PhilWhite 64 Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 Has anyone made Emby for Kodi work on a Fire TV? I ran into a few problems and have a theory what went wrong with my setup. Any help is greatly appreciated. First issue -- getting access to the download. When I tried to enter the link as a source in Kodi I did not have access to the zip file. I couldn't even force refresh with the entry (usually works for zip files in Kodi). I had to download to a usb stick and add that way. That worked to get the zip file onto the Fire TV. Second issue -- it may be that I messed things up from the outset because I did not pay attention to the steps in the guide and entered my name and password in the configure settings before I got things to work and allowed the automated guide process to function. But I wiped out that information before I loaded the 'right' way. But when going through the process it found the server and identified my name, but it never asked for a password. Regardless, it went through the discovery process and integrated my library. Third and more important issue -- once everything was loaded I had double entries for all video files, but only one set of them would deploy a movie or TV episode and it was the previously loaded Kodi version that still worked. So my question is this -- there is limited space on a Fire TV and I suspect that the problem making this work might have been the limited space. I have not added a USB stick for extra storage as of yet but plan to do so. Do you think this is a likely explanation for the weird behavior on the Fire TV or is there potentially something more fundamental going on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDizzy 21 Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 (edited) I'm not sure where you are at with your setup and it has been a while since I setup the FireTV. I used abdfire program to load kodi onto FireTV using the "kodi-14.2-Helix-armeabi-v7a.apk" file I downloaded from Kodi. If not familiar with the abdfire program, it is here: http://www.jocala.com/adbfire.html I did not add any media sources through Kodi. I then downloaded the Emby for Kodi Repository addon from here: http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/19739-introducing-emby-for-kodi-open-beta/ and put it in one of my SMB network folders that FireTV/Kodi could see and installed from zipfile from there. (Addons > Get Addons > Install from zipfile). I then opened the Repository and downloaded the Emby for Kodi addon, configured Emby addon with my info, etc. I do not have any additional storage on my FireTV other than what came with it. With about 400 movies and 15000 songs Emby/Kodi is using about 1.3GB on my setup Oh, at one time I had double entries for all my movies because I had added media sources through Kodi. I deleted all media sources I had added then cleaned the database through Kodi. I then used the force refresh database through Emby addon to rebuild library. FireTV works pretty well and all my media files are mkv full Bluray rips with DTS/AC3 sound that I passthrough. Emby does the transcoding of the video to FireTV specs and passes through audio as is. I still prefer using Openelec on a small Zotac with Emby addon and use the FireTV in bedroom. That's 'bout all I have to say..... Edited June 5, 2015 by JDizzy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 I'm not sure where you are at with your setup and it has been a while since I setup the FireTV. I used abdfire program to load kodi onto FireTV using the "kodi-14.2-Helix-armeabi-v7a.apk" file I downloaded from Kodi. If not familiar with the abdfire program, it is here: http://www.jocala.com/adbfire.html I did not add any media sources through Kodi. I then downloaded the Emby for Kodi Repository addon from here: http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/19739-introducing-emby-for-kodi-open-beta/ and put it in one of my SMB network folders that FireTV/Kodi could see and installed from zipfile from there. (Addons > Get Addons > Install from zipfile). I then opened the Repository and downloaded the Emby for Kodi addon, configured Emby addon with my info, etc. I do not have any additional storage on my FireTV other than what came with it. With about 400 movies and 15000 songs Emby/Kodi is using about 1.3GB on my setup Oh, at one time I had double entries for all my movies because I had added media sources through Kodi. I deleted all media sources I had added then cleaned the database through Kodi. I then used the force refresh database through Emby addon to rebuild library. FireTV works pretty well and all my media files are mkv full Bluray rips with DTS/AC3 sound that I passthrough. Emby does the transcoding of the video to FireTV specs and passes through audio as is. I still prefer using Openelec on a small Zotac with Emby addon and use the FireTV in bedroom. That's 'bout all I have to say..... Thank you. I also side loaded Kodi with adb fire and thought about using it to push emby for kodi but ended up with the usb solution. I should have thought of loading through samba shares -- thanks for that. I did it that way this morning (I wiped out the previous iteration since I could never get anything to play). I had also already wiped the extra copies in my previous go round. The real problem was that I couldn't get any of my media to play with the emby addon. I reloaded this morning and ran into the same problem. I recall reading another poster somewhere mentioning that s/he couldn't get any media to play initially but came back later and all worked fine. Thanks for the heads up to force refresh the emby addon. It may be that was the missing ingredient from my first attempt. I refreshed twice this morning since nothing was playing after the first forced refresh, so now I think I will check on its status tonight. Hopefully it is just a time issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 If you can post your log, we should be able to help you out real quick. see: http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/17599-how-to-report-a-problem/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delphi 83 Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 enable play from http instead of smb... thats how i got it to work on my Nexus Player 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 enable play from http instead of smb... thats how i got it to work on my Nexus Player Thanks, I'll give that a try tonight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 If you can post your log, we should be able to help you out real quick. see: http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/17599-how-to-report-a-problem/ If http doesn't work I will try. Out of curiosity, where would the log show up? And how would I access it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 What I suggest is for you to use the XBMC Log Uploader add-on. It's the add-on tool to upload your logs from within Kodi to the www.xbmclogs.com automatically (this way you don't need to access the files). Then all you need to do is post the links to them. It's all explained in the tutorial Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 What I suggest is for you to use the XBMC Log Uploader add-on. It's the add-on tool to upload your logs from within Kodi to the www.xbmclogs.com automatically (this way you don't need to access the files). Then all you need to do is post the links to them. It's all explained in the tutorial Doh, should have read further. My apologies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 Log file at : http://xbmclogs.com/pywhzbox6 Thanks in advance for any assistance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xnappo 1593 Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 (edited) Looks like a path substitution setup problem or something. This is the error: ERROR: CDVDPlayer::OpenInputStream - error opening [/media/Movies/42 (2013)/42 (2013).mp4] I assume that this isn't really local to the FireTV and it should be a network location? Turning on 'play from HTTP instead of SMB' should fix it, but so will fixing you paths/path substitution. How do you have your paths to your media set up in Emby Server? xnappo Edited June 5, 2015 by xnappo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 Thanks Delphi, play from http instead of smb works. All is golden. Except music playback doesn't work. I think I'll add a music source in Kodi and use Kodi for music playback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 (edited) Looks like a path substitution setup problem or something. This is the error: ERROR: CDVDPlayer::OpenInputStream - error opening [/media/Movies/42 (2013)/42 (2013).mp4] I assume that this isn't really local to the FireTV and it should be a network location? Turning on 'play from HTTP instead of SMB' should fix it, but so will fixing you paths/path substitution. How do you have your paths to your media set up in Emby Server? xnappo /media/Movies for movies in Freenas the jail output all goes through the preset /media -- I simply linked movies to my movies folder, music to my music folder, etc. Should I use path substitution? I would like to use smb, so any help with setting up a proper path in emby would be fantastic. The way it is set now works fine in Emby, but if there is a better way I would appreciate any help. Edited June 5, 2015 by PhilWhite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 Thanks xnappo, the pathway was the problem. While I have CIFS shares set in Freenas and linked to the ZFS datraset that serves as the input into my plugin jail I think something is lost in the translation out of the jail. By using path substitution to allow direct access to my samba shares on the freenas box everything works beautifully, including music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 Thanks xnappo, the pathway was the problem. While I have CIFS shares set in Freenas and linked to the ZFS datraset that serves as the input into my plugin jail I think something is lost in the translation out of the jail. By using path substitution to allow direct access to my samba shares on the freenas box everything works beautifully, including music. Did you manage to resolve it? In your path substitution, does it work if you do this \\media\Movies instead of /media/Movies? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted June 6, 2015 Author Share Posted June 6, 2015 Did you manage to resolve it? In your path substitution, does it work if you do this \\media\Movies instead of /media/Movies? Yes, resolved. Thanks for all your help. About using \\media\Movies, that is a good question. I used from \media\Movies to my samba share. I wonder if I had used \\media\Movies as the original path if that would have worked. I may have to play around with that this weekend. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted June 6, 2015 Author Share Posted June 6, 2015 Angelblue, \\media\Movies didn't work. The path out of the jail is /media -> my media folders so it looks like for my setup I need to use that path substitution. I tried playing around with other paths to avoid using path substitution but didn't get very far (though I didn't try that many). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 Ok I'll have to see what we can do to accommodate this path. The problem is that it's not treated as a network share, so no protocol gets attached to it (smb) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xnappo 1593 Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 I think there are other FireTV users managing this. Hopefully someone can chime in. I think Kodi will take smb://localhost/media/... in this case in the path sub. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted June 8, 2015 Author Share Posted June 8, 2015 I think there are other FireTV users managing this. Hopefully someone can chime in. I think Kodi will take smb://localhost/media/... in this case in the path sub. Yes, that path substitution is what worked for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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