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+---- Thread: skins that use skin shortcuts addon and problem with empty/duplicate playlists (/showthread.php?tid=379231)
skins that use skin shortcuts addon and problem with empty/duplicate playlists - toml272 - 2024-10-22
Hi, I tried to do the forum search, but either I'm bad in that or the search isn't great in this forum as appearently 50+% of the threads contain word "skin". that's my excuse for the new thread. now let's get to the issue.
I always used Aeon Nox, since it started using Kodi. I like it and its menu is customizable (I like the things sorted out between my content and my child's content).
in the past (I don't know, maybe up to Krypton) I was able to select media source for the menu item. it worked flawlesly. then it stopped working, it appeared like it's empty. but when I go directly in the Files and select the media source, there are videos. reaching it from the skin menu item didn't work and it appeared empty.
so, I found the workaround to create smart playlists and used them. this way I was able to see the videos entering skin menu item, not just empty menu item (or how else to call it).
at some point I noticed I don't even need to create the smart playlists, the skin creates them on its own. so basically even if I select media source for an menu item, the playlist is created in the skin.shortcuts folder in kodi user profile directory.
and it works. sometimes. sometimes once, sometimes it works for some time, sometimes it doesn't work. with "sometimes" I mean uninstalling Kodi (on AndroidTV box), clearing profile folder, reinstalling Kodi, configuring all from scratch.
so, this is the thing:
I have 3 media source, if I create smart playlist for them menu item action shows the playlist name with the xsp file extension. if I don't, and instead use media source for a menu item, the playlist is created with the generic 1.xsp name, respectively 2.xsp, 3.xsp.
and now "sometimes" come in place again.
- sometimes it works for some time, or at least once, and I'm able to see the videos when I enter the menu item. after that either I don't see anything there or it brings me in the skin.shortcuts folder (apparently) and I can see two items there. when I looked in every xsp file in that folder I was able to find two playlist, one apparently with the random ordering, one without any ordering. so it seems to me like the skin doesn't know which to use. but this is only when it finds the playlists by name. there are cases I enter the menu item and there is nothing.
- and sometimes it doesn't work at all and the problem with empty/duplicate playlist in the skin menu item is there immediately after configuring the skin.
- and it always happens with one media source, it has only like 50 videos in it. I tried renaming the folder on the HDD, I tried renaming the media source, renaming the playlist, nothing helped fixing it. it happens only with playlists. media sources aren't affected, but skins won't use it anymore and instead creates stupid skin shortcuts for everything.
- I tried to remove playlist xsp files, modify them (copied them from profile dir to mounted smb share and back), also didn't work.
I even tried Arctic Zephyr Reloaded as I assumed the issues is with the skin, not the skin shortcuts addon. btw, that skin is full of other bugs, when I minimize Kodi or let sleep the AndroidTV box (Nokia 8010), even other playlists appears empty, but for that it's enough to restart Kodi. which isn't also that easy, because quitting Kodi and then starting it again doesn't work. the TV box has to be restarted completely. that TV box is fine, but access is heavily restricted, can't reach using Putty, can't browse the filesystem using Total Commander or any other file manager app, and inside Kodi I can see only profile folder.
why the skins now use that retarded skin shortcuts addon when apparently it doesn't work correctly for whatever reason?
I'm IT guy and sometimes and intermittent are words I hate most...
please point me someone in some direction, please.
RE: skins that use skin shortcuts addon and problem with empty/duplicate playlists - toml272 - 2024-10-26
ok, I got it fixed...
I was going through settings of sources, playlists, etc.
for some reason this problematic folder had source path set up with the smb://user:pwd@host/folder1/folder2. others have just smb://host/folder3/folder4, etc. I configured SMB location first, with user and pwd and it's stored somewhere in the XML files (I think passwords.xml). so no idea how this got here. maybe my mistake. dunno.
I tried to remove that user and pwd from the source path and re-scanned it. and the videos suddenly started appearing in the playlist...
so, I have no idea how smart playlist and source is related, when you configure smart playlist and set the "path contains" browsing through the configured SMB share, but apparently there is some.
and second thing, now I know how to fix it, but previously it also happened that the videos were visible in the playlist and then disappeared. as the smart playlists and sources are obviously interconnected, the source had to change somehow.