Samsung Phones SmartView Application Bug

Fixing Problems With Samsung Phone SmartView Application

By Strictly-Software 

I have a Samsung Galaxy S8 mobile phone and recently I have had issues with the inbuilt SmartView application that allows you to mirror the screen of your phone to nearby devices such as Televisions, Rokus, Chromecasts and other Wifi enabled devices.

You access the app by using the swipe down settings panel at the top of the phone. It's on the second page accessed by swiping left and it's in the top right hand corner. See the below screenshot of my settings panel.

Whilst many applications that let you play videos have a "Play with external device" option that allows you to select the useful app AllCast before the device to then show the video on, some apps don't have a Chromecast beam square or option to play on an external device. 

This is where mirroring your screen is useful as you can just mirror yours phones screen to a TV and anything you do on the phone is then shown on the TV. The downside is that you can't use the phone or other apps whilst mirroring without your TV showing that app. However if you can use AllCast 
you can play a TV show, film or video from your phone on your TV but still use your phone to access other apps or make calls.

Up until last week everything worked fine, I could select SmartView and the apps little loading icon spins before local devices are shown to pick from. In my lounge I can pick from my Samsung 4k TV or the Chromecast device attached to it. This also allows me to beam videos from apps like YouTube that I don't want to mirror my phones screen to, or apps like sporting apps that don't have options to use AllCast to beam with.

In another room I have a Panasonic TV which also has a Roku attached and both could be used by AllCast or my phone to mirror to.The SmartView app used to be able to pick all 4 devices up and I could choose which TV or device to mirror my phone to.

However for some reason as I was watching a football game by mirroring my screen so the app could show the game on a big screen I left my pad. The connection was disconnected but when I came back I tried to use SmartView to re-connect it to my TV, but no devices were shown as available. In fact it didn't even look like it was scanning the room to find any devices to play to. Nothing was spinning in the corner and only the About Us and Contact us options were shown.

I filed numerous bug reports using Samsung's useful Members app and I had a reply that told me to go into System Settings, Applications, Select Show System Apps, choose SmartView then clear its cache. I did this but it didn't fix anything.

However tonight I came across a fix. I had to turn developer options on. You do this by going into Settings then About Phone and in there select Software Information before clicking on the Build Number about 7 times and it will give you the Developer Options.

In there you scroll down to Networking and turn on the option called "Wireless Display Certification"..

I then went into SmartView and it started spinning again, however a new panel appeared at the bottom with numerous WiFi connection options that I just ignored.

I then just scrolled to the bottom of these options and there appeared my selection of devices, in this case my TV and Chromecast.

And on choosing one, once again my phones screen was now mirrored to my TV.

I have no idea why this worked or what stopped SmartView from working in the first place but by doing my own debugging and playing around with the networking options I managed to solve what Samsung Tech Support couldn't. 

Hopefully this fix may help other Samsung phone users who have the same issue as me.

By Strictly-Software

© 2020 Strictly-Software

ShowBox Has Stopped Working - Getting Popcorn Time to install on a Kindle Fire Tablet

ShowBox Has Stopped Working! Get a replacement application onto your Kindle Fire or Tablet

By Strictly-Software

Showbox has stopped working.

Hopefully this is a temporary situation but as it provides great TV and Films I needed a replacement. This is how I got Popcorn Time onto my Kindle Fire, a tablet that didn't seem to want to take any .APK file from the web in the first place.

If you have a standard tablet then you should just be able to do a search for the Popcorn time APK and download and install the APK file on your tablet as long as you have turned on the ability to install applications from unsafe locations (e.g the web and not Playstore/Amazon store).

Remember to go to Settings -> Security -> Install Unknown Apps and enable whilst trying to install from a website.

If you want an easy way you can just go to the website https://watch.popcorntime-online.tv and then you can select films or TV shows and watch them directly on your laptop.

If you have a Chromecast you can stream the content to a TV that its plugged into OR if you have a WiFi enabled TV you should be able to select the TV of your choice.

Another way would just be to connect your laptop to your TV with an HDMI cable and get the picture that way. However I wanted the application on my Kindle Fire as its easy to hold and I can take it from room to room and stream it from that device to the main TV or bedroom TV or just watch it on the tablet.

If you want to use a tablet try using the USB cable and connect it to your laptop first and see if it shows as an external device. If it does then just copy the Popcorn APK file across and install it.

I tried this but the Kindle didn't show up despite updating drivers. However try this before the FTP steps below.

Full Requirements for these steps to work...

-A Wifi enabled TV or Chromecast that can handle streamed content
-Kindle Fire or another tablet
-ES File Explorer application working on your tablet (download from PlayStore or web)
-TOR Browser (download from Google to get around blocked sites)
-FileZilla FTP App (or another FTP app - free to download

So to get Popcorn TV onto my Kindle I had to do the following steps...

1. Use TOR Browser and go to https://popcorn-time.en.uptodown.com/android/download (other sites I checked wanted payment for download or had dead links)
2. Download the file to your laptop/PC and remember the location
3. Open the ES File Explorer on Kindle/tablet
4. Go to Remote Manager
5. Press the "Turn ON" button
6. You will be given a local IP address for viewing your tablets files by FTP e.g ftp://192.168.1.125:3725. If you enter that into a web browser you should see the contents of your Kindle however to transfer the downloaded file I used FileZilla a free FTP app for transferring files.
-Open Filezilla and select "New Site"
-Enter the IP address and port number into the boxes
-Chose FTP Plain Insecure
-Chose Anonymous login
-Select the Transfer Settings tab and ensure "Passive" is selected
-Hit connect and as long as the "TURN ON" button is still enabled on your Kindle/Tablet in ES FIle Explorer you should get to see your tablets Hard Drive
-You can then copy the popcorn-time-3-2-2.apk file from the file you downloaded it to on your computer to the downloads folder on your Kindle/Tablet.
-Select the Download folder in ES File Explorer once copied and select "Install"
-It should install the APK
-You can then open it, select a file and hit the Cast button to stream it to your TV or ChromeCast
-I had to open the app a couple of times at first as it was a bit shaky but it is now playing a movie on my TV okay.

Hope this helps people out ....

© 2018 Strictly-Software