other rigs. Well, a couple of days ago it just cut out in the middle of watching a stream. When I checked the laptop, it was really hot...like BURNING UP hot, so I left it off and even doused it with compressed air to help get it cooled down faster. The battery had been crap for the past couple of years and wouldn't take a charge anymore, and I did finally buy a replacement battery a few months ago, but never installed it. I hate to turn the thing off cuz it takes so long to boot up. And then I have to mess about with nVidea Control Panel to get the attached 32" monitor to be the only display. It's just a PITA, so I pretty much leave it alone. It hasn't been turned off in about 5 years.
Since I've had it, I have taken it apart several times and cleaned it out, upgraded the RAM to the max of 4 gigs for its specs and even put the graphics card in the oven and baked it back to life 3 times. Honestly. So I was really bummed when it apparently died.
I put in the new battery and it wouldn't boot up. Apparently the place I got the battery from misrepresented that it was an xps replacement. So I just left the battery out and booted up the thing anyway. Since I leave it plugged in and running I figured 'so what'?
After about 5 minutes it was back up and running so I opened up KODI. Everything looks good until I try to watch a live stream. Then it starts to play for about 2 seconds and then freezes. I check all the settings and try all kinds of tweaks, but nothing helps. If I want to just watch London Live, no problem. Just not most IPTV channels.
I uninstall 17 and reinstall it. No go. I revert back to 16. No go. I repeat this over and over, all the while trying different setting tweaks for (get this) a day and a half. Yes, really. I decide to take a break from looking at the log files and check my email. Still no notice of shipment for an antenna and amplifier that I ordered 3 weeks ago, so I figure I'll cancel the order through paypal. But even though I have internet access I can't really do anything on the web. I couldn't even download the upgrade for Firefox. So I troubleshoot all that crap for about an hour and a half. I run scans and swear at the powers that be.
I decide to make a cup of coffee in the Keurig Single Cup gizmo. When it says Ready To Brew, I press the button and it makes a noise and nothing happens. No coffee. So I check out Youtube for help and spend about an hour watching videos and finally get the thing to work and have a cup of coffee. Back to the computer I go, now armed with a cup of Joe. Still no good. Son of a B!!! I finally decide to bite the bullet and think I'll try to put the old non-recharging battery back in it and restart it. What the heck, it's worth a shot, no?
But I don't put the battery back in. Since the troubleshooter didn't find anything wrong with the networking or adapter, I just reboot it as is. Five minutes later and it's back up. Another 5 minutes and I have the attached monitor working. I open Kodi and try a MSNBC and it plays. I try another channel and it plays. And another, and another.
So (I'm learning the hard way by now) I try Kodi 17 in portable mode. It frickin streams just fine!
Mother of God!!!
Are we having fun yet?
I hope my miserable adventure gave you a smile. And maybe taught you 2 things: Whenever you have ANY computer issues, FIRST REBOOT before trying anything! And you can have as many copies/versions of Kodi as you want on your pc. Just run them in portable mode and don't install additional copies to your programs folder. Use a usb or other directory. Make a shortcut, and look at the properties and in 'target' add the /p handle so it looks like this: "kodi.exe -p"
And you thought you were slow? Jeez!
