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


jonesay

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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.

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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 by jonesay
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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.

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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 by jonesay
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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 by jonesay
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quickmic
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.

 

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quickmic
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.

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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

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quickmic

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 by quickmic
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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.

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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 by jonesay
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  • 3 months later...
richardvrusso

Hey everyone,

If this is off-topic I'm cool with starting a new thread. I also have been wondering what settings I should have in Kodi before/after installing the emby for Kodi plugin. I too used to do everything in Kodi till I discovered emby.

I'm running Kodi on Fire TV sticks in native mode. Which seemed to make sense since my storage shares are accessible on-net and emby server shows "direct play" for everything. 

Any fresh install of Kodi I always go through the settings in expert mode and change many things. However, I don't know what is best practices. Here's two screenshots of settings that I'm curious should be on or off? 🤔

Screenshot_20240428-102334~2.png

Screenshot_20240428-102416~2.png

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quickmic
15 minutes ago, richardvrusso said:

Hey everyone,

If this is off-topic I'm cool with starting a new thread. I also have been wondering what settings I should have in Kodi before/after installing the emby for Kodi plugin. I too used to do everything in Kodi till I discovered emby.

I'm running Kodi on Fire TV sticks in native mode. Which seemed to make sense since my storage shares are accessible on-net and emby server shows "direct play" for everything. 

Any fresh install of Kodi I always go through the settings in expert mode and change many things. However, I don't know what is best practices. Here's two screenshots of settings that I'm curious should be on or off? 🤔

Screenshot_20240428-102334~2.png

Screenshot_20240428-102416~2.png

Well in native mode you can set everything you want.

In addon-mode (which is the default and much better tested) the plugin configures critical settings automatically.

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richardvrusso

Hi mic,

Ahh gotcha. Then +1 for addon-mode. In this mode though do I get "direct play"?

I thought I recall in my first days of emby seeing higher CPU usage with addon-mode. I assume because the video stream goes through the server. 🤔  

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quickmic
7 minutes ago, richardvrusso said:

Hi mic,

Ahh gotcha. Then +1 for addon-mode. In this mode though do I get "direct play"?

I thought I recall in my first days of emby seeing higher CPU usage with addon-mode. I assume because the video stream goes through the server. 🤔  

There is no additional CPU load as long you don't setup transcoding.

Yes, it's direct play.

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jonesay

FYI, since I'm the one who started this thread. I just wanted to give an update.

I moved to Emby clients and with Emby server, it's super easy now to connect from the client to the Emby server. I've ditched Kodi altogether. 

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richardvrusso
50 minutes ago, quickmic said:

There is no additional CPU load as long you don't setup transcoding.

Yes, it's direct play.

Ah okay awesome. In that case I'm going to try wiping Kodi clean and do it addon-mode. 

Is there a kb article I can read up on for using native mode?

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richardvrusso
19 minutes ago, jonesay said:

FYI, since I'm the one who started this thread. I just wanted to give an update.

I moved to Emby clients and with Emby server, it's super easy now to connect from the client to the Emby server. I've ditched Kodi altogether. 

No more Kodi!? 😲 jk 😆 

Anything missing from your POV with the UI/UX? I tell all my friends/family to use the emby app. That way I don't have to play help desk if they have Kodi issues. 😁

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quickmic
8 minutes ago, richardvrusso said:

Is there a kb article I can read up on for using native mode?

Just the FAQ.

 

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richardvrusso
8 minutes ago, quickmic said:

Just the FAQ.

 

Cool thank you. I'll give it a read. Perhaps there are other threads on the topic addon vs native I can hijack. 😎😆 sorry @jonesay

Though I am curious about your all emby experience. Might sway me to ditch Kodi too. 😁

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