Episode Thumbnails not displaying in OSMC skin - recent regression

[soulc3]

I’m using the default OSMC skin on a Vero 4K+. My media is stored on separate server on my local network, with the media shared via SMB. My Kodi database is in an MySQL server, also on the network (I have two Vero 4K+s both pointed at that database and media).

I use local artwork - scraped separately and unrelated to OSMC/Kodi, so they’re all saved and present alongside the media on the network share, following the standard Kodi image-filename conventions. I use the local-only pseudo-scrapers in Kodi to avoid downloading other artwork unnecessarily.

My OSMC is up to date as of today (it’s on the June 2023 build).

Since earlier this year, the episode thumbnails that used to display while browsing episodes of TV shows have stopped appearing. Instead I see this:

All other artwork is working normally and like it used to. (Fanart in the background, TV show posters, season posters, and movie posters.)

Previously, episodes that were unwatched would show the season fanart as their thumbnail. And episodes that had been watched would show the individual episode thumbnail.

However, despite the episode thumbnails not working in the episode list, if I use the context menu to open up the episode information, then they do display correctly on the information screen only. (The season fanart is shown for unwatched episodes and the episode’s thumbnail is shown for watched episodes.) The image shown on the information screen updates if I change the image on disk.

Refreshing the information for the episodes does not fix the issue. Restarting the Vero 4K+ doesn’t fix the issue. All pre-existing and new shows have the same problem. Both of my Vero 4K+s are showing the same behavior (both are on the same version).

Unfortunately I don’t know exactly which update it was that this started happening. It definitely was on an OSMC update, not any time in between. It happened all at once to all shows, not gradually. I’m reasonably sure this was working correctly at the end of last year, so the end of 2022.

I have had this problem previously, but it was resolved, until it happened again this time, by one of the updates earlier last year.

Any insights about why this is happening? Any way it can be fixed?

[darwindesign]

I can reproduce the behavior. Your issue is related to the settings>media>videos>show information for unwatched items> setting. If you reenable episode thumb there the images come back for both watched and unwatched episodes. The setting itself appears to be broken in Kodi currently. As you have seen disallowing uwatched artwork in the OSMC skin is hiding artwork for both watched and unwatched episodes. In Kodi’s default Estuary skin the opposite happens, it shows the episode thumbs regardless. It does the same on Kodi running in Windows as well. Perhaps @Chillbo has some thoughts.

[soulc3]

Nice one, thank you very much! It isn’t ideal to show all episode thumbs, but it’s definitely better than it seeming broken.

It sounds like there’s room for the issue to be at a few layers, but it’s possible that it’s a Kodi problem, not an OSMC problem?

[darwindesign]

@soulc3

but it’s possible that it’s a Kodi problem, not an OSMC problem?

That would be my guess. I tagged Chillbo, the maintainer of the OSMC skin, in case he wasn’t aware of the issue.

[Chillbo]

I’ve found the issue and it’ll be fixed in a next update:

Thx for the bug report!

[soulc3]

Awesome, thank you very much! Is the old behavior of using the fanart instead of the thumbnail for unwatched episodes going to return as well? That always seemed like a nice touch, because the “line art landscape on a screen” looks more suited to an error state than an expected one.

[Chillbo]

Showing fanart was never what the OSMC Skin did. I can look into changing it to that behaviour though…

[soulc3]

That seems like a great change to me! The line drawing art definitely strikes me as something more appropriate for an error, where using the fanart is “hiding” the episode thumbnail.