[jamesford]

I've been using Kodi for some years now (back to when it was XBMC), and recently decided to do a clean install of the latest version.

My files are on an NAS and I'm having difficulty in accessing them now. I was previously able to access them with NFS or Samba, but now can only reach them with UPnP. With UPnP they only show up as files which don't appear in the main screen - so it's a bit 'clunky'.

If I try with NFS, I can browse to the directories in which the files are stored eg .../nfs/Films but can't select the directory - .../nfsFilms/... (I can remember having the same problem years back, but can't remember how I got over it!). If I try using Samba, the WORKGROUP doesn't get detected. I've changed nothing on the NAS.

I'd be grateful for some advice, please!
Jim

[Klojum]

And still both SMB and NFS should work, although they each have their manual for instructions. Which versions is your NAS capable of for both SMB and NFS?

It's possible that the internal NFS browsing functionality is unable to find the NFS sources, it seems to happen lately with certain client/server combinations. One rudimentary solution is to manually add the NFS entries in the sources.xml file.

Kodi 17+ defaults to SMBv2, because of the gigantic security holes in SMBv1. Should your NAS only be capable of SMBv1, then you still can activate it in Kodi, but for obvious reasons it is not recommended.

[jamesford]

And still both SMB and NFS should work, although they each have their manual for instructions. Which versions is your NAS capable of for both SMB and NFS?

It's possible that the internal NFS browsing functionality is unable to find the NFS sources, it seems to happen lately with certain client/server combinations. One rudimentary solution is to manually add the NFS entries in the sources.xml file.

Kodi 17+ defaults to SMBv2, because of the gigantic security holes in SMBv1. Should your NAS only be capable of SMBv1, then you still can activate it in Kodi, but for obvious reasons it is not recommended.

Very helpful reply 'Klojum' - many thanks!

My NAS is a Zyxel NSA320 and Zyxel discontinued firmware updates in 2016. I can't see any reference to samba and the version in the web interface.

I assumed it would be v1 and altered the configuration in Kodi and it's now working. I'll test with v2 and see if that works.

As an aside, I hoped that the latest Kodi release would somehow reduce the library update time by not re-scanning the whole library every time, which makes scan on startup impracticable. Would it not be possible to tag a video as scanned such that it can be skipped on the next update? I've got around 800 videos and it takes at least an hour to scan the library.
Jim

[Klojum]

by not re-scanning the whole library every time

'Scan on startup' is disabled by default, so that's probably something you enabled somewhere along the way.

An hour for 800 videos..? Your NAS is getting pretty slow then, assuming your Kodi device is connected via ethernet. Are the NAS disks full, or perhaps having some problem? My media setup is approx 1.5 times larger and is scanned in a couple of minutes. What Kodi device are you using?

[jamesford]

My NAS is 2TB and 95.5% full, leaving 83GB free. Do you think that's enough 'headroom' to allow fast transfers?

I looked at bonnie++ to see if the network is slow, but I've not been able to mount the NAS locally yet so I can run bonnie++  - besides which, I'm not sure that I'll be able to interpret the results intelligently! I'm running Kodi on an Amazon FireStick, through ethernet via a powerline adaptor.
Jim

[Klojum]

I've never met Bonnie, so no experience there.
95.5% full is quite full, but the read speeds should still be okay for your network.

The Firestick is likely the weak link, along with the powerline adapter.
Powerline means usually basic wifi speeds, which can vary a lot.

I normally use an Intel PC with a gigabit network, it has much more grunt when doing a library update.
Also the MySQL database runs off the file server's SSD drive, so i have no speed bumps there.

[jamesford]

I did a scan on the disks of my NAS. No errors were reported, but it reduced the Kodi library update time from 1+ Hrs to about 10 minutes.
Thanks 'Klojum' for the bit of 'hand holding'!
Jim

[Klojum]

but it reduced the Kodi library update time from 1+ Hrs to about 10 minutes.

How did you manage that?

[jamesford]

but it reduced the Kodi library update time from 1+ Hrs to about 10 minutes.

How did you manage that?

The NSA320 web interface had an option to scan the disk array. I carried it out but there was no reports of problems, so I guessed that it transparently fixed any that it found.
Jim

[Klojum]

Thread marked solved.