DANGER! This precodure worked for me. I can't guarantee that this also works for you. You might brick your device.
Hey everyone,
I wasted the last 2 days but I found a way to update the firmware of my Netstream 4C from version 1.1.0-365r1 to version 1.1.0.402r1V1. The FAQ and the articles on the Geniatech site are a lie. You can do it with MacOS, Windows or Linux but not with your smartphone (or maybe you can if you can find a super old version of the EyeTV netstream phone app but I don't have access to those)
You just need to find the right Eyetv3 version for MacOS and download it. You cannot update with EyeTV4. I found the firmware update only inside the MacOS versions of EyeTV3. I could not find any Windows installers for EyeTV3...maybe the firmware is also present in the Windows version.
Why do this?
I was having trouble getting the device to work with TVHeadend and Kodi, so I thought an update might help. Later I found out that I was lucky and with my original 1.1.0-365r1 firmware it actually works with TVHeadend, Kodi, EyeTV and the EyeTV Netstream App all at the same time without any modifications right out of the box.
I also saw that some of you don't get EyeTV4 to recognize the Netstream 4C so this might be worth a try.
Then a fow days later I found out how to make it work just as well with the 1.1.0.402r1V1 firmware and TVHeadend...see bottom paragraph.
Step 1 - Downloading the right EyeTV3 version:
The firmware file is inside the EyeTV programm files...but only in specific versions. I found it in in versions:
- 3.6.8 (7407)
- 3.6.9 (7412, 7415, 7512, 7513 and 7514)
You can download one of them here:
http://file.geniatech.com/eyetv3/Geniatech_eyetv_3.6.9_7514.dmg
If you want another version you can just change the last 4 numbers of the link. Send me a message and I'll send you a mirror link if this site ever goes down.
Step 2 - Extracting the firmware:
If you're on MacOS:
- mount the .dmg file
- then don't install it, just right click on the EyeTV icon and select "Show Package Contents"
- then go into the folders Contents -> Resources -> Firmware -> SATIP
- in this folder you can find the file "V1.update"
- copy this file onto your desktop
alternative:
- install it and do the update from within EyeTV in the Preferences -> Devices -> Info Menu -> Update Firmware Button
On Windows:
- extract the .dmg with 7zip
- navigate to EyeTV.app -> Contents -> Resources -> Firmware -> SATIP
- in this folder you can find the file "V1.update"
- copy this file onto your desktop
The checksums are:
MD5: d4268e5c3981fdca13d4d729735895fb
SHA256: 3005e7fdf3459e523b95d0e4c4c612f6cf4d5d5ea23f6bbacf1c6efafa1bf9bf
Step 3 - Intalling the firmware:
- find out what IPv4-adress your Netstream 4C has on you LAN-Network (look it up in the app or your router)
- for me it was 192.168.0.157 (this is different for everyone!)
- type this address in your browser like this: http://192.168.0.157
- on my firmware version there was just a button that opens a dialog where I select the firmware file and then press the "upload file" button
This step might be different depending on your current firmware version. Maybe you have to click somewhere else first to get to the firmware update menu. (might upload some screenshots later)
After you uploaded the firmware, the device will reboot and you can check the firmware version either in the Netstream app, EyeTV or if you log onto the device via ssh with "root" as username and "service" as password an then type "Tombea --version". The IP of the device might have changed, so don't panic if the site doesn't reload.
For me, if I now reset the device, it'll downgrade and go back to my original firmware. I don't know if this is the same for everyone. It might depend on what your original firmware is. To reset I switched the device off, held down the reset button while flipping the switch on again and then released it when both the orange and the blue led were both light up constantly.
some background and why I know all of this:
I was trying to find this out for days and could not find any guide on how to do this. In every thread nobody actually says how they did it. So I wanted to find it out. I installed VirtualBox and set up a MacOS Mojave VM on my Windows PC. I did it with this guide: https://www.intoguide.com/install-macos-mojave-virtualbox-windows/
The download links are dead on the site above. I downloaded MacOS Mojave 10.14.3 HFS by Geekrar here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KArkWq9y1HClDAZF0CEHALwdn_Qr48-X
You also need to set your network adaptor to network bridge mode, otherwise you can't detect the Netstream 4C from inside the VM.
In the VM I installed one of the EyeTV3 versions metioned above and updated the Netstream from inside Eyetv while running Wireshark to scan my network traffic. I was surprised, that while updating there was no connection to an external server to download the firmware update. That's how I concluded that the firmware must be on my PC already. After some digging I found it in EyeTV's file folder.
In Wireshark I saw, that EyeTV on port 49803 send a HTTP POST on the /fwupload URI and then sent a file with 14339107 bytes via TCP to the IP of my Netstream 4C on port 80. The only file with this size on my PC is "V1.update", therefore it had to be the firmware of the Netstream 4C.
Also I think the 4C and the 4SAT share the same firmware update. On all versions of EyeTV there is never a folder explicitly for either the 4SAT or the 4C...only the folder SATIP. I think they have a different base firmware but the updates are the same. I can't confirm this since I don't have a 4SAT. Don't rely on my assumption.
I also think that this firmware update file is not the whole firmware. I'm not super deep into Linux but I think that this part of the firmware is just a programm on the device that just gets started after the update instead of the original firmware and the reset button just deletes this file and it then reboots again with the base firmware....that's my assumption. Otherwise if it was written to ROM you couldn't go back to the old firmware version.
making it work with TVHeadend on the new firmware:
I saw this thread on the TVHeadend forums and a person named Marti McFly describes how to make it work.
https://tvheadend.org/issues/5101#note-39
They say that this way, the offical app won't find the device but in my experience, with android app version 2.1.43 it still recognizes the Netstream....But I guess if you want TVHeadend, you would use Kodi and not the official app.
I think this whole procedure is only useful for you, if you want to use EyeTV with your Netstream 4C and it currently does not find it with your older firmware version....or if you are on a firmware version, on which the device doesn't work with TVHeadend. So far I can't see any other benefits...so if everything is working for you, just stay on your version.
