Plot and Cast for TV Shows

1st Official Post

    A few months ago I asked about this issue on the Kodi forums (THREAD) regarding the "Cast" not being displayed while the TV show is playing and info is pressed. DaVu mentioned that he would speak to the LibreELEC team members regarding the matter so I am just following up on it to know if it is something that would be looked at in the near future. :)

    Regards,and thank you all for the ongoing hard work on LE.

    Shedrock

    If you haven't installed the same TV information scraper on all your clients as you have on Windows, then you'll only see limited information on the clients that lack the TV scraper - so make sure you've installed the same TV scraper (TVDB?) on your LibreELEC clients, and then the cast info should appear.

    @milhouse - I am using the TVDB scraper as I always have on LibreELEC. I also did a fresh install and I still don't see the Cast for TV Shows. I only see it for Movies. This is not an issue for me when using Kodi for Windows on my Laptop PC.

    Humour me and check on all your clients (LibreELEC & Windows) what scrapers you have installed & enabled in:

    Settings > Add-ons > My add-ons > Information providers > TV Information

    "The TVDB" scraper is not included/installed by default in LibreELEC so you'll need to install it if you're using a fresh LibreELEC installation. If "The TVDB" scraper is installed but not enabled, then enable it.

    If you're seeing cast details for Movies then this might mean you're scraping your Movies with the "The Movie Database" scraper which *is* installed/included as standard in LibreELEC. If you'd scraped your movies on Windows with, say, "Universal Movie Scraper" (UMS) then you'd be missing the cast information when viewing your Movies on LibreELEC clients when those clients do not have UMS installed.

    I've only skimmed your various posts but the behaviour can be 100% explained by a missing metadata scraper on your clients when using a centralised MySQL database.

    I only use TVDB for TV shows and UMS for Movies. Here is the screenshots. This is just an example of one of my TV folders. All the others *only* use TVDB for TV Shows.

    screenshot000.png

    screenshot001.png

    DaVu confirmed that this was indeed broken on LE 9.0.1, but I have checked to see if it was fixed in the follow up releases, but never got confirmation.

    Here is a partial log of me refreshing the series "Discovery of Witches" using TVDB.

    hastebin

    Thanks,

    Shedrock

    Quote from Da Flex

    shedrock :

    Do you use a custom skin or fanart? I'm asking because I read "fanart" lines at your log.

    If yes, use the default skin and disable fanart. Sometimes GUI entries are invisible, because graphics is missing for a custom GUI config.

    I have a few test LE setups with just the default skin. However, the default skin as far as I know does not have the option of showing the cast while the episode is playing using the info button on the remote. It is definitely an LE problem. I just wanted to know if it was addressed yet, but I guess it hasn't. :(

    shedrock with stock Estuary, if you open the Information page for an episode (while not playing a video - ie. navigate your media library to a tvshow > season > episode) do you see the cast names and thumbnails across the top of the screen, as in the following image:

    Quote from Da Flex

    Looks like we have not solution, because we can only guess what the add-on does.

    Find the developer of the add-on, and ask. Maybe milhouse knows him, and can make it happen.

    This is not an addon issue. If it were, then it would not be working on a windows setup. :D

    Da Flex - Are you using LE? If so, does your Cast show up while watching a TV episode and pressing Info on your keyboard, or remote?

    • Official Post
    Quote from shedrock

    This is not an addon issue. If it were, then it would not be working on a windows setup. :D

    The programming of the functions are very different on Windows and Linux. Under the hood it's really something else.

    Quote

    Are you using LE? If so, does your Cast show up while watching a TV episode and pressing Info on your keyboard, or remote?

    Yes, but I only have DAZN and German TV streams. Not sure whether TVDB scraper works with it, but I'll do the test.

    PS: If you know a free and legal streaming add-on, which we can both test, let me know.

    This is really, really strange. I am back on LE 9.0.2 and I am currently watching a TV series called "This Way Up" and the Cast is actually showing, but yet it does not work for any of the other TV Show episodes that I have watched in the past. This is about the 6th re-installation of LE and it has never worked before. I wonder if it is a TVDB issue, which is strange considering I've always used TVDB to scrape my TV shows.

    Shedrock

    • Official Post
    Quote from shedrock

    This is really, really strange. I am back on LE 9.0.2 and I am currently watching a TV series called "This Way Up" and the Cast is actually showing, but yet it does not work for any of the other TV Show episodes that I have watched in the past.

    I assume you are using an add-on to watch this TV series. So, we are actually talking about communication between two add-ons, not LE as the base OS.

    Because it partially works, it's maybe your streaming add-on for the TV series, which does not provide the data for TVDB scraper anytime.

    I am just using LE straight into my TV. It has been that way for over 8 years. Well, prior to LE, it was on OpenELEC. It is definitely not on my end. I just started another TV show from the previous one and the cast does not show. I also did this installation at 4am, and I can't be doing anything wrong on every install when in the past it has always worked. DaVu did confirm that he replicated the issue. Other than that, I have no clue. It is driving me crazy though. I can also take this entire installation, ie, my addons folder, as well as userdata folder excluding the database file and it works on Windows without any issues.

    Shedrock