[E net]

Intersting. I was kind of on my way to using your second approach anyway but I stopped when I saw that that files were not animated.

In the recent thread posts of MQ 8 mod some guys are reporting it's not functional like i was working for previous versions.
Latts is on the jumps to fix that.
I'm still using a custom Mod of MQ 7, animatedfanart stuff is also working not well there so a don't use ist anymore, but animatedposter working like a charm. 

Yeah I am one of those guys.

[chrissix666]

eah I am one of those guys.

You have to expect something like that if you belong to the very first "testers" of the very newest. 

That's why I still use a custom MQ7 mod and the MQ8 mod first when the code has been good polished. (And until a mod code is polished clean this could take 1-3 years, unless the modder has previously no more desire)
MQ7 Vanilla is still out 3 years and MQ7 Mod followed short after, and also currently still small fixes to do.

[E net]

eah I am one of those guys.

You have to expect something like that if you belong to the very first "testers" of the very newest. 

That's why I still use a custom MQ7 mod and the MQ8 mod first when the code has been good polished. (And until a mod code is polished clean this could take 1-3 years, unless the modder has previously no more desire)
MQ7 Vanilla is still out 3 years and MQ7 Mod followed short after, and also currently still small fixes to do. 

I get that but bottom line is that it was working. It was slow and clunky but it was working. Now I'm having to create a separate folder on my local drive and then point each and every movie file with an animated poster to that local directory. I found an old comment in the forums which says there is a way around that by modifying the Kodi database. But the link to animated posters is not in the main video database so I can't even enact his suggestion.

[SteveSmith]

eah I am one of those guys.

You have to expect something like that if you belong to the very first "testers" of the very newest. 

That's why I still use a custom MQ7 mod and the MQ8 mod first when the code has been good polished. (And until a mod code is polished clean this could take 1-3 years, unless the modder has previously no more desire)
MQ7 Vanilla is still out 3 years and MQ7 Mod followed short after, and also currently still small fixes to do.  

I get that but bottom line is that it was working. It was slow and clunky but it was working. Now I'm having to create a separate folder on my local drive and then point each and every movie file with an animated poster to that local directory. I found an old comment in the forums which says there is a way around that by modifying the Kodi database. But the link to animated posters is not in the main video database so I can't even enact his suggestion. 

I am sure there is a link somewhere that you put into one of the xml files that pointed to the database, it the automatically changed the animated poster for that movie.. But I have been through hundreds of posts and cant find it.. I cant even get the list in the context menu... so I am leaving it for now..
There is supposed to be away to also link animated posters over your network but again I havent worked how to do it.. No one has posted instructions on what is required.

[E net]

I understand what I need to do now. The Database points to the metadatautils folder so I just need to back that up which is what I did but it looks like I backed up without the folder being fully populated which is why some of the animated posters where there and others weren't. So even if the metadatautils folder has the animated gif, the database actually needs an entry pointing to that gif.

I just tested this out by reinstalling Kodi then restoring a backup I made earlier. That backup was missing some of the database entries, so then I copied a more recent copy of the database across and all my animated gifs started working again.

What I would like to be able to do is to manually update the database but I haven't worked out the link between the various id's being used and I'm guessing they are dynamically created anyway.

[E net]

You have to expect something like that if you belong to the very first "testers" of the very newest. 

That's why I still use a custom MQ7 mod and the MQ8 mod first when the code has been good polished. (And until a mod code is polished clean this could take 1-3 years, unless the modder has previously no more desire)
MQ7 Vanilla is still out 3 years and MQ7 Mod followed short after, and also currently still small fixes to do.  

I get that but bottom line is that it was working. It was slow and clunky but it was working. Now I'm having to create a separate folder on my local drive and then point each and every movie file with an animated poster to that local directory. I found an old comment in the forums which says there is a way around that by modifying the Kodi database. But the link to animated posters is not in the main video database so I can't even enact his suggestion.    

I am sure there is a link somewhere that you put into one of the xml files that pointed to the database, it the automatically changed the animated poster for that movie.. But I have been through hundreds of posts and cant find it.. I cant even get the list in the context menu... so I am leaving it for now..
There is supposed to be away to also link animated posters over your network but again I havent worked how to do it.. No one has posted instructions on what is required.   

I think I have it. It relies on a path substitution of the thumbnails folder to your network location. According to him, the animated posters will follow. The path substitution used to work, I saw it, but it no longer works plus I'm not sure that the animated posters did end up there anyway which is why I stopped using it. Anyway, it took me a while but I found a comment saying that path substitution is broken and it will not be fixed.

However, after spending some time looking at the database and the metadatautils folder I now have a semi-automatic way of dealing with it as I have explained in a previous post. Installing the gifs is still a manual process but at least I know exactly where to put or find them and then back them up.

[chrissix666]

Installing the gifs is still a manual process

Not anymore! @rmrector implemented into Artwork Beef via @rschiks KyraDB so animated artwork is now automated available via API same like other automated artwork (fanart.tv, tmdb, tvdb)
Animated Artwork Types are "animatedposter.gif", "animatedkeyart.gif", "animatedfanart(x).gif". Available with language tags and voting system like fanart.tv.