A couple of Transmission Features

Hello all,
I’ve recently moved to OSMC and have been really happy with the experience.
While using Transmission I came across two small issues:

  • My external HDD, to which Transmission downloads, is connected via USB2 (the drive is USB3) to my router, and via lan to RPI2.
    When I try to play something of it, while simultaneously downloading, it is not fast enough, and I usually have to pause downloads, or the movie isn’t really playable.
    Is there a possibility of adding an option to automatically stop/reusme download with playback?
  • Is there an option to send a notification to OSMC when a torrent download completes?
    Thanks, Adam.

Your first issue: this must be your setup because even on a Raspberry Pi 1B, I can run Transmission (downloading) and play a 1080p mkv just fine.

You should add speed limits to Transmission, mine are 125KB/s up and 2150 KB/s down on a RPi2, 50KB up and 400 down on a RPi1B. Try with those. If you still have issues there might be something wrong with your hardware or setup.

Your second request, if you mean you want Kodi to scan the file you downloaded to the library, automatically, yes it is possible. I can share it later and wanted to ask Sam to add it to the Transmission Settings file by default.

I didn’t fully read your message: your hdd is connected to the USB port of your ROUTER. I bet that is the issue. 99% of the routers with USB port have too slow usb speed to be useful for a hard drive (fine enough for a printer though). Even expensive routers have this issue.

Connect the hdd directly to the RPi USB port and test, I bet your issues will be gone.

Thanks, zilexa.
I’m aware that connecting the HDD directly to the RPI will probably solve the issue, unfortunately I need to connect it to the router for two reasons:

  • The RPI isn’t the only device using the HDD, and sharing via the router is easier.
  • More important, if I connect it to the RPI, the power of the USB port on the RPI isn’t enough to power the HDD, so I have to add an external power source, which isn’t available at the moment (I do have a split cable that allows the HDD to draw power from another USB port, such as the one on my TV, but that means keeping the TV always on…).
    So back to original question…

I’m using this addon for kodi → GitHub - pilluli/service.xbmc.callbacks: Addon service for XBMC to call user defined scripts on specific callbacks such as player starts, stops, etc.
Then I assign when the screensaver starts or stops to the execution of two scripts.
It works for my manual installation of transmission, I don’t know if it works well with the osmc transmission installation.

Screensaver off
toff.sh

#!/bin/bash
if [ "$(pidof transmission-daemon)" ]
then
   /usr/bin/sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon stop
fi

Screensaver on
ton.sh

#!/bin/bash
if [ !"$(pidof transmission-daemon)" ]
then

/usr/bin/sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon start
fi

Changes for osmc transmission app
ton.sh

#!/bin/bash
if [ !“$(pidof transmission-daemon)” ]
then
/usr/bin/sudo /bin/systemctl start transmission
fi

toff.sh

#!/bin/bash
if [ “$(pidof transmission-daemon)” ]
then
/usr/bin/sudo /bin/systemctl stop transmission
fi

You have an RPi2 which is capable of giving extra power via USB to feed your HDD. Just go into My OSMC and enable MAX USB CURRENT. You will be suprised! It works on all my harddrives, even USB3 2TB drives.

Sharing your HDD via RPi2 instead of the router would make so much more sense because other things in your house use the HDD. The bus of the router is too limited and with the RPi2, all your devices will benefit.

Just enable SAMBA in MyOSMC and your hdd should popup everywhere.

BTW this topic should be in General Help & Support instead of feature requests.

Thanks all for the suggestions :smiley: