[ExplodingCore]

Ok  so here's the deal.

I rent a remote server that I use for storage of my library. After some experimentation I concluded using ftp is my best bet for accessing the library with my Kodi clients. Anything else doesn't work out with my configuration running a PMS on the server and PKC on the clients. However that doesn't really matter.

 So my source is FTP. Now since that is basic auth I created a read-only account on the server that has no other privileges. The issue I face is that my log is flooded with these

2023-01-25 21:50:16.008 T:8359    ERROR <general>: CCurlFile::Exists - Failed: Login denied(67) for ftp://<somefqdn>:21/Movies/The Dark Knight Rises (2012)/extrafanart/
2023-01-25 21:50:18.583 T:8359    ERROR <general>: CCurlFile::Exists - Failed: Login denied(67) for ftp://<somefqdn>:21/Movies/extrafanart/
2023-01-25 21:50:21.816 T:8359    ERROR <general>: CCurlFile::Exists - Failed: Login denied(67) for ftp://<somefqdn>:21/extrafanart/

I don't want to grant write permissions to the ftp user I use to access the library media.

Now I could live with a messy log but really all of those requests are completely unnecessary and are flooding my server. I'd like to configure it to ban IPs after several failed login attempts (fail2ban) which I can't, at least not the way I'd like to, because it would ban all of my kodi clients (they don't have static IPs which could be whitelisted)

Is there any way to stop Kodi from attempting to save extrafanart to the source location? I mean apparently it's stored in some database anyway because skins can use the extrafanart without any issues.

[Klojum]

Now I could live with a messy log

Or you could turn off Kodi's logging (loglevel=-1) if you want to do without the mess.

I have no expertise on the extrafanart situation.

[Karellen]

Get rid of the extrafanart folders?

Kodi v17 was the last time the extrafanart folder was supported.

[izprtxqkft]

if i understand the concern properly that is happening when Accessing the fanart not when saving it, saving should only occur when exporting, the "Exists" function in that log section is kodi trying to check if there is extrafanart

i would posit the theory that this is happening when browsing media and its trying to set the background to "extrafanart"

to stop that particular behavior you can disable backgrounds in the skin settings, in the default estuary this is located in settings -> interface -> configure skin -> artwork, setting "Show media fanart as background" to Off

see if this helps

[izprtxqkft]

on further investigation it seems there is no reference to "extrafanart" within estuary anywhere so i did a fresh pull of kodi from github both the nexus and matrix branches and they also do not have such a reference that i could locate
i found this post which is fairly recent that suggests kodi itself does not handle the extrafanart folder and it is an additional functionality added by skins https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=370690
i did find a reference to that within the youtube addon source within my own setup but i cannot say if this is where your issue lies

it would seem to be an additional addon or skin that you have installed that is not part of a vanilla setup which is trying to access the extrafanart

if you are using linux and are able to, run 'grep -ri "extrafanart" --include=*' inside your addons directory in order to identify addons that have a reference to extrafanart then they can be focused on to try and find a resolution

[ExplodingCore]

Ok, this is interesting.

For clarification: i don't have any extrafanart folder in my source location.

I'm surprised you're saying Kodi is trying to access those paths. From the curl error I am getting (67 - login denied, https://linux.die.net/man/3/libcurl-errors) I assumed it's trying to write to this path. For reading a non existent path I'd have expected more like a 78 - does not exist.

Yes, I am using a Skin (Titan BINGIE MOD) that can display extrafanart however that works perfectly fine. It rotates through extra fanart when looking at items in library view.

I got a bunch of results searching for "extrafanart" in addons directory. I might have found something there. A plugin or rather dependency that, I think, is a remnant from a previous skin: script.artwork.helper
Now I'm not familiar enough with Kodi, its plugins and logging. Can I turn up logging to pinpoint it's that throwing the error?

[izprtxqkft]

one of the team kodi people could offer a better solution for specific logging im sure, my go to method is process of elimination, disabling then observing results

what i saw in your log snippet "CCurlFile::Exists" is a check if it exists function, "Failed: Login denied(67)" tells me it tried to check if exists without credentials (edit: this is an assumption, it actually was denied so invalid credentials could be or permissions on server), "for ftp://<somefqdn>:21/Movies/The Dark Knight Rises (2012)/extrafanart/" tells me what it tried to check exists

heres the source file for it https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master...rlFile.cpp line 1292 has the exists function

[Fuchs2468]

I rent a remote server that I use for storage of my library. After some experimentation I concluded using ftp is my best bet for accessing the library with my Kodi clients. 

I would recommend "webdav" as the remote server protocol.
With the Ftp protocol, for example, no stream details are displayed.

[ExplodingCore]

I would recommend "webdav" as the remote server protocol.
With the Ftp protocol, for example, no stream details are displayed.

I didn't get webdav to work as it requires files in the shared folder to be owned by var-www:var-www but I need files in my library to be owned by plex:plex for Plex Media Server.

What exactly am I missing out on? What do you mean by stream details that are not being displayed?

[ExplodingCore]

I removed the plugin script.artwork.helper and haven't seen the error since then.

Interestingly enough though I tried to curl manually and I only receive error 67 when using wrong credentials. Non existing path (DL) and trying to upload with insufficient permissions or to the non existing path yielded a different error.

I think that is because the plugin is not aware of the stored credentials for this network source. This might me a special case since I'm using PlexKodiConnect with direct paths (path substitution) and there is no traditional Kodi source for my library and thus no stored credentials that could have been used.
Now as far as I understand credentials are masked within logs so it wasn't obvious to me that no credentials were used since it displayed USERNAMEASSWORD in kodi.log .

Anyhow my problem is solved. Maybe this helps someone else. I think the plugin that caused this comes with installing Aeon Mod MQ8 MOD or some variety of it.

[izprtxqkft]

right on
some good old fashioned investigatory exploration and process of elimination wins out again

glad you got it