Windows 10: Warning Amazon Fire TV / Fire stick users DO NOT UPDATE VLC

Hi there

I know Amazon fire stick / fire TV is popular -- but if you use VLC for playing media from a NAS server / PC on to your remote TV using the Amazon fire stick / TV app DO NOT UPDATE (on the amazon device) to the latest version. Nothing wrong of course with VLC on a PC.

There is no way any more of adding subtitles from an external file --it will only look on "Internal card".

While the connectivity is good etc and stability improved --if you like subtitles you won't be able to use the subtitle menu to add from an external file

Of course you can get round by say renaming subtitle for xxxx.s01eo1 to xxxx.s01e01.en.srt (assuming English) and moving it to the same directory as xxxx.s01e01 -- but that's a REAL pain every time - especially for TV series with a whole lot of episodes..

If you use plex then you have to do that anyway.

I keep an OLD amazon fire TV stick for testing - never updated !!!! - the old version works fine --so if you like subtitles DO NOT UPDATE YET. !!!!

My big beef with Android type devices is that there's NO WAY to back off updates and revert to previous versions.

Cheers
jimbo

:)

 

how to mirror windows 10 tablet to amazon fire tv?

I am having the same issue with a Windows 10 laptop.

I have an Amazon Fire TV Stick - and that works without issue, with Windows 10. Mirroring works as expected.

However the Amazon Fire TV (*not the Stick variety) just doesn't work.

My observations:

If the Fire TV is in "Mirroring" mode - Windows 10 can not find the device.

If "Mirroring" mode is off - Windows 10 will find the device and add it to "Other devices" (the Fire TV Stick gets added to "Projectors"), but will not use the device - even if you switch "Mirroring" on, on the Fire TV.

Seems odd that it works with one variant of the Fire TV and not the other.

I've noticed that the Fire TV appears in Device Manager > Software Devices, and has this logged under Events:

Device SWD\DAFUPnPProvider\uuid:86103c24-ce2c-62f6-ffff-ffffb3dcc165 could not be migrated.

 

unknown network device

This happens on my network too. full_ford appears in network devices.

I believe this could be a smart TV with Amazon Video installed. Amazon Video emulates an Amazon Tablet, Fire TV/Stick apparently.

 

Not directly relevant here but this may be of interest.

VLC does have an addin that allows you to download subtitles which interestingly as it is built in to android VLC.

However, I find the downloader often downloads the wrong subtitle file e.g. an older episode.

I now use a great tool which I cannot remember name until I get home, where you drag and drop the file name (can drag multiple names) from whatever directory and it automatically download subtitles to same directory with same filename but with .srt extension.

It was not free but only cost about £10 but is very quick and efficient and very rarely gets it wrong. So I just go to my plex folders, drag and drop names and up pop the subtitle files typically in less than 30 seconds.

 

Hi there

You can still get subtitles from Opensubtitles.org if they exist -- however the OLD app allows you to select your own subtitle file --so you could have in the same folder as your move a sub directory say called subs with a load of subtitles say eng.srt / fr.srt etc -- just like the PC application -- this feature doesn't work in the new update on amazon -- it will only look at the "internal card" directory --won't look at any others at all.

I hate it when an update REMOVES a very useful feature and there's no way of restoring the old one.

Same with KODI -- you can't select an individual subtitle file when playing a movie or TV show from your own streams !!!.

Cheers
jimbo

 

Hi there
@cereberus

Solved !! as fortunately I still had the previous version of VLC running on my phone - the one BEFORE release 2.1.1 for android - although there are some archive sites on the net where you can still download older versions.

UNINSTALL the VLC app onthe fire TV first before proceeding :


1) Found Free app which I installed to phone called Apps to Firetv
2) set Fire TV to enable sideloading of apps (go into settings --> developer options
3) start the Apps to FireTV app on the phone
4) enter IP address of your Fire TV
5) select LOCAL apps and scroll to VLC
6) click Install -- it now installs on the FireTV

Works fine and I've saved a copy of the .apk file in case another update kills it again !!!!!

Got my external subtitle directories accessible etc again. -- I wonder if people ever ask USERS after an upgrade before rolling stuff out.

I've now saved a copy of all the apps I'm satisfied with (the .apk files) on to my external SD card on the phone so if this type of thing happens again I can always revert back to older / previous versions.

Cheers
jimbo