I've spent a good few hours today playing with the new firmware, and the results are encouraging - I haven't gone back to SDK3 for once.
Version 7137 seems faster and more responsive than the previous versions. I am using the Mini as a network streamer from my NAS boxes, so have turned off SAMBA and DLNA as I don’t need them. The initial speed of the firmware and the many fixes, especially for the jukebox, was what persuaded me to invest a lot more time in trying to take this firmware and make the mini into something usable again.
Trying to load my YAMJ index file into the Jukebox resulted in the Mini hanging. So, as per other posts in this topic it looks as though as swap partition is a good idea if you have a reasonable size Jukebox or other issues causing high memory utilisation. Thanks to Steffen’s work on the script and Duivels translation for how to mount a swap partition. http://www.acryan.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=123822#p123822
I replaced my old USB memory stick for a USB drive (external power) and created a few partitions
1 – 10GB FAT32, mainly used for mount points for movies / pictures / photos, file transfer if I need it etc.
2 – 512MB Linux Swap File
3 – 10MB FAT32 partition used solely for a volume mount point for the Jukebox share. The startup script has been modified to mount this partition on startup, as well as the jukebox share to the mount point.
I’ve also modified the startup script, as I did with SDK3, to auto mount the content shares on my NAS onto volume mount points on the first USB drive – it saves time in menu key strokes and works better with the jukebox
The Jukebox share on my NAS is mounted onto its own volume, as the new firmware still insists on searching the entire drive for index files, so this speeds up locating the index file. I’ve also rebuilt the jukebox to take into account a new <playerpath> which reflects the changed mount points and volumes.
Rebuilding the Jukebox caused all of the Jukebox menus to show ‘All’ only and nothing else. I think I’ve seen where the problem may be and will do some more testing as other people have seen this problem as well.
The firmware is faster than previous, but not as fast as it should be – I’ve sent a PM to Tata to see if he has done any work to look at the process utilisation like he did with r5440. If I get time I’ll install optware and have a look myself.
Turning on indexing promptly killed the performance completely. I’ll leave it turned off, or run it occasionally overnight I think.
Although there are still some issues with this firmware I’m not going back to SDK3 yet, if I can work out the Jukebox menu issues then it will be a workable solution.
So full marks to AC Ryan for the effort that has clearly gone into this firmware, as it is the most usable SDK4 firmware yet, and a definite improvement over r5440. But, there are still things that need sorting out, all of which have been published many times before, but to name a few: -
• High processor utilisation seems to still be an issue, as the firmware is not as fast as it should be
• Based on the work Steffen has done, can you improve the swap areas – so that a swap file or partition is created on a usb drive if attached, it does make a difference
• The jukebox is now much improved, but can you stop truncating movie and series / episode names unless absolutely essential
• Once and index file has been loaded for the first time, make the jukebox load it automatically, it saves a lot of work pressing buttons on the remote. There are options already there to change to another index file
• Make shortcuts available to the jukebox
• Sort out the file naming used/accepted by the jukebox so it matches the published YAMJ standards, implemented in SDK3

Andy

Edit - first major 'family' complaint - browsing the Jukebox is too slow. The Jukebox files are on the faster of my NAS devices, and mounted onto a mount point on the Mini. Whenever pressing a key on the remote requires more info to be pulled over the network it takes a couple of seconds. This has been the case since the first GUI2/SDK4 release, and seems marginally faster in this release, but not fast enough to stop complaints. I've moved the jukebox files onto the local hard rive attached to the Mini, which is a pain in itself - either turning SAMBA on and waiting 45 mins for the copy to take place - or moving the drive back to my PC. Either way this Mini is suposed to be a network streamer, and the Jukebox should be able to live on a network share with no performance hit. It can in the SDK3 firmware

I do not fully understand what you mean.
Steffen's mountSwap automatically finds and mounts a swap partition, where ever that may be located, and just terminates if no swap partition has been found. Any USB memory device (stick or hard disk) with a Linux swap partition will do. According to Steffen a swap file cannot unambiguously be identified, so that is not a feasible solution.
I would definitely dislike my Mini to create a swap partition on a USB stick or drive by itself, as this may corrupt the existing partitions.
I have one 512 MB USB stick with a FAT 32 partition of 384 MB (for utilities like firmware, fonts, background) and a Swap partition of 128 MB. A 512 MB swap partition is overdone, as the internal memory of the Mini is 120,632 KB.Till sofar I have not seen more than 6 MB of my swap partition being used.

Did you try decreasing the minFree parameter? Setting it to 10240 does accelerate the Mini in comparison to the original 20480 of Steffen's script. See the How to for a result of different minFree values.

Same here, had to use safe flash procedure for the very first time.
Which btw has lead me to the discovery that removing power from the device is totally unnecessary,
just out of standby press the power button longer than normal and it starts the upgrade.

Yes, I noticed that to my dismay a couple of months ago when I accidentally pressed the front button too long and then had to make all settings and shortcuts again.

@duivels
Steffen's script only mounts a swap partiton it doesn't create one first.
You can also use a swap file in linux as well as as swap partition
AC Ryan could improve the firmware, such that on detecting a USB device it creates a swap file if not there, and then enables it. It does make a difference

@Mikael
There seems to be a problem with the Jukebox and the initial load of the YAMJ content. Previously, the SDK3 Jukebox generated a lot of .rss files when it loaded the Jukebox for the first time. The SDK4 Jukebox works differently, and generates a lot of xml files, plus it's main entry point file, Other_All.xml. I've now reloaded the index file several times, deleting all of the Jukebox created .xml files each time before reloading the index file. The results are the same, all of the .xml files appear to be generated by the Jukebox, but the dropdown menus only contain 'All'.
I'm using YAMJ V2.6 Snapshot v2891, as later versions of YAMJ post V2.5.1 contain fixes for changes to the IMDB and TVDB websites.
I would really appreciate some help here to get to the bottom of the problem, as other users have reported the same prpblems in the YAMJ forum.
The YAMJ output works Ok when viewed with a web browser
Thanks
Andy

Hi,

I downloaded the latest firmware ASIAN Edition, and cannot upgrade via the USB upgrade or using the Flash way. Nothing appears in terms of upgrading the firmware. I got 2 Ac Ryan Mini at home, and uses 2 USB thumb drives, same problem cannot upgrade this version of firmware. 5440 and before that, absolutely no problems. Please advise.

[Official] Firmware_PV73200_v7.4.x.r7317
Same here, had to use safe flash procedure for the very first time.
and
Repeat bug is still there when playing music files!
Reapeat off will play only one track?

-jammer is een eufemisme -

Thank you for the new official firmware! It's great to see the mini 1 is still supported and hope it will be supported in the near future as well!

My Problem:
After start my playonhd i get access to the local attached player harddisk via my windows 7 pc only with 200 kbyte/sec. After repluging the ethernet cable from player i get 2,5 Mbyte/sec.
The problem exist since the first day i bought the player, no matter which firmware/sdk's.
Any Ideas ?

I have the exact same problem, please help...

Edit: turns out I am an idiot, I forgot to unzip.