Kodi 17 for 304T and quicker support

[Richard]

I'd like to request Kodi 17 for the 304-T (so for older versions) of Asustor. Customers of those models also payed a lot of money and supported Asustor this way in the beginning and now they're left in the cold, no Kodi 17 update for those models. Starts with 31x models.
Next to that a quicker support for it would be nice.

Today june 8th, Asustor announced Kodi 17.0.0.R3, so a beta. While IRL we're using Kodi 17.3 already.
So that's the request for quicker support meaning quicker Kodi support.

[MikeG.6.5]

The video drivers for the older 32-bit CPU models aren't readily available. Intel didn't license them to the vendors, and they aren't something that can be purchased by individuals. This is why Kodi is basically stagnating in those older models. (BTW, this isn't just Asustor having this issue. Other hardware vendors got bit by the same greed from Intel.)

Asustor does take a long time to get updated apps in App Central.... And I do mean a LONG time. I think part of that is due to the high number of apps people request, and that Asustor has a small developer pool to draw on. They aren't nearly the size of Synology, QNAP or Western Digital. Don't get me wrong, though... I'm not defending them, by any stretch of the imagination... If they claim the app is an Asustor supported app, they need to step up and maintain it.

But at the same time, they also need to think about cutting losses and stepping away from apps on machines that are EoL. The 20X and 30X models are past their lifespan in terms of capabilities. In fact, the only way to buy a new model of any of these means someone is clearing out their dead stock at bargain basement prices, to get it off the shelf. They haven't been made in a couple of years, and likely won't be seeing much in terms of updates to the OS or apps for very much longer. The machines just haven't got the capabilities of any of the newer models.

So as much as I hate to say it, it may be time to seriously look at what you want to do with the NAS and whether it's capable of doing the job. As a file server, these older models can still perform the task. But for streaming media or sharing media, they just haven't got the power needed to do the job.

If Asustor does step up and start updating apps on a regular basis, the results aren't likely to benefit those older models. As it sits now, Asustor doesn't make any other 32-bit models, so all of the development will be moving towards 64-bit (if it hasn't already)

[Richard]

Thank you for sharing your view about this.
I did not realize Asustor wasn't the size of company's like Qnap etc. because I thought Asustor was an Asus daughter, and Asus not not really a small company.
It seems models go fast EOL then. Because if I'm not mistaken i bought this model 3 year ago at a time when nobody had HDMI yet and only shortly after I bought the 304, Synology came with the first HDMI model.
It was realeased in 2013 and did not see much releaeses last year (2016) which were also for 304. A lot of news for other (newer) models. So you mean lifespan in terms of capabilities is only 3 years, maybe not even that? That's quite short.
That's my experience and how I see it.

I do understand if you're working with a smaller team things do take a bit longer. But as you admit yourself, this is not a bit anymore, it's too long, while money is made and customers are waiting. If Asustor wants to keep up with the big guys as a company, expand your team.

The only time I really had fun of my 304T was the first year. At this moment, luckily I can still use it for backups and steam movies I put on the hard drive to my SmartTV which works quite well.
But via DLNA, not via Kodi which had several issues in the beginning too, which caused me to remove it. Waiting for a new stable release which never came!

If I buy a new one now, support might be also only a couple of years before it's past the lifespan. In that case I rather choose Qnap or Synology next time. At least they have a faster support (one of them stopped the process but was already busy on Kodi 18 and Synology already had Kodi 17 since august last year).
Next to that I found some user custom versions which one could install.

Anyway, thnk you for your insight and point of view. I'm sure next time I buy another NAS for me personal or for my company, it won't be Asustor due to past experiences.

[orion]

QNAP actually provided the similar models (the same CPU) which got the same problem. You can not get KODI to work on those models either. So you'll get exactly the same result if you chose QNAP at that time. I own AS-304T too. I'm still enjoying XBMC although there are some services had been closed. Playing movie files still works all right (although I would like to try KODI if possible).
As I know, Synology does not provide any models with HDMI + KODI. Am I wrong?

[Richard]

I was not talking about Kodi only in my last reply, due to Mike's reply I know every NAS has issues.
Next to that, Qnap stopped with Kodi/XBMC and Mediaplayer21 in October last year.

I mean the complete package.
On a dutch support forum I found a way to install a headleass Kodi via Docker on the Synology.
I thought I read something about Kodi 17 being on Synology but can't find it anymore so maybe it has no default app.

Nevertheless it does not take away the argument that for the rest almost nothing is done and most new things coming out last year were only for newer models, not for the 304.
I just like the Qnap development (faster) and support is better, it's better imho and my old TS-212 is also still supported.

I'm just dissapointed because I thought with Asustor I would choose a new firm company supported by Asus which would do great things. And discovered that my system bought 2 years after release only 3 years after release is already kind of EOL.
Development is really slow and new things developped are not suitable for my 304 anymore. So that's why I'm very dissapointed. And if I am, I choose something else which I'm more satisfied about, in general, not only for 1 app.

[orion]

TS-212 is a model with ARM CPU. So you won't be able to get supports from QNAP about XBMC, KODI, ...etc. I can upgrade my AS-304T with the latest ADM and other Apps. I don't actually encounter any support issues. I'm not sure what you mean about "development" and "support".

[Richard]

You might want to read my previous reply again, where I clearly was stating it was not only about kodi.
Last year several things where only available for newer models, I won't take the effort to look again.
The existing apps and latest adm can be upgraded yes. Development is an English word and means building new things, which won't happen for the 304 anymore.
Support is also an English word, maybe you might look it up in the dictionary and I'm not even English.
Shortly said I'm not satisfied about ticket support, except maybe for one time partly. Fixed the issue could not tell me the cause. That is what support is all about.
Please don't discuss any further, because you won't convince me and I will stay with my opinion. Leaving Kodi out of the discussion, I won't buy another Asustor anymore anyway.

[orion]

I didn't and won't try to convince you anything. We are trying to help each other in this forum and to share experiences with others. I simply own AS-304T which is the same as yours. The fact is that I'm trying to know what's your real issues. I know KODI is an issue for AS-304T. However, to be fair, all of the current NAS vendors encounter the same issue. (although I wana try KODI as well.)

You can express your "feelings", but it's not helpful to solve problems. We would like to discuss what's the problem.

[Richard]

At this moment I don't have issues or problems with the 304T (I hope). So I can only share my experiences, which are not really great.

The second issue I had, they did not know the cause. Read this.

The problem was that a supported APC was connected, but the Asustor did not shut down when the APC gave notice that current went down.
They logged in remotely and asked me to reboot it afterwards, after that it's working fine and shut down when the APC lost power.
So I asked what they did how to fix it, this was the answer from the technician:

For the issue mentioned, I didn't modify any configuration when connecting to your NAS.
But I find the uptime of the unit is more than one month, so I suspect that maybe there is some problem with the demon take care of the UPS shut down execution.

I didn't get an answer on my follow up question which was this:

So indeed it was fixed by restarting it. But in that case I’m wondering if we’re talking about a firmware bug.
Because it should not be problem for a NAS to have an uptime of more than one month.
What can we do best to discover if that is the issue?

Wait another month and see if the problem occurs again? Or maybe make a thread on the support forums to investigate if more customers have encountered this issue?
Because if the daemon is not working after some time, it should be fixed, correct?

So I even suggested to post this issue on the forum. I did not see that happening.

The answer I got was that if it would happen again. I could login in via SSH to my Asustor and see if the upsc daemon was running correctly.

And I thought a NAS was made to have an uptime longer then a month. For a NAS a month is not even long. So this is a bit of a strange answer imho.

First issue was much worse:
NAS did not go into hybernation mode. And I pointed them to the forum thread where several other users had that same problem after the update I mentioned.
But in spite of the fact I pointed to the forums and told them it happened after the last update, I got the default answer to that which was also present in the FAQ on the site.
So I had to run the diagnostics tool which I did.
And I also spoken out my disappointment of the support, they came again with a default answer without looking at that support forums thread.
They did not even take the effort to take a look at it, due to the same default answer I got. So I told them this on June 20th 2016.

I also told them that in the mean time a Mediaplayer V2 update had fixed the issue. As was stated in that same forum thread.
And also told them that also a cause was that if you have the screensaver running in hdmi mode, the NAS won't go into hibernation mode which was also an issue in my case.
This last tip they could have use for the FAQ and thanked me for it or something, but I got 0 reply.
I did not get any answer but the ticket was closed.

So on july 5th I got an automatic mail bout my experience with my support ticket. My reply of juni 26th wasn't even answered then and ticket closed.
So I wrote:

Worthless. See my comment in the ticket.
I got a default answer which was also readable in the knowledgebase, ticket was not read decently, no effort taken to look at the thread on the forum I pointed to.

Which was placed in the according ticket.

Long story, but maybe now you understand why I'm totally unhappy with Asustor support.
They only good thing is they reply within 2-3 days.

But on the first problem they did not even take the effort to look at the thread on the forums I pointed to.
On the second problem they guessed the issue was caused because of the Asustor having an uptime more then a month?
LoL. Anyway, I guess you understand me better now.

[orion]

Yes, I can then understand what you pointed out.

"uptime more than one month" is definitely not a reason or an excuse. The up-time of my AS-304T is much more than one month (although I set up a schedule off / on everyday). Unfortunately, I cannot help you on this issue because I do not adopt UPS for NAS. Normally support guy should restart daemon (it's apcupsd, right?) in debug / log verbose mode. So they can gather more detailed information to investigate this issue next time. It seems not happened.

HDD hibernation, I actually worked with the support guy several times for it. I helped them to find out some services (log file issue) being active in idle state. They solved issues quickly. However it seems quite different from yours (0 replies). If I understand correctly, this issue is resolved, right?