Last weekend I did an upgrade on my Kodi/LibreElec 10.0.0 RPI4 to 10.0.1.

All went well initially, I also did a firmware upgrade, but after rebooting I got a blank screen.

For a moment I thought Kodi didn’t boot at all, but on my Kore remote app, I saw that it was connected.

Also I could hear the GUI sounds. I disconnected my monitor, tried different HDMI inputs and different settings on the monitor. To no avail. Rebooted my Pi again. Shut it down, disconnected the power, connected it again, and rebooted. Still a blank screen. Could see the blown up pixel for a while, but blank screen afterward.

Still I could hear the GUI sounds, and I could even start a DVB-T TV channel.

So Kodi was working, but there was no HDMI output! Then intuitively I changed the audio-output from IQAudioDAC to HDMI and suddenly it started working! I changed it again to IQAudioDAC and screen output kept working.

And it did since!

Somehow changing the audio output fixed the blank screen output on my Raspberry Pi 4. Weird.

And don’t ask me why, but I’m still happy with this LibreElec / Kodi setup on my Raspberry Pi 4.

Changing Audio output remotely on Kodi

To change the audio output for Kodi remotely, instead of using the GUI or the Kore remote app and a lot of clicks, you can use these commands from another PC or phone:

Change to HDMI

curl -v -H "Content-type: application/json" -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"Settings.SetSettingValue", "params":{"setting":"audiooutput.audiodevice","value":"PI:HDMI"},"id":1}' http://yourpi.local:8080/jsonrpc

Change to analogue

curl -v -H "Content-type: application/json" -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"Settings.SetSettingValue", "params":{"setting":"audiooutput.audiodevice","value":"PI:Analogue"},"id":1}' http://yourpi.local:8080/jsonrpc

Remember to change the domain/hostname ot an IP-address if you wish to run the command from your Android phone.

Above commands work great as Termux Widget shortcuts on your Android Phone.