Well there is no black and white to point to something as it actually can crash before it writes a log entry but last entry in the old log is script.grab.fanart-0.16.0: found 147 music files
Personally if you want to avoid a reinstall I might at least suggest to delete all Addons and the Addon database.
I had problems with Library data provider, after various attempts to use V19 during testing I gave up and waited on stable release only to find the problem still existed.
My solution was to delete all .nfo files which i had exported which forced a fresh download of data. This cured the issue.
If you have exported your library try this.
Thanks @fzinken and @Baradoc for your support!
I do indeed have a lot of album.nfo files in my Music library (I primarily use Vero for music CD- and Hi-Res audio). Some of these files are quite big as I really invested a lot of time into building my music library. (Actually, I have just checked, there are about 900 .nfo files).
When I upgraded to v19 I have not even tried checking Music library as Kodi was crashing all the time.
I have now tried to go to Music in Kodi menu. It displayed the following message: “Music library needs to rescan tags from files. Would you like to scan now? - Yes - No”. I have not clicked on ‘Yes’ yet.
… Actually, Vero crashed again while I was typing the message above… 
So I am wondering if this process:
‘script.grab.fanart-0.16.0: found 147 music files’
is an attempt to rebuild the music library by reading all these .nfo files?
I don’t really want to delete them, as they contain essential information about my music collection. Is there anything else I should try to do?
Many thanks!
I deleted the library data folder from kodi addon folder via ssh this stopped sad face.
My final route which worked was using option.
sudo systemctl stop mediacenter
mv ~/.kodi ~/.kodi-backup
sudo systemctl start mediacenter
Then installed library data provider from repo but
aeon nox silvo using downloaded zip from
Don,t know which of these routes created a succesful install.
Deleted all .nfo files from Server and everything worked as it should.
Unless you have written your own content to the .nfo,s they will be recreated as they were, the metadata in your files should contain the important info you have added to tags. After adding / scanning music source I then ran query all artists and query all albums. Everything is as it was and didn’t take any longer than using exported .nfo files.
Hi @Baradoc,
Thanks for the detailed instructions.
I think I see where our approach to using nfo files differs. I prefer not to scrap albums’ data from services like MusicBrainz, but to provide this via nfo files.
For example, I have a lot of vinyl rips from discs that have never been digitalized. Therefore, no scraper would contain any info about such albums/artists (this is mostly related to old jazz records). Further, I have scanned original albums’ cover notes, converted scans to text and saved them in album.nfo’s in Review sections. All of my records hold correct label data, including year of release. (For example, I have many instances of the same album released by different labels).
It took me a couple of years to come to this point, and Aeon Nox was the best skin for me so far. As you can see, scrapping all these efforts just because of one failing addon is really frustrating. Therefore, I am keen to try some other approach.
As I explained above, Installing Library Data Provider add-on sends my Vero into sad face loop. I’m not familiar with mediacenter process. I can try running these three commands in your example and then see if Library Data Provider can be installed. If yes, I can try to install the skin from GitHub. I guess, up to this point I don’t destroy my library data, right? However, your suggested next step is to delete all .nfo files. I wonder if this can be avoided? For example, is adding albums one by one to the library might help? Just a guess, really…
Or any other ideas?
Again, thanks a lot for your help guys!
I would be suprized if the nfo files are the issues and would start with the approach of removing the Kodi folder. You either can first try just removing the addon database as I suggest or moving the whole kodi folder. This would “destroy” your library but not your nfo files. You would have a backup if it turns out that it doesn’t solve your issue.
Thanks @fzinken,
So, this is what I think I should do:
First try removing all add-ons and check if I can then install Library Data Provider (Plan A). Could you please navigate me to the right lines of commands? Also, regardless of the outcome, how do I return required add-ons back? Frankly, I don’t need all of them, I guess, most were just parts of the Kodi package. I really need only a few (OzWeather, Youtube, Backup, Tidal comes to mind). Of course, there will be a bunch of dependent add-ons which I have somehow to install as well.
If Plan A does not work, let me try Plan B suggested by @Baradoc.
If both plans are unsuccessful, let’s discuss clean install.
Does it sound right? So, how do I remove add-ons?
Thanks!
sudo systemctl stop mediacenter
mkdir addon_backup
mv .kodi/addons addon_backup
mv .kodi/userdata/Database/Addons* addon_backup
rm .kodi/userdata/addon_data/script.module.metadatautils/settings.xml
sudo systemctl start mediacenter
This would remove all your individual installed addons. If that works my suggestion would not be to restore the addons from the backup but to just reinstall them, their config would not be removed by this anyhow (other than what I assume is the config of the library data addon).
https://forum.kodi.tv/archive/index.php?thread-361560.html
This link led me to the decision to delete all .nfo files.
I did have a few I had created for artist not found by scrapping.
One of these did contain a special character which i replaced with a normal letter.
Since then everything works perfectly.
I know you have a lot of files but if you are aware of using a special character for a foreign artist or non standard album title that might be a start.
Well that is a very clear thread that is quite likely identical to the issue.
So I think @Harbour might want to spare the efforts to remove all addons (while it might not harm) and review his nfo files instead. I guess no need for removing all of them. Guess either search for special characters (should be possible with a script) or hope for an update of the tool and for the time being use a different skin
Yes, this thread describes my issue very well! I am surprised I have not found it myself!
One thing that came to my mind immediately is to rename all .nfo files to .xyz and then try to install this problem add-on and the skin. After that start renaming .xyz back to .nfo trying to find the .nfo’s that will crash Kodi because of these funny characters. This may be a very lengthy task though.
The guy on this forum suggested to install DB Browser SQ Lite on a computer, open MyMusic82.db and search for a particular character/word in table ‘album’. He described this process in detail and I thought I could try it, but I have no idea how to open music database stored on Vero on my computer with this program? So far I know only how to reach files on Vero via SSH.
Do you think approach suggested by this guy is possible?
I can confirm the same issue here. Special characters not formatted correctly in local .nfo will result in a BLOB entry in the database. Atm I am removing BLOB entries from database directly, renaming offending nfo files and then amending the nfo’s accordingly and rescanning album info. I then check the database to make sure no BLOB exists for that album and move on to the next offender. I will post updates when finished if the problem is solved.
(Helpful hint don’t copy/paste reviews to your nfo… type in the info yourself) lesson learnt.
Thanks @leepenny! Could you please tell me how do you search for BLOB in the music database?
In my case, all .nfo’s are stored on NAS and I can easily access these files from my computer. Music database is stored on Vero, therefore I don’t think I can easily browse files there. Or am I missing anything?
Can you browse the vero from a Windows machine.
All my stuff is on unraid nas as well.
Read the link to the kodi forum post above. It will tell you the program to install to read the db files.
To browse the vero from Windows I open my file browser. In the search box at the top type (double backslash)(ip address of vero) it will then ask for password (osmc). You should be able to see folders on vero.
I am accessing files on Vero via SSH only. I’m not good at Linux commands and really appreciate assistance from others on this forum. I don’t know if it is possible to browse files on Vero via Windows file explorer. Are you saying that mapping Vero as another drive is possible in Windows?
See above edit
You (@Harbour) would need to install the Samba Server from the MyOSMC - App Store to be able to do that.
Also before changing that file I suggest to shutdown Kodi first via sudo systemctl stop mediacenter
Thanks fzinken for the extra info. Might also want to add that making a copy of .kodi would be prudent as well in case it all goes south.
True
sudo systemctl stop mediacenter
cp -a .kodi .kodi_backup
Hoping he has enough space left
