[Moxxwell]

Hi!
So I'm pretty new to Kodi, but really started enjoying it for watching movies. My problem is that I don't know how to sync my watched status between my devices.

I'm pretty sure it's been asked several times, and I googled, yet haven't found anything which solves my problem in a simple fashion.

Firstly my setup. I have 3 devices (PC, Phone, FireTV Stick) all running the exact same Kodi setup, as i copied them over. My files are on a NAS, or actually on a Hard Drive which is connected to my FritzBox(router) which handles everything. Everything works great. If I want to watch movies outside of my home, I connect to my Home via VPN, which I thought was a simple solution to watch my movies.

My question is, how can I sync my watched status including position between my devices?

I've seen comments about MySQL, which I don't know how to do. About Plex, which wasn't what i exactly wanted but maybe.

Maybe I'm over simplifying this a bit too much, but all I want to do is to save the watched information on my NAS for example and have Kodi get that information on startup and save it from time to time. I only watch on one device, and close Kodi afterwards. I also don't want to have any device running 24/7. I thought this could work, because I do have everything local and built up the same on all devices. Is there a solution like that?

If there are any questions, please ask.

Best Regards

[DarrenHill]

There's details on the wiki - MySQL (wiki). Look through those and see if it guides you along. If not come back here and we can try and sort your questions out.

The watched status is stored in the database, and the set-up will allow the database to be centrally stored and shared between devices. Those devices must all be on the same major Kodi version though (18.x or 19.x etc, so all Leia or all Matrix etc). Minor version (the x bit) doesn't matter.

Other third party options are stuff like Emby or Jellyfin.

[Moxxwell]

There's details on the wiki - MySQL (wiki). Look through those and see if it guides you along. If not come back here and we can try and sort your questions out.

The watched status is stored in the database, and the set-up will allow the database to be centrally stored and shared between devices. Those devices must all be on the same major Kodi version though (18.x or 19.x etc, so all Leia or all Matrix etc). Minor version (the x bit) doesn't matter.

Other third party options are stuff like Emby or Jellyfin.

Hi! Thanks for the reply.
I looked a bit into it. I realised that the biggest problem I have is the setup that I'm running. Like I said, atm I'm running my router with an external hard drive hooked up to it. Meaning it's not a separate NAS, instead my router does all the work, with setting up a Mediaserver actually which is easy to connect to via SMB. Problem here is, I can't install something special, like a MySQL server or for example a Plex server.

I also looked into JellyFin (which i never heard of up until now). I really liked how JellyFin worked, and thought of doing this. But like I said i can't install anything special on my router.

If I'm not mistaken, if I would like to use any of those solution, I would need to have a device running 24/7 to be the server, correct? I actually wanted to get around this, because i already have the router running. I guess that won't work?

Another solution i thought of. I do have an old RPi 3 lying around, would it be possible to use that for my library syncing (using MySQL or JellyFin)? Should work, as it's only used for the DB and my router used for the actual content. Correct me if my thinking is wrong.

Looking forward gearing from you. Tell me what you think.

Regards

[DarrenHill]

The Pi would be more than capable of running the MySQL (wiki) server yes.

As it's the central repository, the device hosting it needs to be available whenever one of the Kodi devices needs it. Whether that means 24/7 I leave to your judgement, but basically it normally does unless you're willing/able to ensure that the server is booted up and available before any of the Kodi instances start and try to talk to it.

All of the solutions require the 24/7 available server for that reason, so something like the Pi is a great solution as the computing requirements for the server are low and the Pi is very frugal on power usage.

[Moxxwell]

The Pi would be more than capable of running the MySQL (wiki) server yes.

As it's the central repository, the device hosting it needs to be available whenever one of the Kodi devices needs it. Whether that means 24/7 I leave to your judgement, but basically it normally does unless you're willing/able to ensure that the server is booted up and available before any of the Kodi instances start and try to talk to it.

All of the solutions require the 24/7 available server for that reason, so something like the Pi is a great solution as the computing requirements for the server are low and the Pi is very frugal on power usage.

Thank you for the great help!

Before i try that with the Pi, just a quick question. Is it possible to like tell Kodi to save the library as file somewhere on that "NAS" and update it when i like close Kodi and get that information or copy it from the "NAS" when i start Kodi?

If not or if it's too complicated, I'll have my hands on the Pi solution. Either MySQL, JellyFin or Plex would work?

Regards

[Fuchs2468]

A simple solution is the use of "Trakt".
I hold with Trakt 3 Kodi devices synchronously.

[DarrenHill]

Trakt is indeed another option.

To the previous question - what you're saving is the databases (wiki) that would normally be stored on the device itself (in the database sub-folder of the userdata (wiki) folder). It is updated whenever you watch anything, as it's also where the watched status and resume point is held. So it's all done automatically.

What will happen with the MySQL (wiki) set-up is that database is shared in common with all the devices that you set things up on to point at it (via entries in the advancedsettings.xml (wiki) file) and they will all share the same database. This is why they have to be on the same major Kodi version, as the version of the database increments with each major update. There is nothing else that needs to be done in terms of sync and reading/writing, as it's all done automatically during usage.