Issues with the Latest Firmware on Nvidia Shield TV Devices - How To Fix

[Jason Carr]

17 hours ago, sage2050 said:

Lauchbox on my phone running A12 can't see usb or network storage either.

Please let me know what device you're using.

[sage2050]

Pixel 6. File Manager+ can browse external, launchbox cant see it.

[Jason Carr]

Hey all, LaunchBox for Android version 1.1-beta-1 is out now with a workaround for accessing network shares on the Nvidia Shield. The first post of this topic has been updated with all of the updated details (again). Thanks for bearing with us as we work through all of the Nvidia Shield issues.

As far as we know, the only remaining issue with the Shield (assuming you've gone through the rigamarole to update to the latest Nvidia firmware) is that there's still no access to the USB drives in any app. This appears to be a still-remaining bug with the latest versions of the firmware.

[Jason Carr]

On 2/20/2022 at 8:08 AM, Jason Carr said:

Please let me know what device you're using.

It's possible that the beta release I just put out (above) could fix whatever issue you're running into with network storage on the Pixel 6. But honestly, I have no idea what you might be running into there. The Pixel 6 *should* have already worked just fine with network and USB drives.

[sage2050]

I'll mess around with it some more. i dont really use my phone for emulation, i was just playing with it while i was away from home.

[afiredroid]

On 2/8/2022 at 3:56 PM, Jason Carr said:

So on top of Google's failures and poor design decisions with Android 11, unfortunately Nvidia managed to screw things up even further by releasing a completely broken update to Android 11 for all Nvidia Shield TV devices. As of posting this topic on February 8, 2022, the issues have still not been fixed in the latest official release of the Nvidia firmware. The latest official release prevents many apps from properly using storage on Nvidia Shield TV devices.

First off, if you have not yet upgraded to the 9.0.0 release of the Nvidia Shield TV software, then don't. Stick with your current firmware. The latest release is very broken and buggy and is guaranteed to give you many issues.

The latest official release as of making this post is 9.0.0 (33.1.0.236). You can check your current version by going to Settings > Device Preferences > About > Shield Android TV SW Version on your Shield device. If your current version is less than this version, please don't update, or you'll run into issues. If you're on this version, though, the below steps should help to resolve your inevitable issues.

We can all thank Nvidia for releasing such terrible/broken software, and then making it so convoluted to download the fix.

Edit (2022-02-21): This "fix" from Nvidia will allow proper access to both internal storage, the SD card, and network drives for LaunchBox to access. However, it will *not* fix the issues with USB drives. As far as we can tell, these are still very broken in the Nvidia firmware, and as far as we know there's literally nothing we can do to fix the issue until Nvidia gets it fixed.

Here are the steps to fix the issues:

1. Click this link: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/shield-tv/9/481434/shield-experience-upgrade-90-hotfix-image/
2. On the above page, click the first green link in the main content, which should take you to a Google Forms page (sigh).
3. Enter your email onto this page (on the bottom).
4. Look up your Nvidia Shield TV serial number under Settings > Device Preferences > About > Status on your Shield device, and carefully type it into the serial number field (obviously don't remove the DONTDELETE- portion - it's like they're REALLY trying to make this complicated, eh?)
5. Click the Submit button.
6. Wait for what they say is 24-48 hours. For us, it took around 3 hours before we were able to download the update on our Shield device.
7. Go back to your Shield device and go to Settings > Device Preferences > About > System upgrade and select "Check for upgrade".
8. If the system tells you that no upgrade is available, you'll have to give it another hour or two and try again. Otherwise, if you're prompted to upgrade, go ahead and go through the upgrade process.

After upgrading, you should be on version 9.0.1 (33.1.0.283), and all (see bold text above) issues with the latest beta version of LaunchBox should be fixed. However, as of writing this post, you will need the latest beta version of LaunchBox for Android in order to fix some of the issues with Android 11 on the Shield TV.

That should get you up and running. Our apologies for the hassles here, even though we really couldn't do much about these issues. Feel free to post about your experiences with this or ask for help below. Happy gaming.

 

Using ES File Explorer side loaded on the Shield and allowing all permissions including your external drive is an easy alternative.

[afiredroid]

On 2/16/2022 at 3:37 PM, Jason Carr said:

So this is hilarious, or maybe I'm missing something, but I doubt it. I use the FX file manager from Google Play to browse files on the device. When I select my USB drive in FX, it pops up the standard scoped storage folder selection window. The sad thing is that the Android 11/12 folder selection window is completely broken on the Shield, because no matter how hard I try, it's impossible to press the "USE THIS FOLDER" button with the controller:

I sat there for 5 minutes trying to press every button on the controller to try and figure out how on earth to press that button. At this point, I'm not convinced that it's even possible lol. As hard as I try to press that button with my non-touchscreen, it never works.

To put this into perspective, this is the standard window that Google is forcing all emulators to use to find media and/or ROMs, and it's completely broken on the Shield, even with the hotfixes. Sigh.

Is anyone else able to use the standard scoped storage file browser in any app on the Shield TV?

There's a Shield app for Android that I use on my phone. Once you pair it with your Shield you can use it as a d-pad and there's a drop down for track pad/mouse function. It's somewhat broken after the update where it looks like it's glitching out but give it a few seconds and then use your controller to make selections. This will allow you to mouse over and select anything on your screen.

[afiredroid]

On 2/16/2022 at 3:42 PM, Jason Carr said:

Also, I need to clarify some things from the original post above. The Nvidia hotfixes currently allow LaunchBox proper access to the internal storage and the SD card. What I didn't originally realize, is that I also have a USB drive connected, and that still is not accessible like it was before the Android 11/12 updates. Also, we already knew this, but the network drives are also not accessible. So Nvidia still has a lot of work to do to make this a fully usable experience. It's really too bad that they put out the Android releases with little to no proper testing in such a broken state.

Regardless, I would like to work through things to see if there's any chance at all that we can get access back for USB and network drives, instead of just waiting on Nvidia. If anyone is aware of any apps on the Shield that work properly to access USB and/or network drives, please let me know what they are so that I can test and see what I can figure out.

The above issue with the storage access window, though, really does not bode well.

ES File Explorer side loaded.

[LLL]

New to Launchbox. Very cool program! Got it up and running on my PC. Checked online to see if it's on Shield, and when I got home I went to install it, but it's nowhere to be found in the google play store. Am I missing something?

[neil9000]

34 minutes ago, Lightless said:

New to Launchbox. Very cool program! Got it up and running on my PC. Checked online to see if it's on Shield, and when I got home I went to install it, but it's nowhere to be found in the google play store. Am I missing something?

It's not available on the play store, only directly through us, more info here.

Download LaunchBox for Android (launchbox-app.com)

and to use it with more than 100 games you can by the premium license from here.

LaunchBox for Android - Purchase a License (launchbox-app.com)

[LLL]

32 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

It's not available on the play store, only directly through us, more info here.

Download LaunchBox for Android (launchbox-app.com)

and to use it with more than 100 games you can by the premium license from here.

LaunchBox for Android - Purchase a License (launchbox-app.com)

Got it, and installed it and it's up and running. Thanks so much! I suppose I should have thought about the sideloading idea, but I am new to the Shield as well, and don't use Android for anything else, hah.

Sorry, I don't mean to divert from the thread. I suppose this is more dedicated to issues with the firmware... So in good faith, I will pose a question related to such; is the new firmware on the shield keeping me from accessing my ROMs which are stored on my NAS? I seem to not be able to find the folder when importing to LB, even though my NAS is connected and accessible from the shield itself. Or is this an issue not related to the firmware and something I am doing?

[Jason Carr]

2 hours ago, Lightless said:

Got it, and installed it and it's up and running. Thanks so much! I suppose I should have thought about the sideloading idea, but I am new to the Shield as well, and don't use Android for anything else, hah.

Sorry, I don't mean to divert from the thread. I suppose this is more dedicated to issues with the firmware... So in good faith, I will pose a question related to such; is the new firmware on the shield keeping me from accessing my ROMs which are stored on my NAS? I seem to not be able to find the folder when importing to LB, even though my NAS is connected and accessible from the shield itself. Or is this an issue not related to the firmware and something I am doing?

If you get the beta updates from Nvidia, you should be able to access your NAS. I have this working currently. Nvidia makes it a long and convoluted process though.

[Joseph B]

So, with all the updates I can run LaunchBox and play the majority of my stuff on my Shield Pro, but I had to resort to using Retroarch.  I'm not a really big fan of Retroarch and would just rather use my .emu emulators.  The problem is that They keep reporting that I do not have file access to use them.  I can use them on their own, or in other frontends and they work like they are supposed to, just not in LaunchBox.  Any ideas on these?  As I would much rather use LaunchBox as my default frontend.  

 

Dig seems to work 100% with all my emulators I run.  Reset Collection works with all my .emu emulators, just not ColEm.  LaunchBox works with my MAME4Droid as well as my Snes9x EX+ emulators.

 

Thanks again for all your hard work Jason, I know it must be a pain trying to work around all the Android 11 bugs on top of the ones from nVidia and any other third party software.

[LLL]

On 3/25/2022 at 9:08 AM, Jason Carr said:

If you get the beta updates from Nvidia, you should be able to access your NAS. I have this working currently. Nvidia makes it a long and convoluted process though.

I never ended up getting this to work; do you have a specific guide/process that you followed/used when you said it was quite the chore to do? I have all the updates from Nvidia's beta updates but the NAS location still never showed up inside Launchbox. 😔

[Jason Carr]

On 4/11/2022 at 6:48 PM, Lightless said:

I never ended up getting this to work; do you have a specific guide/process that you followed/used when you said it was quite the chore to do? I have all the updates from Nvidia's beta updates but the NAS location still never showed up inside Launchbox. 😔

Just checked again and confirmed that the NAS locations do show up just fine for me on my Shield, when importing games. Where are you trying to browse for the NAS locations in LaunchBox?

[LLL]

15 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Just checked again and confirmed that the NAS locations do show up just fine for me on my Shield, when importing games. Where are you trying to browse for the NAS locations in LaunchBox?

As of early Monday, the folder browsing now shows my NAS! It didn’t before. But just as my luck would have it, (all I ever have is bad luck with technology it seems lol) Launchbox now freezes and then crashes every single time I try actually selecting my NAS folder. 

Import Games > Folder of Games to Import > /storage/MY-NAS/Data > *crashes*

It exits out of Launchbox entirely, then sends me to the Shield home screen.

[Jason Carr]

2 hours ago, Lightless said:

As of early Monday, the folder browsing now shows my NAS! It didn’t before. But just as my luck would have it, (all I ever have is bad luck with technology it seems lol) Launchbox now freezes and then crashes every single time I try actually selecting my NAS folder. 

Import Games > Folder of Games to Import > /storage/MY-NAS/Data > *crashes*

It exits out of Launchbox entirely, then sends me to the Shield home screen.

Wow, okay. That's not happening for me on my network. Unfortunately the Shield is obviously still a mess right now with their terrible firmwares. Hopefully it's a bug that they'll fix...eventually...?

[nanbean]

Hello. I am having trouble trying to install Launchbox for the Nvidia Shield. I'm met with multiple errors upon a new install.
Specs are as follows:

Android 11
Shield Android TV SW Version 9.0.2(33.1.0.319)
 

[Jason Carr]

@nanbean I don't have the versions memorized; have you updated to the latest Nvidia Shield beta (using the steps posted at the beginning of this topic)?

The Shield TV does require the LaunchBox folder to be inside of an Nvidia Shield folder in the root, if I remember correctly. I believe it should have defaulted to that. Did you change the path for the LaunchBox folder?

[nanbean]

@Jason Carr I have applied for the hotfix update that was listed in the OP of the thread. Now I just need to wait until I receive it. The Launchbox folder is wherever the installation places it, I haven't changed anything. This all happens upon first install. In the meantime, I have factory reset my Shield and will keep you updated.