Library updates not working reliably

I was hoping to solve this one but so far no luck and it’s driving me nuts!

All was going well until the last update. The Vero replaced a Pi when bought and hooked straight up to a MySQL DB (via advancedsettings.xml) picking up the existing video library quite happily. All went well detecting new files in the library (remote storage - NFS setup in fstab), lookups etc.

Since the last update I’m not having much luck with it picking up new content - in one instance it just flat forgot the entire Movie library.

So far I’ve tried the following:

  • Checked sources.xml (was missing on the Vero, now in place)
  • Complete wipe and recreate of DB (dropped the MyVideos schema albeit the DB recreation was via another linux box more for ease of access)
  • Removed complications of other apps using the API to update the library - only thing doing library stuff now is OSMC.

The files can be found via Videos and playback perfectly well but the library won’t detect them. A Kodi instance (also 18.9) on a Linux machine elsewhere quite happily identifies them and adds them to the library.

I did turn on debug logging and review it but the library scan didn’t even mention the files in question.

Any suggestions?

Did you remember to set the scraper and make sure the scraper is set to the same across all the devices that you are using for scanning?

also your Kodi sources should be exactly the same on all devices connected to the database. If you have any clients that require a modified file path then the source should be made consistent and the file path modified with a path substitution.

Thanks for the suggestions darwindesign

Running through them:

  • Scraper is the default of TMDB in all cases as far as I remember - though I will triple check that one. Must admit I would have thought it would have just given different data rather than affect the finding/scraping directly.
  • The sources.xml has the same entries for the two sources in both cases (literally - it was copied from one window to another…). Only difference is the Veros default addition for auto-mounted drives.
  • In terms of paths, the library uses absolute paths (/storage/…) with fstab on the host mounting to that. That was actually a deliberate choice years back as a friend I helped used a similar setup with SMB shares rather than NFS so it was easier to keep consistency in Kodi and not worry about local vs network or network protocols.

Actually, as I type this I’ve just had a thought on file permissions/ownerships between devices which I’ll take a look at. Not expecting that to help but just in case there is a difference on how kodi looks for files with a scan vs file navigation it’s worth a check.

I’m assuming there wasn’t anything in the last update or 18.9 in this area?

There has not been any changes to Kodi in quite a long time that would touch this particular issue. I would point out that when I said they need to have the same paths I meant that quite literally. If you copied sources.xml and didn’t modify it then this should be fine (and the ideal method) but there is no reason why files should play from that source in file mode but not scrape the same on either machine. I have setup new Kodi instances many times connected to the same MySQL and it is literally just a matter of copying advancedsettings.xml, sources.xml, passwords.xml, and mediasources.xml (the last two are not used by all setups).

EDIT: You don’t happen to be using profiles or a name tag for your db are you?

I’ve done a fair few lift n shifts or rebuilds in my time and completely agree with everything you’ve said and that’s what’s puzzling me here…

I’ve re-checked the scrapers and all matches there between machines.

Not sure on the specific config you’re referring to for the db but that’s the default myvideos116 - no aliases, tags etc. To be honest I prefer keeping these things as close to simple as possible to limit the chances of weird behaviour.

The permissions thing I mentioned will take a bit of time to have an example in place and test but I’ll let you know how that goes. There was a download client updated in a similar window and I’m wondering if it’s something on whether exec permissions are on a file/folder or not and if the kodi scan tries comparisons rather than a video navigate which is then forced in to the folder.

Posting debug logs after a failed scan is completed may help us spot where the problem is.

AFAIK the scraper just needs read access so if you can navigate and play it from the file view, then there should be no issue with scraping. would you mind posting your sources.xml file from both machines?

Problem sorted - wasn’t an access problem but the version of the TMDB scraper installed - turned out the be 3.5.3 on the Vero and 3.5.11 on the other. Kodi isn’t the best at stating the problem is with the information provider/lookup attempt.

As a fuller write up for others hunting for answers…

Debug logs showed that TMDB was returning empty episode lists for each season - normal logs giving a single line of “No information found for item , it won’t be added to the library.” but the debug logs showing each request coming back with an empty episode guide field for each season.

My guess is TMDB did an update in a similar timeframe that deprecated something in the API causing this behaviour on the older plugin. At least it wasn’t as painful as when The TVDB did their API upgrade the other year - that was a car crash!

Fingers crossed the plugin upgrade has done the job!

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They made some changes a few weeks back that required an update to the scraper which in turns requires Kodi to check for updates on its repository. This happens automatically (I think one a day if memory serves) but there might have been some kind of connectivity issue where the update got delayed. Thanks for letting us know so we can keep an eye out for others that may find themselves in similar situations.

@sam_nazarko does the image going onto new Vero’s need an update to deal with TMDB breaking the old scraper?

It may depend on plugin settings - mine is set to notify but not automatically update. Don’t recall a notification but its possible the other half saw it and skipped it.

No worries on coming back with the update - you took the time to help with suggestions and there are plenty of forums out there with problems that people find matching theirs but no solutions!