XBMC4Xbox

Hi, new here and needing help with a problem I lack the technical understanding to fix. I searched the forum and wasn't able to find what I needed, so apologies if I'm repeating an old topic.

I have a hard-modded xbox 1.6 running a Xenium 3 with Avalaunch as the dash. This system was set up for me over 7 years ago by a person I contacted via classifieds. While I'm not a complete ninny around computers, at the time I knew nothing about modding an xbox other than I wanted one, so I was happy to pay. It was set up to boot into xbmc.

I've been satisfied with my basic xbmc performance but would now really like to upgrade and take advantage of the newer features. So, I watched the youtube video tutorial, ftp'd the latest stable build and gave it a shot. Unfortunately, it didn't work and the xbox hanged at the startup screen. So, I went back to the old build and it works fine again.

I'm assuming that this has something to do with how my xbox was set up to boot directly into XBMC. I read the wiki on installing xbmc, but wasn't sure what the correct path to take was in my instance, and some of it looked more than a little confusing for a neophyte like me.

Basically, I just want a recent build and have the xbox boot directly to xbmc, preferably without having to start from scratch in terms of my dashboard. Any advice would be appreciated.

Just to clear out something, the "default dash" is what your Xbox boot into when you press the power button. (In this example we'll use "E:/Apps/XBMC")

If you see "Launch Menu, Disk Tools, ect" and a Xenium logo at the top, probably on a red background, its not Avalauch, its XeniumOS (embedded on the modchip).
If you are in fact seeing XeniumOS, you can also set it to really boot directly in XBMC4Xbox, skipping the red screen.
And if you cannot see the XeniumOS menu at boot, just be aware that you can access it by holding the white button on a gamepad when booting the Xbox.

The first thing you want to do, is to make sure you can boot the new build (XBMC4Xbox-3.3.1 at time of writing) you uploaded to your Xbox by launching the default.xbe from any file manager.
To upload, use FileZilla and make sure to adjust those settings:
Edit> Settings> Transfers> "Maximum simultaneous transfert" = 1
And:
Edit> Settings> Transfers> File Types> "Default transfer type" = Binary
And do not use the XeniumOS FTP server to upload the new build, I had problem with it in the pass. Use Avalaunch, XBMC4Xbox or UnleashX.

Then, when you are sure you can boot this build correctly, you need to find where your current build that boot by default (default dash) is.
Do this by finding the folder where there is a XBMC4Xbox installation, and a xbmc.log /xbmc.old.log that got activity when booting the known old build.

So let's say that you find your current XBMC4Xbox installation into "E:/Apps/XBMC/".
Upload your fresh build to "E:/Apps/XBMC2" (the name doesn't matter, just need to be different from E:/Apps/XBMC/ and in the same folder.)

From there, to do the switch from the old to the new build, you NEED to be booted into a different dash than E:/Apps/XBMC/ or E:/Apps/XBMC2 (or whatever location it is).
You can't rename a build while its in use.
All you need to do is to rename your old build to " E:/Apps/XBMC3" ( again, the name doesn't matter) and rename the new build to "E:/Apps/XBMC"
Then reboot.

Now if you are wondering how to change the boot path (out of the scope of this post):
If you are not using X2 5035 or INd-BiOS 5003 (which both can be edited from a config file on the hard drive), you would need to flash a new BIOS on the modchip.

Also take note that after that in the future, you will be able to update using XBMC SVN Installer.

Problem solved, and it turns out it was a simple rookie mistake on my part. Build 3.3.1 is now running on my xbox. Plugins don't seem to be working at all, and I have experience with those on the Windows version of xbmc, but I'll keep tooling around and see what I can do.

If you're using v3.3.1 then use the addons that are available in the xbox repository (in A4X Installer). The vast majority of plugins for mainbranch don't work "out of the box" on xbox, xbmc4xbox and xbmc are two completely different entities since Team_XBMC dropped the platform many years ago. However with the new code currently being implemented by buzz we are getting closer and hopefully it won't be too long until we have a similar addon system to mainbranch.