Needing help for SMB shares

Quote from tinpanalley

and nobody was able to help.

I doubt that, but there is also that thing that "it takes two to tango". And, Microsoft shouldn't have made a mess of the SMB upgrade process with varying/changing parameters.

SMBv2+ has network browsing disabled. Meaning, you will have to enter connection details manually in Kodi's source options. Officially the Windows user doing the sharing also requires a password on its account, however various alternative solutions are floating around as well.

In the Kodi services there are minimum and maximum SMB versions you can set. There is also the difference in setting up SMB sources. You can either use Kodi's internal SMB client service, or create your own external SMB connections.

For the record, I'm not using Windows or SMB connections myself. It's also not impossible that some settings on your Windows machine have changed during its updates. Here I have the same Linux file server doing an NFS connection with XBMC/Kodi for some 10-11 years now. The RPi4 is not the problem here (you can always use it for other computer solutions), other devices running Kodi 19 will likely show the same symptoms in your network.

Quote from tinpanalley

I go to add a SMB share and none of the shared folders on my Windows computer appear.

Because the current implementation at kodi is highly missleading, if you use Windows network (SMB) it means the super old protocol that is EOL since decades and Windows10 automatically disables it. Ofc nobody should use SMB1 at all, it has several problems (hickups while streaming and whatnot).

legacy smb implementation still at the gui · Issue #18840 · xbmc/xbmc · GitHub

Windows XP SMB1

15 yrs ago Windows Vista SMB2

Windows 8 SMB3

Windows 10 can handle SMB2 + SMB3

So you need to use "add network location ..." to enter the ip where your share is located. User+password is needed.

Quote from tinpanalley

I'm not married to SMB by the way, I simply didn't know there was another way to do it.

SMB works without any problems if you use SMB2 or 3, just the current Kodi implementation is weird, you have to know that you can't use "Windows Network" to add it. Otherwise it is rock solid.

ofc clicking at browse does not work

after clicking at ok you can access the share

that config is for a share that is accessible via windows explorer at \\192.168.0.88\Share1\Videos

not sure I got your question right but I guess this ?