eweri

EyeTV 4 - Problems with iPhone/iPad access

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Hello!

I was running a Mac mini with EyeTV 3 for years as  "video server" in my home network. Most of the time i was watching with my iPad. With EyeTV 3 on my Mac mini there was no problem at all.

Because I wanted to update my Mac mini from High Sierra to Catalina, I bought my second licence for EyeTV 4. I am running EyeTV 4 since "day one" on my MacBook Pro and after a few updates live TV and recordings had no problem. Accessing the shared film library from my Mac mini running EyeTV 3 was no problem.

Last week I upgraded my Mac mini to Catalina and EyeTV 4 (8524) and experienced that iPad access does not run at all. Even live TV was not possible.

I setup EyeConnect in Security preferences to "fulldiskaccess" and than live TV was possible - but video of HD (1280x720 Video) is scattering on my iPad. Audio ist okay. SD video (720x576 Video) works as expected. I wanted to view some recordings from the shared library but this was not possible at all. Always got the message "preparing for access ..." but nothing happened. Even when I select "Prepare for iPhone access" from the content menu in EyeTV 4 nothing happens.

So - iPhone/iPad access to HD live TV is buggy and access to the library is completely broken. I think this is a problem with the new security feature of Catalina. Looks like EyeTV can not start den Elgato H.265 Encoder by its own.

 

If someone found a solution or work around, please let me know.

I contacted the support of Geniatech

 

Bye,

eweri

 

 

 

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On 3/19/2021 at 9:54 AM, eweri said:

I setup EyeConnect in Security preferences to "fulldiskaccess" and than live TV was possible - but video of HD (1280x720 Video) is scattering on my iPad.

Thank you for that tip – I thought iPhone/iPad access was just broken in EyeTV 4, turns out enabling Full Disk Access for EyeConnect does the trick.

Hey Geniatech, it would be really helpful if EyeTV 4 told me to enable Full Disc Access for EyeConnect. 🙄

 

On 3/19/2021 at 9:54 AM, eweri said:

but video of HD (1280x720 Video) is scattering on my iPad. (...) I wanted to view some recordings from the shared library but this was not possible at all. Always got the message "preparing for access ..." but nothing happened. Even when I select "Prepare for iPhone access" from the content menu in EyeTV 4 nothing happens.

Full HD channels (1920 x 1080) stutter in EyeTV 4 (8524) and when streamed to iPhone/iPad.
HD Ready channels (1280 x 720) work fine on my Mac mini (2018, Catalina, 3,2 GHz 6-Core i7, 8 GB RAM) and when streamed to iPhone/iPad.
Streaming recordings from the library to iPhone/iPad does not work – I get the same message "Preparing for access" and nothing happens. "Prepare for iPhone Access" in EyeTV 4 similarly does nothing.

 

There's a slew of other bugs in EyeTV 4, from the top of my head...

  • the app crashing when changing channels using the number-keys in fullscreen
  • the channel list not saving, or not being able to select a previously saved channel list
  • black borders left and right of the TV window when going from fullscreen to window mode
  • the channel/program information being displayed incorrectly in the center of the window, sometimes missing the black background
  • the slider to scrub forwards and backwards sometimes not working correctly
  • closing the TV window (Cmd-W) and pressing spacebar to reopen/resume does not work
  • sometimes wrong aspect ration when going fullscreen


EyeTV 4 (8524) isn't as bad as some people make it out to be here in the forum, but it still requires a lot of work. I'm hoping Geniatech will address these bugs quickly.

Edited by Rammy

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Hello Rammy! 

Were you able to give EyeTV 4 the right to control EyeTV Helper? It in the Preferences under Security -> Automation. The Web-Site says that you should add grant EyeTV access to EyeTV Helper but it not possible to grant this right manually. 

I looked into the system.log when I try to access the library from my iPhone and it looks like EyeTV is missing an "entitlement" that tells the os "This app needs the right to control other apps" and so it looks to me that always when EyeTV wants to control EyeTV Helper this is reject by security policy. This can be fixed by the programmer only.

I`ve send an email to geniatech with my findings and some references to some web-sites but I got no reply. A few days ago version 8526 was released - but no change. 

This is what i found and send to geniatech:

Quote

Hello!

 
I just dig deeper into the problem and it seams that macOS 10.15 is more restrictive to data security. I found three errors in system log and if I understand these errors right EyeTV has to be patched to fix them. I am not a developer but I think these bugs could be fixed really easy. 
 
1. First bug shows that a framework within the EyeTV.app is not codesigned. I do not know if this is really a bug but I think it should be fixed before it is getting bug ;-).
 
kernel: (AppleMobileFileIntegrity) Library Validation failed: Rejecting '/Applications/EyeTV.app/Contents/Frameworks/SDL.framework/Versions/A/SDL' (Team ID: none, platform: no) for process 'EyeTV(976)' (Team ID: W9NK3V6JM4, platform: no), reason: mapped file has no cdhash, completely unsigned? Code has to be at least ad-hoc signed.
 
2. Second bug shows that EyeTV is not allowed to control other apps. Well, that is how I understand this error, maybe I am wrong.
 
tccd: [com.apple.TCC:access] Prompting policy for hardened runtime; service: kTCCServiceAppleEvents requires entitlement com.apple.security.automation.apple-events but it is missing for ACC:{ID: com.elgato.eyetv, PID[976], auid: 501, euid: 501, binary path: '/Applications/EyeTV.app/Contents/MacOS/EyeTV'}, REQ:{ID: com.apple.appleeventsd, PID[421], auid: 55, euid: 55, binary path: '/System/Library/CoreServices/appleeventsd'}
 
3. Third bug shows that EyeTV Helper is not allowed to control other apps.
 
tccd: [com.apple.TCC:access] Prompting policy for hardened runtime; service: kTCCServiceAppleEvents requires entitlement com.apple.security.automation.apple-events but it is missing for ACC:{ID: com.elgato.eyetvhelper, PID[597], auid: 501, euid: 501, binary path: '/Library/Application Support/EyeTV/EyeTV Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/EyeTV Helper'}, REQ:{ID: com.elgato.eyetvhelper, PID[597], auid: 501, euid: 501, binary path: '/Library/Application Support/EyeTV/EyeTV Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/EyeTV Helper'}
 
AFAIK bug 2 and 3 could be fixed easy - once again I am not a developer - EyeTV and EyeTV Helper have to be compiled with entitlement.plist that describes what access rights and which personal data and folders the app wants to access.
 
Hope this helps to fix the worst bugs in EyeTV, I like to see EyeTV 4 running as good as EyeTV 3 did. I really need this fix really soon. If i can help with beta testing let me know.
 
Thanks, best regards

and this is what i found on the web:

Quote

Hello!

 
I forgot to send you some links that mention the problem and solved it by adding the entitlement.plist
 
 

Maybe this helps someone.

Bye,

eweri

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Hi eweri!

2 hours ago, eweri said:

Were you able to give EyeTV 4 the right to control EyeTV Helper? It in the Preferences under Security -> Automation. The Web-Site says that you should add grant EyeTV access to EyeTV Helper but it not possible to grant this right manually.  

No, in macOs Catalina I cannot grant EyeTV access to control EyeTV Helper in System Preferences > Security > Privacy > Automations. I don't think you can add permissions manually. In macOS Mojave on my other machine it is there.

iPhone/iPad access worked when I enabled Full Disc Access for EyeConnect in System Preferences > Security > Privacy like you suggested and as detailed here. Even without the Automations entry.

However, there seems to be a problem with the latest release (8526) as I don't get any audio when I stream to my iPhone/iPad.
When I terminate the processes EyeTV Helper and EyeConnect using Activity Montitor and stream to my iPhone/iPad using EyeTV build 8524 I do get audio.
Maybe having two EyeTV builds on my system causes a conflict with EyeConnect... I don't know.

 

I'm happy to report that three bugs I detailed in my previous post seem to have been fixed in the latest build 8526.

  • black borders left and right of the TV window when going from fullscreen to window mode 
  • the channel/program information being displayed incorrectly in the center of the window, sometimes missing the black background 
  • sometimes wrong aspect ration when going fullscreen 

I would gladly post more bugs that I come across, but I'm not sure if Geniatech even reads them.

So Geniatech, if you read this let me know! An official forum for EyeTV 4 would also be appreciated, maybe a thread to post bugs? You guys really need to work on your communication with your customers – replying to a few comments on Facebook isn't enough.

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