[cubalibre77]

I have been running an older version of Kodi.....I think it was 18.1, and I now tried to update to the latest v21 (Omega)

I "lost" about 90% av my library. Its all still there of course, but Its not showing up in Kodi

There is also something else going on with Add-ons......there isnt much at all to choose from in the repository.....no artwork beef, almost no skins etc.....I have no idea whats going on.

[Karellen]

v18.1 is very old. I would have recommended installing v21 fresh, rather than updating and overwriting v18.1

Yep, many of the old addons are gone as they are not Python 3 compatible. Instead of Artwork Beef you have Artwork Dump.

As for the library going missing, no idea what happened there. Maybe provide a Debug Log that captures an Update Library.

Go to your \Roaming\ folder and rename the \kodi\ folder to \kodi-old\
Restart Kodi and a new \kodi\ folder will be created and completely empty which is just like a fresh install.
Recreate your library.

[cubalibre77]

v18.1 is very old. I would have recommended installing v21 fresh, rather than updating and overwriting v18.1

Yep, many of the old addons are gone as they are not Python 3 compatible. Instead of Artwork Beef you have Artwork Dump.

As for the library going missing, no idea what happened there. Maybe provide a Debug Log that captures an Update Library.

Go to your \Roaming\ folder and rename the \kodi\ folder to \kodi-old\
Restart Kodi and a new \kodi\ folder will be created and completely empty which is just like a fresh install.
Recreate your library.

Thank you for your answer. But starting over again is not an option. It has taken me years to build all this up with all artwork. If it was all automatic the fine.....but everytime I add something I have to manually go in att choose som artwork. Even download it myself sometimes. It would take forever to do.

[cubalibre77]

Im back to v19 Matrix, not 18.1 as I thought for some reason. I tried updating a year ago, and I remember the same thing happened.....nothing works and my library "gone"

Its so strange.....I really don’t get it. Now it works again, even though I cant access anything in the repository, and I cant even install add-ons via zip files.....just getting some error message saying "dependency on xbmc.python could not be satisfied"

[Karellen]

If it was all automatic the fine

It is automatic... as long as you have the artwork correctly named and saved in the correct location.
Are you using local artwork?
Have you exported your library to nfo files without exporting artwork?

Provide a screenshot of one of your movie folders so I can check the naming.

[cubalibre77]

If it was all automatic the fine

It is automatic... as long as you have the artwork correctly named and saved in the correct location.
Are you using local artwork?
Have you exported your library to nfo files without exporting artwork?

Provide a screenshot of one of your movie folders so I can check the naming.

Sometimes it is able to add all artwork, but for the most time its only the cover art.....and I have to manually go to each movie and add disc art, logo etc. And on the music side it rarely finds anything.....not even when doing it manually.....so then I have to try and find and download it, and add it myself.

I think I have local artwork, because the kodi folder in roaming is over 80gb in size. And I dont understand the question about exporting library.....I haven’t exported anything.

All movies are in individual folders, but I don’t think there is anything wrong there......when scraping it always finds the movie and adds the cover......but the I often have to go in and add disc art and other things that it doesn’t add.

[Karellen]

v18.1 is unsupported.
There are no scrapers for v19 and earlier. They are broken and unmaintained.
I assume this may be the problem you are experiencing.

And thinking back to v18, I think you are correct, extended artwork was a pain to add in Kodi and you needed addons to do it, but that was fixed in v19.

Unfortunately you need to update to v21.
And if you have not saved the artwork locally, then you will lose the artwork and all the work you have put in. This is why we always urge to save local artwork and export nfo files, for this exact reason.

See artwork wiki pages... https://kodi.wiki/view/Artwork
See exporting nfo files... https://kodi.wiki/view/Import-export_library/Video

[cubalibre77]

v18.1 is unsupported.
There are no scrapers for v19 and earlier. They are broken and unmaintained.
I assume this may be the problem you are experiencing.

And thinking back to v18, I think you are correct, extended artwork was a pain to add in Kodi and you needed addons to do it, but that was fixed in v19.

Unfortunately you need to update to v21.
And if you have not saved the artwork locally, then you will lose the artwork and all the work you have put in. This is why we always urge to save local artwork and export nfo files, for this exact reason.

See artwork wiki pages... https://kodi.wiki/view/Artwork
See exporting nfo files... https://kodi.wiki/view/Import-export_library/Video

The artwork must be saved somewhere right? Or else how can I see it all? Everytime I add a new video it downloads the art?

Well.....its not that important.....its working "fine" with v19......I just thought that maybe there were some new improvements....maybe some new skins and add-ons to try out or something. But even after installing v21 I couldn’t access anything. There were only 4 different skins to choose from. And I still couldn’t install any add-ons using zip files either......I only get "dependency on xbmc.python could not be satisfied" whatever that means. I guess you have to be a hacker, or a programmer or something to understand this program.

[Karellen]

The artwork must be saved somewhere right? Or else how can I see it all? Everytime I add a new video it downloads the art?

Don't confuse cached artwork with local artwork.
When you scrape items to the library, artwork is downloaded, modified then cached for Kodi to display. The original is discarded.
Local Artwork is referring to you or an addon like Artwork Dump, which downloads the original artwork and stores it next to the video file.
Sure, you can export the cached artwork to your local folders, but the image has been modified and when it is recached on a library rebuild, it will be modified again and may not look as good as the original.

Well.....its not that important.....its working "fine" with v19.....

Personally, I think it is. You are always running behind the current version. Why update to another old version when you can update to the current version? Makes no sense to me.
You haven't given me anything I asked for in my original post to diagnose any problem, so there is nothing further I can help you with.

There are certainly more than 4 skins in the repo, and the python error is most likely due to broken addons from your v18 install, which I again recommend you do away with and start fresh with v21!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rather than working with me to solve the issue, you just want to complain, so I'll let others try to help you.

[DJ_Izumi]

Thank you for your answer. But starting over again is not an option. It has taken me years to build all this up with all artwork. If it was all automatic the fine.....but everytime I add something I have to manually go in att choose som artwork. Even download it myself sometimes. It would take forever to do.

You've learned a very important lesson about backing up your library, haven't you?

[cubalibre77]

The artwork must be saved somewhere right? Or else how can I see it all? Everytime I add a new video it downloads the art?

Don't confuse cached artwork with local artwork.
When you scrape items to the library, artwork is downloaded, modified then cached for Kodi to display. The original is discarded.
Local Artwork is referring to you or an addon like Artwork Dump, which downloads the original artwork and stores it next to the video file.
Sure, you can export the cached artwork to your local folders, but the image has been modified and when it is recached on a library rebuild, it will be modified again and may not look as good as the original.

Well.....its not that important.....its working "fine" with v19.....

Personally, I think it is. You are always running behind the current version. Why update to another old version when you can update to the current version? Makes no sense to me.
You haven't given me anything I asked for in my original post to diagnose any problem, so there is nothing further I can help you with.

There are certainly more than 4 skins in the repo, and the python error is most likely due to broken addons from your v18 install, which I again recommend you do away with and start fresh with v21!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rather than working with me to solve the issue, you just want to complain, so I'll let others try to help you.

I tried to update, but it didn’t  work out. For some reason it only shows about 10% of my library after update. And if the only solution is to start over and spend hours every day for months and months to get it to where I am today with v19 Matrix, then I wont do It. I can still start och play my movies and music just fine. I just wanted to try out the latest version to see if it was better in any way, but it just made everything worse.

[cubalibre77]

Thank you for your answer. But starting over again is not an option. It has taken me years to build all this up with all artwork. If it was all automatic the fine.....but everytime I add something I have to manually go in att choose som artwork. Even download it myself sometimes. It would take forever to do.

You've learned a very important lesson about backing up your library, haven't you?

Nothing wrong with my library. All files are intact. It was just the latest version of Kodi that didnt wanted to show 90% of it, for some reason nobody knows. I do however have copies of all files related to kodi, so I always can go back to version 19 and all the art work.

[Hitcher]

I'd check that you have local artwork next to your files; if not then use Artwork Dump to download them all. Then export your library to separate files so you have everything that a newer version of Kodi needs to import them.

[DJ_Izumi]

Nothing wrong with my library. All files are intact. It was just the latest version of Kodi that didnt wanted to show 90% of it, for some reason nobody knows. I do however have copies of all files related to kodi, so I always can go back to version 19 and all the art work.

Ahem, the 'Library' is the database Kodi is using to store all of that metadata and artwork.  So yes, there is indeed something wrong with your library, because you made a thread to complain about it disappearing.

There's an entire 'Library' section in settings for Kodi, where you can even export the library for backup purposes or import a backup.

[scott967]

A couple thoughts:

The "library" in Kodi is a set of database files, most importantly for videos and music, but also some other things. Each database file has a version number attached as part of the file name.

When a new Kodi version is released, typically new features require a new database version and the version number is increased accordingly.  All the data in the existing databases are migrated to the new databases, and the originals left intact.  So it is possible to revert to a previous Kodi and the matching database files (and hence "library") will be available.

Thus, if there is a problem with an updated Kodi database file, it is possible to delete (outside of Kodi) the updated file.  If you enable debug logging and restart Kodi, it will again attempt to migrate your good database file.  If there are issues with the migration, the log should capture it.

Note that for art, Kodi 18 introduced additional arttypes, with the ability to specify type in an advancedsettings file.  Since Kodi 19, that capability has been moved to Kodi settings.  All art (local files or pulled from a URL) are stored as "thumbnail" files and that is what is actually displayed.

Kodi 19 and newer only supports python addons written with python 3.  Addons written with python 2 only won't install, either from repo or zip and if manually added via file copy will be marked "broken".

Skins can be a work in progress.  If you have a fav skin from earlier Kodi version that isn't in the kodi repo, check the skin support forum here and there may be a beta or mod version of the skin that can be downloaded as zip and installed.

scott s.
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