It really is a shame that the Tube doesn't have a USB port. Atleast it recognizes ExFAT though..
I mostly figured this out. A workaround for now: attach your USB to a computer, format it there (ideally as ExFAT), then create the folder structure: Android/data/com.getchannels.dvr/DVR
Now when you attach to the Android box and install Channels DVR, you can pick that directory. Apparently we have permissions to write into it if it exists, but not create it in the first place.
I will be uploading a new DVR apk with a real fix.
Yes.. i agree that itās too bad they didnāt put a USB port on the Tube. When I bought it I had planned on using a 1.5TB drive I have here. Instead had to run out and get a high endurance SD. For my current recording needs this should do the trick for a bit.. Time will tell. If i had known I probably would have forked out a bit more for the Shield Pro.
Iām aware. But if my plan is to not have a self contained system that doesnāt rely on any server in the home then this option falls apart pretty quickly.
But itās probably what Iāll end up doing.
KC
Do I need to do this or do you think my work around of all data from the TV saved to the flash drive is enough?
You are using adopted storage so my caveats from above apply:
Apparently none of the FireTV devices support ExFAT or NTFS. This means we cannot use removable storage on FireTVs for DVR.
The only option left for FireOS is device (adopted) storage. I have been hesitant to recommend that so far, because it makes transferring the DVR much harder. With removable storage you can just move the USB drive to another computer. Now you can't do that anymore. And if the android device dies or is reset, the encrypted data on the USB is lost.
If you're going to use internal storage: please be aware of the caveats above. You may lose all your passes and recordings, and you may be in for a challenge if you decide to move the DVR to another NAS. If you care a lot about your DVR data, it might be worth looking into some android data backup solutions.
Thanks for the info. on the storage. We double record on Channels and YTTV//Philo so adopted storage isnāt too big an issue for us. Since Iāve got it working Iām gonna stick with it. Please let me know if you ever need me to test anything or send logs for Channels on the Android TV to help out.
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Update. It seems something happened that resulted in my SD Card being unreadable overnight. Not quite sure what, I'm in another state away from the DVR, so it's pretty much dead in the water seeing that I can't issue a reboot from here.
I can access the Channels DVR Web Interface but Settings won't load, the Client app says 0 of 0GB is available which is what's making me think something ended up getting in the way of the storage suddenly. The Diags are spinning on checking storage. And I can't gather logs to submit (They are probably on the storage)
We went to be streaming the news last night.. woke up this AM to it being disconnected. I'm guessing Android did something odd. I suspect a reboot will probably fix it. Sounds like I need to put a smart switch in the way of the power path. Doh!
Is there some way to remotely control Android like VNC or something? Maybe that would help me too as I could issue a restart that way. I'll do some digging.
KC
yeah I may have to do that. Either that or just throw some kinda of automated switch in front of it. Or see if I can get my Harmony Remote to do some kind of sequence that causes a reboot (but that seems more brittle)
I just issued a curl -XPUT http://x.x.x.x:8089/updater/force/restart and now it's completely dead, which would be expected if it can't load anything off the SD.
Oh well. I'll have to live without TV while away this weekend. This is the lot in life of experiments 
We had a power outage at home this AM and as expected the SD card came back as soon as that happened. Back in business. Wonder what made the SD card go away. Itās moot anyway as I have a Pro on order and will be switching to a USB Drive. Will be nice to Get on something less finicky in general.
Iām hopeful I can figure out some remote control for when Iām away from home like now I think with the USB port on the pro I can enable the android dev access and then be able to send System commands that way from another host on the network.
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You could also plug the power into a smart switch to at least give you remote on/off capabilities if something goes totally south.
Yeah i think thatās what Iāll end up doing. All moved over to the Shield Pro tonight and ported from an SD Card to a much bigger external HD. I love how portable Channels is.
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Not sure if either will work. Try them and see. Let us know.
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You can have the server installed on multiple devices but only one can be running at a time on your network. You will also need to restart the app on any device that is open abd connect to the original server. Either have the others powered off or disable the server from running.
The easiest way to set up a new server is to back up your database then copy the dvr folder to your USB drive. When you first set up the new server there is an option to transfer your existing data.
I'm trying to set up both on my TS4K and Sony Android Smart TV. I cannot get either to read my external harddrives(250GB, 500GB, and 1TB). I have formated them as exFat. The DVR server page says permission denied. The device file explorer says "This device does not appear to support the Android Storage Access Framework".
Am I able to use a hard drive as external storage or do I have to format it for internal storage?
@tmm1 we moved to the pro and a 1.5TB external HD on Sunday. Today while at the other home we are noticing the disk has detached itself from the shield pro as well. Channels is running because itās in memory but the disk seems to be totally gone.
Have you seen others where the android mounted disk gets effectively ejected after some time?
Itās not adopted. Itās just a normal usb disk formatted exFAT. (Before on the tube it was an SD also not adopted)
Seems like a pattern is brewing. I have the pro set never to go to sleep and to run full power. Not really sure if there are other strategies I should be considering to keep the server healthy. I didnāt get a chance to setup a smart switch so Iām toast until we get home or luck out with a power outage. but I can troubleshoot more tomorrow evening.
Did you go into settings and make sure the Shield USB ports are always powered ?
There are settings for USB Mode max performance and USB Port Always on settings.
Device Preferences > System.
Yes - I made sure that they are set to always powered.