[dr-oopie]

I have an unraid server and this annoys me. I'm not sure if there is a way around it but can't find anything. Does Kodi have something similar to Plex where you can use a cache drive to have all the artwork? I'm really not sure how Kodi works. I use ember to get all the metadata and artwork and it stores it to the movie directory. Does Kodi use this when scrolling the media library? Or does it use the urls from either the .nfo or the links in the SQL database?

I use MySQL for the database and use ember to sync the data and it creates a .nfo file. My media server has disks that spin down to save on energy and I only watch a couple of movies a day during weekends. As I scroll, the poster for the movies take a while to load. I am not sure what I can do so they can load quicker. My issue is that I don't want to spin up all drives just to scroll through the library. I don't mind the spin up wait when I actually start a movie tho. That's understandable. I have Plex installed and it doesn't seem to be an issue and it uses the same images but not sure if it's loading them from somewhere in the cache drive that Plex is mounted to.

[Karellen]

I use ember to get all the metadata and artwork and it stores it to the movie directory. Does Kodi use this when scrolling the media library? Or does it use the urls from either the .nfo or the links in the SQL database?

It uses none of those.
When media items are scanned/scraped into the library, Kodi makes a cached copy of the images in your \Kodi\Userdata\Thumbnails folder. Kodi uses these images when scrolling through the library.

My issue is that I don't want to spin up all drives just to scroll through the library.

This is a common complaint from users. What you are experiencing here is the 24 hour cache check. If you use local artwork, Kodi checks for changes in local artwork images and this occurs when a) Kodi is asked to display the image on screen and b) the last time the image was checked is more than 24 hours.
While this is great when you want to replace images, because you simply delete the old image and replace it with the new image of the same name, it does become a problem when scrolling your library.

My own workaround is to edit the Textures13 database and change the lasthashcheck dates to 1 year in the future. For those items, the images won't be checked for another year.

The above is for a standard Kodi install, but I am not sure about the integration with Plex as I have never used it.

[dr-oopie]

I use ember to get all the metadata and artwork and it stores it to the movie directory. Does Kodi use this when scrolling the media library? Or does it use the urls from either the .nfo or the links in the SQL database?

It uses none of those.
When media items are scanned/scraped into the library, Kodi makes a cached copy of the images in your \Kodi\Userdata\Thumbnails folder. Kodi uses these images when scrolling through the library.

My issue is that I don't want to spin up all drives just to scroll through the library.

This is a common complaint from users. What you are experiencing here is the 24 hour cache check. If you use local artwork, Kodi checks for changes in local artwork images and this occurs when a) Kodi is asked to display the image on screen and b) the last time the image was checked is more than 24 hours.
While this is great when you want to replace images, because you simply delete the old image and replace it with the new image of the same name, it does become a problem when scrolling your library.

My own workaround is to edit the Textures13 database and change the lasthashcheck dates to 1 year in the future. For those items, the images won't be checked for another year.

The above is for a standard Kodi install, but I am not sure about the integration with Plex as I have never used it.  

im using DB Browser for SQLite, do i manually change all the entries to 1 year line by line? or what is the fastest way to edit them all at once?

[Karellen]

Change the first date and copy the cell. Then highlight all the other cells to be changed and paste, just like Excel.

Only change the entries that have a date. Don't add dates to blank cells.

Make a backup of the database first.

[dr-oopie]

Change the first date and copy the cell. Then highlight all the other cells to be changed and paste, just like Excel.

Only change the entries that have a date. Don't add dates to blank cells.

Make a backup of the database first.

thanks was able to do the copy/paste. i dont know if this is proper but it did change all the tables that had a year of 2020 to 2021. UPDATE  "main"."texture" SET lasthashcheck = replace(lasthashcheck,'2020','2021');

[Karellen]

UPDATE  "main"."texture" SET lasthashcheck = replace(lasthashcheck,'2020','2021');

That does not work for me and I would be concerned if other tables and fields were updated. This works...

sql:
UPDATE texture

SET lasthashcheck = replace(lasthashcheck,'2020','2021');

[Klojum]

That does not work for me and I would be concerned if other tables and fields were updated. This works...

You might as well set a common date for all artwork hashtags, otherwise you could still end up having to update your Textures13.db on a daily basis when 2021 starts.
Also, my textures13.db file contains lasthashcheck dates from 2019 and onwards.

sql:
# DATE SETTING HACK

UPDATE texture SET lasthashcheck = "2021-12-31";