(2020-09-01, 15:53)Prof Yaffle Wrote: @Arctic_Wolf You may well be in for a pleasant surprise. I've moved XBMC/Kodi version very many times, and the upgrade process brings the database with it. Off the top of my head, the new application version starts, creates the new remote tables, ports/reformats the data and populates it all into the new tables - leaving the old ones untouched. So long as the mysql/MariaDB user has the right permissions, all you see is a pause, and then life carries on as normal.

The gotcha is if you have different clients of different versions. In this instance, your old clients will see the old db tables, and the new ones will see... well, the new ones. In practical terms, it simply means your clients are now out of sync, in that new additions, watched statuses, watch counts and similar are now diverging because the two Kodi versions are reading from and writing to different tables. Once all clients catch up to the same version, you can safely drop the old tables if you wish, as they're now unused.

As always, though - if it's precious, back it up before any significant change.

.  I can definitely see another well warranted donation to Kodi coming up again in the very near future for me too .

(2020-09-02, 15:35)Prof Yaffle Wrote: You are entirely correct in your understanding. Kodi handles the DB upgrade, whether that's the local SQLite database or a remote MySQL/MariaDB - it basically squirts in the relevant SQL code to create a new database, create the tables with the right format, and then re-arrange, extend, or otherwise manipulate the existing data before populating the new tables. Most people wouldn't ever worry about dropping the old database and tables, but a good clean-up would do just that when they're no longer required.

As part of the upgrade, you simply get a new database with a new version number as per the wiki: Databases#Database_Versions (wiki) - that's why, in my original example, you've got multiple MyVideosXX and MyMusicXX databases, as Frodo to Gotham to Helix created the new ones. Indeed, if I check now, you can see that history continues to be written as I've gone on all the way to Leia on this setup (my Matrix installation is standalone, so it doesn't break production systems):

Code:

$ date
Wed  2 Sep 14:20:54 BST 2020

$ mysql -u root -p
Enter password:

<snippy mcsnipface>

mysql> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| MyMusic56          |
| MyMusic60          |
| MyMusic72          |
| MyVideos107        |
| MyVideos116        |
| MyVideos99         |
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
| sys                |
+--------------------+
10 rows in set (0.01 sec)

It's important to get your advancedsettings.xml in place, as you say, as that's what points the new Kodi installation to the database - likewise, sources.xml if you need this client to be able to scan in new media (you could probably skip it if you only ever update from one client, but it's probably wise to keep it all in sync). The only reason to even really worry about this How-to is if something's changing in those paths - if you want to tidy up paths, move media around, rename your NAS or give it a new IP address, that sort of thing - or, as in my original case, to move the database to a completely different system. Otherwise, it should all be pretty automated.


And contributions are always gratefully received, so thank you

(I'll leave these posts here for a bit, but will probably move them out of Tips & Tricks and into their own support thread in due course, so be aware of that in case they seemingly vanish. You can always look at your profile to find your own threads/posts if you find you've mislaid them).