Using chromecast offline (no internet) through a fixed flash rom. - Google Chromecast

So far chromecast needs an internet connection to cast content to it. That means chromecast can't be used to cast downloaded Netflix videos without any internet. Internet is rather difficult on a ship on the sea or in a caravan in the outback. It seems to me a rather valid request since more and more apps allow downloading content and use it offline. At least as long as the device is set up, offline using should be possible.
Would it be possible to build a fixed ROM analoge to the Flashcast-Autoroot ROM (https://forum.xda-developers.com/android-tv/chromecast/rom-flashcast-autoroot-t3270332) which just allows using chromecast without an internet connection provided setup is already done? Does anybody have any infos disregarding?

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Chromecast build with OTA updates disabled?

Hey!
I want to stream local media files from my pc to chromecast using fling.
I'm now on build 13300 with root/ADB enabled and OTA updates disabled.
So, I would like a Chromecast build (maybe 12840?) with OTA updates disabled.
Can someone give me a link, please?
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Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk
neocrux said:
Hey!
I want to stream local media files from my pc to chromecast using fling.
I'm now on build 13300 with root/ADB enabled and OTA updates disabled.
So, I would like a Chromecast build (maybe 12840?) with OTA updates disabled.
Can someone give me a link, please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Won't help. Fling etc. were blocked on the server side. Going back to an older firmware build will not make Fling work again.
but why does the chromecast have to call out to server if your streaming is via your pc to the tv ? cant something be turned off on the chromecast image to allow no connections to the server ? or have your pc emulate a server connection and tell the chromecast to allow your emulated server to connect to it and allow fling ?
That's what I wondered. Assumed it was impossible since nobody did it
Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk
BurnOmatic said:
but why does the chromecast have to call out to server if your streaming is via your pc to the tv ? cant something be turned off on the chromecast image to allow no connections to the server ? or have your pc emulate a server connection and tell the chromecast to allow your emulated server to connect to it and allow fling ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The chromecast on boot calls googles server to pull a list of available applications, and with "fling" removed from that list, the chromecast is unable to stream local content. Currently there is no way to disable this feature, and a PC can not emulate google's server call as all traffic is done over HTTPS with signed google certificates.
tl;dr, we can't really do anything until google lets us, which kind of sucks.

Casting Pandora outside of US

I can't seem to get Pandora to work on my Chromecast ... I've update the Pandora app and and I see the cast button, however when I click it I get a message saying "Oops! We were unable to connect you to Chromecast at this time". The chromecast displays a "Brain Freeze - something failed to load".
I have changed the nameservers on my router and updated the iptables scripts (I am in Canada). Pandora works fine on my phone on my wifi network. Also, Netflix works fine on my Chromecast too. Are there additional scripts required on the router?
Not currently subscribed to Unblock Us so I can't test right now. There's always the possibility Pandora is sending an IP address rather than a hostname to Chromecast.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Mind sharing where you found the updated Pandora APK for a fellow Canuck?
No need to find the Pandora apk, just temporarily change your Google Play store to a U.S. account and use a DNS/VPN service with U.S. gateway to connect and install Pandora.
You can always tab-cast Pandora from your PC to the Chromecast. The audio streaming performance is fine.

Foolproof way to cast videos

I am still looking for an easy way to play videos from my rooted htc one m7.
The videos are cc compatible, encoded with handbrake, low to medium bitrate, ie max 2 Mbps.
I tried the obvious one, bubble upnp first, unfortunately it didn't work AT ALL. I had to get the license refund back as really didn't do any chromecasting for me.
I am still trying to use Avia which so far is the best, in the sense it plays everything I throw at it. The problem with it, however, is occasionally stops in the middle of casting, eventually it restarts again either by itself or force restarting manually. One other thing, yesterday night the 50 mins video and I was casting stopped 3 times. This morning, after rebooting cc the whole video played fine, from end to end.
I tried several other casting programs such as local cast with lesser results.
My cc is running latest eureka.
M7 is running latest sense ROM and firmware, disabled wi-fi optimization, disabled greenify for whole streaming duration. Its logcat doesn't show anything relevant, such as no obvious avia crash.
Thanks for any idea on how to improve on this casting experience. I am no expert, I might be missing an obvious step or worker, so please don't hesitate to throw in anything on the matter.
Sent from my HTC One
I'm going to guess and say the content you are trying to stream is on your HTC device and not somewhere else...
Issue with that is most likely that the HTC is sending over Wireless while the CCast is receiving over Wireless and your router isn't up to handling all that traffic without issues.
Bubble works if the content is available to the server. On Device content I do not believe is available to it. It will play locally in Bubble but I'm not sure the server side of Bubble can see it.
One of the drawbacks of CCast is it isn't very good at streaming content on the controlling device. It really designed to receive Internet or Intranet content that resides on a NAS or Server (such as DLNA, Bubble or Plex).
If you device supports mirroring I suppose thats one method that can work but it will depend heavily on the stability of the Wireless connection and power of the device doing the sending.
I would also try Plex, (The server is free) and see if you can stream effectively using a wired computer and browser (to control) to make sure that the CCast has a good connection and can get good streams.
If that works then you know it isn't the CCast that is the problem and you will know if buying the Plex App is worth doing.
Then you never have any reason to keep content on your device ever again as whatever is kept on the Plex Server will be available for playback and streaming to a CCast (your HTC and any other mobile devices you have) no matter where in the world you are.
And you will get back a ton of space on your mobile device currently used to store the video content.
Asphyx said:
I'm going to guess and say the content you are trying to stream is on your HTC device and not somewhere else...
Issue with that is most likely that the HTC is sending over Wireless while the CCast is receiving over Wireless and your router isn't up to handling all that traffic without issues.
Bubble works if the content is available to the server. On Device content I do not believe is available to it. It will play locally in Bubble but I'm not sure the server side of Bubble can see it.
One of the drawbacks of CCast is it isn't very good at streaming content on the controlling device. It really designed to receive Internet or Intranet content that resides on a NAS or Server (such as DLNA, Bubble or Plex).
If you device supports mirroring I suppose thats one method that can work but it will depend heavily on the stability of the Wireless connection and power of the device doing the sending.
I would also try Plex, (The server is free) and see if you can stream effectively using a wired computer and browser (to control) to make sure that the CCast has a good connection and can get good streams.
If that works then you know it isn't the CCast that is the problem and you will know if buying the Plex App is worth doing.
Then you never have any reason to keep content on your device ever again as whatever is kept on the Plex Server will be available for playback and streaming to a CCast (your HTC and any other mobile devices you have) no matter where in the world you are.
And you will get back a ton of space on your mobile device currently used to store the video content.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your input.
I know that content from Internet via the likes of YouTube works fine. Plex also is good too. It's just that local videos which I intended to use more still not up to par with former.
I suspect too network connectivity issues, it's just I am more inclined to blame the phone. Or some software on the phone colliding with network and crashing it temporarily. During last night local cast, casting stopped again, I gathered some Avia log, mostly NPE and nothing else, so I will be sending them to the dev, maybe they find something useful. At least providing better log than a npe in the future should help investigating this further.
Sent from my HTC One
Last night's Avia catlog, just for sake of completion
09-21 22:00:05.286 E/AVIA (15469): [22:00:05.281 SourceFile:291 createDefaultDeviceIcon] exception getting icon
09-21 22:00:05.286 E/AVIA (15469): Exception: java.lang.NullPointerException
09-21 22:00:08.760 E/AVIA (15469): [22:00:08.772 SourceFile:291 createDefaultDeviceIcon] exception getting icon
09-21 22:00:08.760 E/AVIA (15469): Exception: java.lang.NullPointerException
09-21 22:00:15.678 I/MediaRouter(15469): Unselecting the current route because it is no longer selectable: MediaRouter.RouteInfo{ uniqueId=com.google.android.gms/.cast.media.CastMediaRouteProviderService:0416cf8f10766cd5ece5d6b385900db8, name=Chromecast, description=Casting Avia, enabled=true, connecting=true, playbackType=1, playbackStream=-1, volumeHandling=0, volume=0, volumeMax=20, presentationDisplayId=-1, extras=Bundle[{com.google.android.gms.cast.EXTRA_CAST_DEVICE="Chromecast" (0416cf8f10766cd5ece5d6b385900db8)}], providerPackageName=com.google.android.gms }
09-21 22:00:42.346 E/AVIA (15469): [22:00:42.351 SourceFile:626 a] Service: null; Context: valid
09-21 22:00:42.386 E/AVIA (15469): [22:00:42.382 SourceFile:552 a] Service: null; Context: valid
09-21 22:00:42.386 E/AVIA (15469): [22:00:42.393 SourceFile:557 a] Service: null; Context: valid; inv: valid
09-21 22:00:42.396 E/AVIA (15469): [22:00:42.401 SourceFile:864 a] Service: null; Context: valid; inv: valid
millicent said:
Thanks for your input.
I know that content from Internet via the likes of YouTube works fine. Plex also is good too. It's just that local videos which I intended to use more still not up to par with former.
I suspect too network connectivity issues, it's just I am more inclined to blame the phone. Or some software on the phone colliding with network and crashing it temporarily. During last night local cast, casting stopped again, I gathered some Avia log, mostly NPE and nothing else, so I will be sending them to the dev, maybe they find something useful. At least providing better log than a npe in the future should help investigating this further.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have no doubt it is the phone as there are always things built into the phone OS meant to save battery and take up proc power while you are trying to stream a video. And most can't be shut off in settings...Even Play Store Updates will monopolize your network connection and stop any traffic from flowing that isn't Play Store related.
Thats why I say it is better to not even TRY to stream off the device and put it on a server instead so the content streams directly from there and does not require the Phone's full attention and bandwidth to maintain a good stream.
The only drawback to that is if your ISP Upload speed (at home) is so poor that you have to send a much lower quality stream to compensate.
And if that is an issue for you then you are ultimately better off just doing local playback through the device HDMI port and remove the WiFi transfer from the equation entirely.
Another option I found and I'm not sure might work for you is this portable router....(don't go running out to buy it, I have not used this or know if it actually is a solution for you so do some research on it first!)
It claims to stream Audio and Video...
http://www.ravpower.com/ravpower-rp-wd01-filehub-3000mah-power-bank.html

How To Cast Region Blocked Content

I'm sure this has been asked before, but is there any way to cast region blocked content? I'm using cyberghost VPN on my android phone. I'm able to see the content on the Netflix app. I can also play the content on my phone. But as soon as I try to cast to my chromecast, it tells me the content is not available in my region. I guess the chromecast is giving away my location. What is the easiest way around this?
Screen mirroing
Yes there is a simple solution, I am using it too. But you need to have a router with a VPN client for this to work. In my case I use openWRT and it also works (advanced configuration) that I only route some local IPs I want over VPN while the rest stays normally routed.
You can do it by using your VPN at the router level as suggested above, but most consumer routers don't support that, so more people use a DNS service instead. That's still a bit of a challenge because you have to use DHCP to push the DNS addresses to the Chromecast, and you also have to block access to Google DNS in your router to force the Chromecast to use them. You have to put in some effort to stay current, because Netflix and Google keep experimenting with changes that are partly intended to make such workarounds more difficult. For example currently you can't play Netflix content locally on your Android device if you have Google DNS blocked in your router, but if you are using a DNS service you must have Google DNS blocked to cast that content to the Chromecast. As for VPNs, Netflix has been experimenting with sneaky blocking methods like comparing the system time to the time zone of the originating IP address to detect a mismatch caused by using a VPN gateway outside your time zone.
If you have a Raspberry Pi: I've set up mine as a Wifi router that establishes connection through VPN only. Netflix works flawlessly. If Cyberghost provides OpenVPN configuration files for Linux, this should work for you, too.

Can I install Plex on to rooted chromecast?

I have an old chromecast that I rooted a while back, and I would like to install plex onto it permanently because I want to use it on a network that doesn't have internet access. Can this be done? If so, how? I would only use this chromecast for plex and nothing else, ever. Thank you very much.
DeadlyFoez said:
I have an old chromecast that I rooted a while back, and I would like to install plex onto it permanently because I want to use it on a network that doesn't have internet access. Can this be done? If so, how? I would only use this chromecast for plex and nothing else, ever. Thank you very much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You cant make it work as Chromecast need to access Google Cloud Services to work, even its a local casting. This is the BIG DIFFERENT and most of the time become a problem/stopper for Google to work at Mainland China and Russia as Most Google Services are blocked on Internet on a national basis.
For local casting which does not need any Internet Cloud Services, you can use Airplay or DLNA devices such as Anycast or Ezcast toggle.

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