Unable to control NVIDIA Shield after OS update

Running myServer in a VM.  Just upgraded the OS from Ubuntu 22.04 to 24.04.

Everything is working, except for the Shield.  Every command results in the same error in the log:

25/05/2026 14:03:23.03 · ERROR · AndroidTV.doCommand - Error in MoveNext - Object reference not set to an instance of an object

From the command line:

adb devices -l shows the shield.
adb connect <shield IP address> says I am already connected.
adb shell input keyevent 26 turns the shield on/off.

Because of this, I believe the error is in myServer, not adb.

Not sure what to look at next.

Unsure if  this is related, but I also had trouble with the smart remote itself not showing up in the client list.  Changing the name assigned to the remote back to sr1 fixed that problem.

 

Seems to be a fairly common error message, almost equivalent to "Oops - something went wrong".
I think I remember seeing it in the past when the system thought it had a connection to a device but didn't really. The solution was to restart myServer. But you've probably done that already, so my next suggestion would be to remove the device, restart myServer, re-add the device and try again.

We both had this problem with our Sony TVs in the past.

In addition to what Andrew mentioned, I would toggle the ADB Debugging toggle on your Shield to reestablish the connection. After the toggle, accept the token when MyServer attempts to reconnect.

I moved to a VideoStorm IRUSB to control my Shield last year and found it is a lot snappier. It's not cheap, but it works very well and has a MyServer driver.

Kyle

After posting, I found a thread that Nillaz started almost 2 years ago, that was just resurrected by glitchhound, with the same error on the Shield.

The solution seems to be turn off and on ADB, with some reboots of the Shield and/or the myServer, until you manage to get it working again.

Before I try that, I wanted to give Allonis the chance to respond.

If it is a connection problem, why can I send ADB commands that work from the console?

"Object reference not set to an instance of an object." Is an error that an end-user should never see.  A developer needs to check for that, and return a more meaningful error.  

If you want to try updating the driver, I'll leave the machine in the error state so I can test it further.

PhoenixF15E wrote:

We both had this problem with our Sony TVs in the past.

In addition to what Andrew mentioned, I would toggle the ADB Debugging toggle on your Shield to reestablish the connection. After the toggle, accept the token when MyServer attempts to reconnect.

I moved to a VideoStorm IRUSB to control my Shield last year and found it is a lot snappier. It's not cheap, but it works very well and has a MyServer driver.

Kyle

A lot of people seem to find controlling Android devices through the ADB connection slow (and this also applies to systems other than myServer). I haven't got a Shield but I found controlling my Amazon FireTV stick really sluggish. So I MacGyvered up an ethernet connected remote controlled keyboard that you send UDP commands to, and as far as the FireTV is concerned it receives keystrokes. Still not instant response but a lot faster than the ADB connection. The code is adapted from wired/wireless rubber ducky scripts I found somewhere (I should have kept the references).

github.com/andrewmk/IP-keyboard
 

This has happened to me as well when updating the NVIDIA shield. I found I had to use the NVIDIA's actual remote to go into the NVIDIA Android settings and turn off and on the remote Debug setting.