Ace Stream Player 3.0.2

Ace Stream player 3.0.0_alpha18 stopped working today, quoting "bad decrypt". The reason: streams are switching to a 3.0.2 version for Ubuntu available now, at last, with 14.04 Tahr support). From the source:

Ace Stream 3.0 for Ubuntu
Version Ace Stream 3.0.2 for Ubuntu has been released. The main innovation is support of a new protocol. A new version is available in repositories for Ubuntu 12.04, 13.10 and 14.04. Links to repositories and instructions how to install are described below.

Installing Ace Stream on Ubuntu from the repository

Step 1

Add link on appropriate repository into /etc/apt/sources.list.

Repository should be selected according to operating system.

Ubuntu 12.04:
deb http://repo.acestream.org/ubuntu/ precise main

Ubuntu 13.10:
deb http://repo.acestream.org/ubuntu/ saucy main

Ubuntu 14.04:
deb http://repo.acestream.org/ubuntu/ trusty main

(for my Linux Mint, it looks like:

sudo apt-get-repository "deb http://repo.acestream.org/ubuntu/ trusty main")

Step 2

Installing public key. To do this you have to run the following command:

sudo wget -O - http://repo.acestream.org/keys/acestream.public.key | sudo apt-key add -

Step 3

Installing acestream-full package.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install acestream-full

The following packages are available in the repository for Ubuntu:

• acestream-engine - engine
• acestream-mozilla-plugin - plug-in for browsers
• acestream-player - desktop player
• acestream-player-data - set of common libraries for the player and plug-in
• acestream-full - full package, including all of the above 

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Source codes of the player (Ace Player) are here: https://bitbucket.org/AceStream/acestreamplayer
P.S. We welcome all who wish not only to use the player, but also take an active part in its development and evolution. 

We also remind you that all assemblies of the latest versions of engine 3.0 (without the player) are here: http://wiki.acestream.org/wiki/index.php/AceStream_3.0/en

I noticed that official instructions don't contain the procedure of removing components of previous version(s). The simplest way to do this would be to use Software Manager (Linux Mint 17), carefully checking versions of ACE Stream components and removing old packages, then installing 3.0.2 versions correspondingly.

Don't forget to Exit Ace Stream Player/plugin during the installation process.

So far so good, only some (HD) streams in full screen lose audio after several minutes (plugin crashes, fighting with audio ads).

It's open source now, somebody can be able to build the player which would block those pesky ads.

A little UPDATE:

There was an attempt to clean caches elsewhere, namely in Ace Player HD: Tools-->Preferences-->Reset Preferences. Unlike what was recommended to use for Ace Stream Player, my version of Ace Player HD is 2.2.5.1 (VLC 2.1.4), that is, my VLC version is newer than what was recommended previously.

Whatever. At some point, I re-checked my installation via Software Manager only to discover that acestream-full package was not installed! Just yesterday I installed it manually, and it de-installed itself somehow.
This tells me that ACE Stream Player 3.0.2 is not really simple collection of  acestream-engine, acestream-mozilla-plugin, acestream-player and acestream-player-data, it also a sequence of these to be installed in correct order. That is, the installation manual above stands, especially this stanza:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install acestream-full

Ghostly audio ads didn't stop to loudly sound here and there or kill audio altogether and/or crash the plugin. However, it might be just a fluke, and people behind this ads attack just tuning their evil servers. Audio turns off completely quite often now.

On the other hand, XBMC with new acestream-engine works just fine.

Serious UPDATE from Vladimir Dolgirev of Compizomania:

Откройте терминал (Ctrl+Alt+T), скопируйте и выполните следующие команды:

echo 'deb http://repo.acestream.org/ubuntu/ trusty main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/acestream.list 

sudo wget -O - http://repo.acestream.org/keys/acestream.public.key | sudo apt-key add -

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install acestream-full

По окончании установки необходимо включить Ace Stream P2P Multimedia Plug-in. Для этого откройтеДополнения Firefox - Плагины - Ace Stream P2P Multimedia Plug-in и активируйте опцию - Всегда включать:

И последнее. Перезагрузите Firefox и можете смотреть потоковое телевидение: http://torrent-tv.ru/torrent-online.php?translation=7662

Внимание! В случае если в процессе просмотра Торрент-ТВ трансляции вы наблюдаете частые остановки изображения при буферизации, рекомендуется повысить размер буфера Live. Для этого нажмите на значке Ace Stream в трее, в появившемся меню выберите пункт "Опции...", введите желаемый размер буфера Live в секундах в соответствующее поле. Не рекомендуется устанавливать буфер меньше 10 секунд и больше 60:

Удачи.

In my case, I needed to de-activate an old acestream repo, and issue sudo apt-get autoremove command after sudo apt-get update.

After cleaning all ace caches I could find, HD channels still start parasitic audio adds when in full-screen. A cache of my Firefox will be next to investigate.

After a while, I just discovered that cleaning browser caches, cookies, history is useless.

However, this was Linux Mint. Well, I checked my other computer with Ubuntu Studio 14.04  and it behaves with fresh Ace just the same on HD channels: ads infection.

Later UPDATE: A tentative solution (tentative=I'm testing it not long enough) might be disabling TS Magic Player plugin, and as usual, zeroing all caches. Why this plugin for static torrents may mess with live streams, I have no idea. We'll see soon. Another update: disabled TS Magic Player plugin won't solve the problem with HD full-screened channels.

A culprit was named elsewhere in first user comments: acestream-mozilla-plugin. It supposedly mishandles badly formed adblocks. These adblocks are also worst vermins in their own right. Users of non-Ubuntu based Linux distros report that pasting torrent ID in fresh Ace Player HD 2.2.5.1 (VLC 2.1.4) works just fine, so maybe rolling back an acestream-mozilla-plugin will just eradicate the problem.

With ACE sources now available, I hope there also will be alternative compilations soon. Another possibility to explore would be trying clean Ace Engine, Player, Plugin with Tor Browser.

I did some more experimenting, namely, replaced a 3.0.2 acestream-mozilla-plugin (libace_plugin.so) with a plugin of previous 3.0.0 alpha 18 version. This simple and dumb hack just didn't work: older plugin crashed every time, apparently failing some version check.

In any case, excluding asestream-mozilla-plugin by the copying Content ID of a given channel and transferring it to the Ace Player excludes crashes, as the least.

Meanwhile, XBMC works fine with (its own, or stock Ace Player's) VLC, plus a small Ace plugin patch.