Solved - Can you use a STRM file hosted on a Web site in a Favorite?

Solved Can you use a STRM file hosted on a Web site in a Favorite? - Printable Version

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Can you use a STRM file hosted on a Web site in a Favorite? - WStars - 2022-01-06

I have a number of public radar GIFs in STRM files on my local Android Kodi installation. For example, I have a file at

Code:
/storage/emulated/0/Streams/Radar.strm

I have it favorited, and the favorite looks like:

Code:
<favourite name="US Conus">PlayMedia(&quot;/storage/emulated/0/Streams/Radar.strm&quot;)</favourite>

How can I make use of that same STRM file if it's hosted on a Web server? I have one set up at http://php1.rf.gd/testing/radar.strm, and I'd like to be able to drop that into a favorite on another Kodi installation. What I'm aiming for is a favorite which looks kinda like this:

Code:
<favourite name="US Conus">PlayMedia(&quot;http://php1.rf.gd/testing/radar.strm&quot;)</favourite>

But I can't seem to find the right syntax for it. (Being able to access it via a hosted STRM file is desirable, as some of the ones I use have dynamic URLs which change frequently. Piping them into a STRM file so the URL is always current is an easy job from the server side.)

I've tried it with and without the schema, with backslashed paths, with XML escaped characters, and under numeric IP (which fails due to the shared hosting). I have FTP access to the hosting location, but I can't seem to create an FTP source in File Manager which can access it either. If STRM is impossible, might there be a way to drop that GIF into an M3U and use that instead? I'd prefer to avoid third-party addons if Kodi can do this natively.

Not the least bit afraid to RTFM, so if you have a link to more detailed documentation on STRM and Favorites than what's at the Kodi Wiki, I'd certainly appreciate it. Much thanks for any insight you can offer!

RE: Can you use a STRM file hosted on a Web site in a Favorite? - black_eagle - 2022-01-06

Yes, you can. You just can't host it on a site that requires javascript enabled, like that one does Wink

See https://paste.kodi.tv/deriyilote.kodi for the error I got in my debug log.

RE: Can you use a STRM file hosted on a Web site in a Favorite? - WStars - 2022-01-06

No wonder! The normal Kodi log just reported a failure to open the stream, but didn't clarify anything further. Confused

Can you confirm the syntax you were using? I'll have to try this again with another host—thanks so much!

RE: Can you use a STRM file hosted on a Web site in a Favorite? - black_eagle - 2022-01-07

(2022-01-06, 22:52)WStars Wrote: Can you confirm the syntax you were using?

Sure. Missing the <favourite blah blah> out, I used PlayMedia("http://php1.rf.gd/testing/radar.strm"), which I guess is correct as it tries to resolve the contents.

Just FYI, I have stuff set up on local smb & nfs shares that are called via, f.e PlayMedia("smb://192.168.1.50/userdata/coast.strm&quot. As smb/nfs/http(s) are just different protocols, they should all work. The strm file contains the url to a local radio station. Although this is hosted via smb, I could just as easily host it on an http(s) server, Kodi will still resolve it correctly.

It just won't resolve when javascript gets in the way! debug log (wiki) gives you a lot more info as to what is going on inside Kodi. Helps a lot in resolving issues Wink

RE: Can you use a STRM file hosted on a Web site in a Favorite? - WStars - 2022-01-07

Yeah, the Kodi log was the first thing I checked. I must not have it in verbose mode or something—its error about being unable to open the stream was extremely generic. No information about the underlying cURL process or anything. Your error messages were quite a bit more detailed, and much more helpful.

So no escaping or URL encoding, eh? Working on setting up an STRM on another host which (hopefully) won't be introducing anything into my generated files, so I'll see if I can get that working. Thanks again!

RE: Can you use a STRM file hosted on a Web site in a Favorite? - WStars - 2022-01-07

Boys and girls, we have a winner! Big Grin

Set things up on another host which doesn't inject anything, and used a plain URL (no encoding or escaping). Fired right up!

Also went back and took a closer look at the log, and just learned an important lesson. The error was very generic, just a statement that the remote STRM file could not be loaded. But back up several lines and look at the warning, and there you find a huge chunk of HTML that it choked on as it tried to find a protocol to use. (It helped to FTP into my Kodi device from my computer and view the logs in Notepad++ instead of the simplistic Android text editor.) So lesson learned—check those warnings as well.

Much thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

RE: Can you use a STRM file hosted on a Web site in a Favorite? - black_eagle - 2022-01-07

(2022-01-07, 00:50)WStars Wrote: I must not have it in verbose mode or something

Settings->system->logging->enable debug logging - turn ON. You can also turn on "enable component-specific logging", and then specify libcURL, which will be extremely verbose.

Can you use a STRM file hosted on a Web site in a Favorite? - black_eagle - 2022-01-07

Thread marked solved.