Emby installed - What should I not do inside of Kodi now?

[jonesay 2]

Everything is working but are there any things I used to do inside of Kodi like update library or set the Movie DB options in the library settings etc?

I'm trying to see what functions I can stop doing inside of Kodi and only use Emby for and which ones I still can or need to use.
I haven't been able to find that information. I am using the Emby for Kodi Next Gen and I'm running the server off  Synology NAS. 
For sure much faster than Kodi and while I've run into a few uses initially with duplicates etc, I'm working out the kinks.

Like right now Kodi is not rebuilding the Movie Thumbnails correctly. It's taking snapshots from the movie.  They are showing up in Emby just fine, but not syncing over. I've even remove the Kodi DB, but that hasn't resolved the issue yet.

I was hoping for a step-by-step HowTo and what to do and not do to, as I've been using the KodiDB since day one and Emby i a lot better, but I need to understand how a few things.
I think I still have setting inside of Kodi which use the DB and I know it says a fresh install, but I have some other things setup and I'd prefer not to if I can simply delete a DB, remove some settings here and there and then let Emby take over.

[Luke 37066]

HI what versions of Emby Server and Kodi, and the plugin?

[jonesay 2]

Kodi 20.2 (20.2.0) - Installed on Nvidia Shield
Emby Server: Version 4.7.14.0 - Installed on Synology NAS: v7.2.1-69057
Plugin Version:: https://kodi.emby.media/repository.beta.emby.kodi-1.0.10.zip
I did both of these steps on Synology:
Real Time Monitoring:

User Permissions:
https://emby.media/support/articles/Synology-Set-Permissions.html

Edited December 26, 2023 by jonesay

[jonesay 2]

I did this and it removed the "movie thumbnails" and I see some of the box content coming back. @quickmic
In Kodi I went to:

System
   -> Add-ons
      -> My add-ons
         -> Video add-ons
            -> Emby for Kodi Next Gen
               -> Sync
                  -> Perform local database reset

It seems to be working somewhat right now.  I will wait and see if that resolves the issue as I have Emby Server syncing.

[jonesay 2]

That seemed to have fixed the issue. There are  few folders which did not populate. I'm sure those are some odd files or possibly  labeled wrong. I'll investigate, but wanted to say the above fix for the Perform local database reset fixed my issue.

Edited December 26, 2023 by jonesay

[jonesay 2]

And I spoke too soon as it's not back to the "thumbnails pulled from the video and not the from scrapers"... Any thoughts as to why it's doing that?
I see there is a scheduled task to run in Emby Server. What is the exact purpose of:
Thumbnail image extraction
Last ran 15 hours ago, taking 0 seconds.
Creates thumbnails for videos.

Although it has not run recently, so I am at a loss.
Randomly scrolling through 1000+ I see a couple of random covers from the scraper. I would say less than 5% rough estimate. The rest are just thumbnail snapshots from the movie now.

Odd note for TV Shows, it was different. I have blank icon folders (I use InfoWall) view and the remaining are the scraped covers.
So it did not replace a single TV Show with a thumbnail from the movie, but it's not just folder icon.

Edited December 26, 2023 by jonesay

[quickmic 1344]

On 12/27/2023 at 12:11 AM, jonesay said:

Odd note for TV Shows, it was different. I have blank icon folders (I use InfoWall) view and the remaining are the scraped covers.

I assume you mean InfoWall inside Kodi? And it's the InfoWall (thumbnails) not InfoWall (posters) setting?

Infowall (thumbnails) are black if there is no thumbnail information available on Emby server. I could add fallbacks if no thumbnail is available. e.g. use Posters (Primary) instead.

 

[quickmic 1344]

18 minutes ago, quickmic said:

I assume you mean InfoWall inside Kodi? And it's the InfoWall (thumbnails) not InfoWall (posters) setting?

Infowall (thumbnails) are black if there is no thumbnail information available on Emby server. I could add fallbacks if no thumbnail is available. e.g. use Posters (Primary) instead.

 

I checked, the fallback to Primary/Poster Image for non existent thumbnails is already implemented (and working). However, at least my Kodi skin has a bug in InfoWall (thumbnails) view.

I doesn't show the thumbnails, at least for TVShows it actually shows the landscape (in Kodi's terms) images and the plugin has no fallback to Primary/Poster if landscape does not exists. Landscape has the Emby images (Thumb or fallback 1 Backdrop) assigned. If both don't exist, it's empty/black.

I'll assign another fallback to Primary/Poster for landscape.

[jonesay 2]

11 hours ago, quickmic said:

I checked, the fallback to Primary/Poster Image for non existent thumbnails is already implemented (and working). However, at least my Kodi skin has a bug in InfoWall (thumbnails) view.

I doesn't show the thumbnails, at least for TVShows it actually shows the landscape (in Kodi's terms) images and the plugin has no fallback to Primary/Poster if landscape does not exists. Landscape has the Emby images (Thumb or fallback 1 Backdrop) assigned. If both don't exist, it's empty/black.

I'll assign another fallback to Primary/Poster for landscape.

It seems you have found an issue with falling back to a cover if one doesn't exist, but I don't think that's my issue. I see almost all of the covers in Emby.

I went ahead and did a fresh install but I still continue to have issues.
In InfoWall I had probably 99% of the covers at one time show up. This was both pre Emby and post Emby. At some point in time those covers start to either change to a snapshot of the movie and I get that as the new cover or I get a generic folder icon. I am not sure why that is happening. 

I do have a couple of questions  as maybe I am setting things in Kodi I should not be?
If I had a source in Kodi it default to None for the Source Content. To be able to access the additional view type option in Kodi such as InfoWall, TripPanel, MyFlix, etc, you have to change that to "This Directory Contains and in this case it's "Movies".
Then the Choose Information Provider shows up and it's "Local Information Only" or "The Movie Database Python aka TMDB".
I don't see how to disable this in Kodi and I'm not sure if this is ignored or how it's managed once the Emby Plugin is installed. 
If you can educate me on what Kodi functions need to be change or how Emby overwrites these options in Kodi it would be appreciated. 
I am trying to narrow down why my covers keep reverting, change or start missing, yet on my Emby Server they are all there. It's obviously something which is configured in Kodi.

The other question I have it what if anything happens if someone accidently selects under Actions: "Update Library" in Kodi.
Does this cause any issues? 

It's almost as if the covers are being synced to Kodi, but for some reason they get cleared, or removed and then randomly they populate again, but there is no rhyme or reason.
Any suggestion or advice around the Media/Library/Files section in Kodi and what if anything should I configure or not configure in Kodi that might be causing these issues.
Being a long-time Kodi user, I am used to a "routine" of doing things inside of Kodi and not outside and letting the Emby Plugin do the work, so I am not sure what needs to be done in Kodi and what is done outside in Emby Server or the Emby Plugin.

Thx

[quickmic 1344]

Do you use addon mode in next-gen plugin? If yes, Kodi has no control cannot scan or update the library even if you force a (Kodi library) scan.

If you use native mode, Kodi could overwrite artwork.

If the issue still appears in addon-mode you need to compare the artwork with Emby server's for further investigation.

Edited December 28, 2023 by quickmic

[jonesay 2]

2 minutes ago, quickmic said:

Do you use addon mode in next-gen plugin? If yes, Kodi has no control cannot scan or update the library even if you force an update.

If you use native mode, Kodi could overwrite artwork.

If the issue still appears in addon-mode you need to compare the artwork with Emby server's for further investigation.

Ok that's good to know!. No, I use the default mode - addon-mode.

The issue, I'm seeing is when I go into the Movies section in Kodi and I scroll through all the movies initially, I can see it slowly populating the covers and it finishes and that's great.

The issues I'm having is when I exit and go somewhere else in Kodi or leave the app and come back after some time, it will remove the covers as if the data has been removed and then it starts the download all over again. Less than 1% of my covers are not populating, which is not what I'm trying to resolve. It's that it seems to be clearing the cache almost for better lack of understanding and it's doing a new sync each time I view the Movies inside of Kodi and I am not sure why that is happening.

I am continuing to do some testing. I just removed he Emby Plugin and confirmed on reinstall I was using the Native mode.
I am testing InfoWall and Posters view in Kodi to see if I see the same results.

[jonesay 2]

I think there is a problem with the Beta 1.0.10 of the Emby Kodi Plugin. I went back to 1.0.7 and I  can already tell there are some big differences. 
Things which used to work in Kodi seem to work, such as clicking Movies takes me to Movies and not my Sources location and then I select the Movies source.
The covers are working and the Sort by: option actually has all of the options. Before I had about 4 and it wasn't sorting as I had expected.
I also had added a new Main Menu in Kodi called New Movies and it was blank prior. I believe it said something like source://videodb or video.db or something.
Now it actually has the recently added movies.

I'll stick with 1.0.7 stable and see if that fixes the problems. 

Thanks

Edited December 28, 2023 by jonesay