Can not play video in Kodi (and a bit more)

[HPBirkeland 4]

I have a setup with a pc running Emby media server and all my media (movies, tv shows and music videos are relevant for this question) on the local hard drive, and a laptop with Kodi and the Emby for Kodi addon. All video files are coded in H264. I have set up path substitution for all main folders like this:

 

From                                         To

/home/hpb/Videoklipp/Filmer     //Programbank/Videoklipp/Filmer

 

The machine name is Programbank.

When I use the Emby web interface on the laptop everything works as expected, but I have some issues in Kodi. Of all my 29 movies, Kodi will only play one. It will not play any music videos or any of the few TV episodes it sees. All music plays fine.

 

A while after I have tried to play the following message pops up:

 

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

One or more items failed to play. Check the log for more information about this message.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

 

I have a log file from a session where I do the following steps:

 

-Start Kodi

-Try to play a music video (ABBA - Fernando)

-Try to play a movie (About A Boy)

-Play the only movie that will play (Flåklypa Grand Prix)

-Try to play a TV show episode (The Thorn Birds ep 1)

-Exit Kodi

 

Log file: http://pastebin.com/Zqt2BnwK

 

Does anybody understand what is wrong here and how I can fix it? I have searched the forum for solutions and have found several similiar threads, but none with my exact problem and none of the suggestions have helped me.

 

Also, about TV shows. It seems like Kodi can't see episodes that are in season folders. Can this be right? According to the wiki I should be able to use season folders: http://kodi.wiki/view/Naming_video_files/TV_shows

[xnappo 1608]

I think you want '\' instead on '/' in your substitution.

 

For the TV shows - check in the metadata that the seasons have the 'Season Number' field populated.  See here:

http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/20394-episodes-not-being-added-to-library/

Edited January 7, 2016 by xnappo

[HPBirkeland 4]

Thanks for the reply,

As far as I have understood it from before, "\" is Windows specific. I have Linux in all ends. Also, I thought about it and tried to change it for one of the folders and it did not help.

 

I'll check out that other thread.

[HPBirkeland 4]

You were right about the seasons. The episodes have both season and episode set, but the season level had nothing. Maybe because the folder names are not English?

 

I'll do another attempt at changing / to \, as I forgot to sync manually the first time.

[xnappo 1608]

You were right about the seasons. The episodes have both season and episode set, but the season level had nothing. Maybe because the folder names are not English?

 

I'll do another attempt at changing / to \, as I forgot to sync manually the first time.

I don't think so - I think this is a server bug as several people have seen it.  I think refreshing usually gets it to fill in.

[HPBirkeland 4]

Now I tried to change / to \ for the movie folder and did a manual sync in the Emby addon. Nothing changed. Besides, I can play one movie, also with the / in the path substitution. Therefore it must be something else. And all video files are .mp4 with h264 codec.

[xnappo 1608]

Well the one movie that plays is probably working by falling back to HTTP. 

 

Post another log.  Or - debug by looking for lines like this from your original:

20:04:12 T:140534674839296   ERROR: CDVDPlayer::OpenInputStream - error opening [//Programbank/Videoklipp/Musikkvideo/Phil Collins/Phil Collins - Another Day In Paradise (Official Music Video).mp4]

[HPBirkeland 4]

Don't know if it helps, but I created another log where I only opened and closed Kodi: http://pastebin.com/eujGYArm

 

There are a lot of entries like 

 

23:08:48 T:139661305431808 WARNING: CreateLoader - unsupported protocol(plugin) in plugin://plugin.video.emby/tvshows/8542860b974c49a884a0224f9f9b34f6/?filename=Dalgliesh s08e02 A Certain Justice.mp4&id=2fc16bb77ca74a760ac5b5963d3310a7&mode=play

23:08:48 T:139661305431808   ERROR: InputStream: Error opening, plugin://plugin.video.emby/tvshows/8542860b974c49a884a0224f9f9b34f6/?filename=Dalgliesh s08e02 A Certain Justice.mp4&id=2fc16bb77ca74a760ac5b5963d3310a7&mode=play

 

Does that have anything to do with it?

 

Thanks for your help so far, I have to go to bed now :-)

[Angelblue05 4131]

You are being too quick in your testing. Wait until you see the welcome message (means the add-on is connected to your server) before playing something.

 

You can ignore the unsupported protocol.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[HPBirkeland 4]

Ok, here's another one. Waited for the welcome message, started the one movie that plays, stopped it and then tried to start another one.

 

http://pastebin.com/A6HvmPuw

[xnappo 1608]

Now it looks like path substitution is completely off:

error opening [/home/hpb/Videoklipp/Film/Music and Lyrics (2007)/Music And Lyrics.mp4]

I assume this path is not valid from this machine?

 

Just play with path substitution and search for 'error opening' until you get it correct.  It is hard to tell you exactly what to do without knowing more about your network.

Edited January 8, 2016 by xnappo

[HPBirkeland 4]

Ok, thanks, I'll look into it. That path is the local path on the server. I still don't understand why one movie will play, though. And it uses the same path:

06:42:26 T:140631859001088  NOTICE: EMBY Player -> ONPLAYBACK_STARTED: /home/hpb/Videoklipp/Film/Flåklypa Grand Prix (1975)/Flåklypa Grand Prix.mp4 ITEMID: 9de516a633103a07be1e59dd9ed61006

Edited January 8, 2016 by HPBirkeland

[HPBirkeland 4]

Ok, I might be on to something. I noticed a typo in the path substitution which I corrected, without more success. Then I tried to change / to \ again, and now the movies play but with the message "Unable to direct play. Check your log for info". Posted a new log, I hope you have some clues about what that message means.

 

http://pastebin.com/MFeXazdC

[HPBirkeland 4]

Well, magic happens, and that message disappeared the next time I started Kodi after correcting all my path substitutions. So for now all is well. Thank you very much, xnappo! Now on to solve a couple other issues. 

[Angelblue05 4131]

The message disappear if it fail to direct play 3times (unless you managed to get direct play working). If it fails 3 times, It enables http automatically. You can see if it's direct playing or direct streaming in your emby dashboard > active devices and just mouseover the kodi device (if you want to confirm).

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited January 8, 2016 by Angelblue05

[HPBirkeland 4]

Ok, so I'm not quite there yet. It is direct streaming. I don't fully understand the difference between the two, but as far as I have understood direct playing is the best. Any idea how to proceed?

[xnappo 1608]

So direct streaming plays over HTTP instead of smb/nfs - so it works, but has a tad more latency and no access to sister files (like .srt).

 

To debug, go into the settings and turn off 'Play from HTTP instead of SMB'(unless angelblue05 changed the name of this setting- something like that though) and see if you can figure out what is wrong with the path substitution.  Possibly missing password?

 

xnappo

[HPBirkeland 4]

I found a "Network Username" and "Network Password" in the addon settings. After filling in those it worked with direct playing.

 

Thanks a lot :-)

[xnappo 1608]

Phew - glad you got it going!