I have installed the latest build but cannot update via auto update or tar file.

Also the opi hangs forever at some times.

Btw thanks for the good working os modder.

Your hangs are probably power related. Use better power supply first, to exclude this possibility. And DON'T interrupt the first boot, it takes some time and with bad power supply, or faulty sdcard, even more. Also check your sdcard for errors. Format it with SDFormatter, if you are on Windows, with Options - Format Type - Full (erase) and Format Size Adjustment - ON, then burn the image using Etcher. If you interrupt the first boot, it will probably work, but will have problems and maybe that is why you can't update. About the update and images, this is what you need - Latest prebuilt images. If everything works, you don't need to update anything, if you ask me, but auto update was working fine to me, when this was still in development, with .tar, i never tried. About the apps, add "Orange Pi OpenELEC Add-ons (unofficial)" and use the prebuilt apps from there. For other repos, it maybe tricky some times with dependencies. What exactly you want to install?

Which version do you have? Last one is 20170221. Every day somewhat 100-120 people actually update from my server (which is suprisingly a lot!), so no issues there, and should work.