Keeping TiviGlass healthy

The check tells you what it compared: the build number you are on, and whether it looked at the stable channel alone or stable and beta together. Because beta and stable share one build counter, a stable release published after a beta is the newer build — so “you’re on the latest version” with beta updates switched on is a correct answer, not a sign the opt-in failed. Settings › Help & about › About TiviGlass › Version shows which build and release channel you are running, and pressing OK on it opens Updates & storage › App updates. Above it, two lines say which TV this is (This TV: make, model and Android version) and what the TV service in use has stored on it (On this TV: channels, movies and shows). If the update service cannot be reached the screen says so rather than claiming you are up to date.

Later puts optional updates aside for a few days, including any newer build published in the meantime. Backing out of the panel does not: it clears the offer for now and it returns at the next check, so a prompt dismissed part-way through a programme is not taken as a decision to stop being told. Check for updates always looks, whichever you chose.

Updates install over the top — your playlists, profiles and recordings are untouched. In the Google Play version, Google Play keeps TiviGlass up to date, and App updates is a single line, Updates from Google Play; pressing OK on it opens TiviGlass in Google Play. On the first launch after an update, What’s new shows those full release notes once more; it does not appear when somebody installs TiviGlass for the first time. The first time an update is installed, the TV may ask permission to install apps from TiviGlass; that’s a one-off.

If an update stops before Android’s installer even opens — an older version says APK signing certificate mismatch, or a current one says the update can’t be installed automatically — download the current APK from tiviglass.com and open it once. When Android accepts it, it installs over the existing app without clearing its data; future in-app updates then use the corrected check. If Android’s own installer instead says the app is incompatible, stop and contact support rather than uninstalling, so your local data can be protected first.

TiviGlass needs Android 6.0 or newer (Fire OS 6 or newer on Amazon devices), and has since version 2.1.1. On an Android 5 box, including a Fire OS 5 stick, Android refuses every newer version with App not installed or There was a problem parsing the package, whether the update comes from the app or from tiviglass.com. That is the device’s Android version rather than a damaged download, so trying again will not help, and uninstalling will not either: a fresh install is refused the same way.

Quick connection test checks only your internet and TV services, and Check my saved data only what is stored on this TV. Recent activity shows what the app just tried. View device log and Save a support report, the redacted diagnostics export, are under Privacy & device log; the export never contains passwords or stream URLs.

Send crash reports, on the same page, sends a technical report when something goes wrong, so the fault can be found and fixed. While it is on, it also sends a short summary of how smoothly video played. That summary is numbers only, goes at most once a week, and only when you have watched at least 10 minutes of video since the last one. It says how long video played, how often it stopped to buffer and how smooth the picture was, along with the device details a crash report carries. Nothing you watch is named in it. Turn the setting off and the summary stops.

A run keeps going if you leave it. Choose Keep running when you press Back and a small banner stays at the top of the screen with your report ID and how far it has got; come back to Settings › Help & about › Fix a problem › Find and fix a problem and you pick up exactly where you left off, or read the finished report. One exception: a run that includes a playback check cannot be left running, because it needs the video player you are about to go back to — there, Back simply cancels and keeps whatever finished. Whatever you choose, the checks that already ran are kept in Previous runs.

Every run has a report ID like TGD-M3K8QF2-1, shown on the results screen. Copy report puts a short plain-text summary on the clipboard for support: the ID, which checks ran and whether each passed, and nothing else — no channel names, no server addresses, no passwords.

You don’t have to come here to find these. When a channel fails to play, the Get help button on the error takes you straight to the right row with it already highlighted — the health check if the channel never started, or self diagnostics if it started and then stopped. Press Back and you are returned to whatever you were watching or browsing before, not left in Settings. If the setting has moved or been renamed in a newer version, TiviGlass opens the page it is on and tells you it moved, rather than silently landing you somewhere blank.

Anything already on screen stays there when a refresh fails. If your channels, movies or guide are already loaded and an update cannot complete, TiviGlass keeps showing what it has and puts a small line at the top explaining why, rather than emptying the screen. An empty screen therefore means genuinely empty, not “the refresh went wrong”.

A message never blames your internet for something that happened on the box, or the other way round. If it says storage on this device, your broadband is not the problem.

Options that would not do anything on the screen you are looking at are simply not shown. The profile screen appears before the rest of the app exists, so it offers Try again and nothing else; the same failure on the Home screen also offers Run a check, because self diagnostics is reachable from there.

During first-time setup, a step that was tried and did not finish now says so under the card, so Try again is not the only clue that something went wrong.

Clearing the cache never touches favourites, custom names, groups or recordings — those are stored separately and rebuild on top of the fresh catalogue.

Anything on this page that clears or resets in bulk asks you to confirm first, and the confirmation now starts with an Applies to line saying how far the change reaches — This TV service, This device or Your whole account. Read that line rather than guessing from the title: “Restore all group names” affects only the TV service you are using, while “Remove device” affects your account on every TV. On anything irreversible the highlight starts on Cancel, so it always takes a deliberate move to go ahead.

TiviGlass also tidies up on its own. If you have several playlists and haven’t opened one for about a month, its downloaded movie list, show list and TV guide are released to free up space; the playlist itself, and everything you set up on it, stay exactly where they are. The next time you switch to that playlist it fetches them again, so the first load takes a little longer than usual. Anything you starred, added to your watchlist, put in a custom folder or renamed is kept, so it keeps showing up in your lists in the meantime. A playlist you imported from a file is never touched this way, because there would be nothing to download it back from.

The first person to use the code is the only person who can claim that session. If TiviGlass restarts, it safely resumes an unfinished session and does not repeat a completed support action. Passwords, tokens and stream URLs are stripped before results leave the TV. Sessions end themselves after 20 minutes of inactivity and cannot last more than two hours.

Take a backup first (how-to 63). If cloud sync is on, a reset device pulls its data back down as soon as you sign in again.