Posts by LybsterKodi

I had a Panasonic VCR/DVD combo expressly bought so I could backup my old VCR tapes.I loaned it to a neighbour who obviously put some tapes that needed decontamination in and the VCR part never worked since.

Good job I'd backed everything up to DVD.

Fully agree with chewitt and would also add having two devices connected to a TV via HDMI can cause grief. I did have a DVD player (just for when I hadn't ripped a disk to Kodi) connected via HDMI and its now connected via SCART. I did this because on a couple of occasions trying to get HDMI working correctly was a nightmare. Since the change I haven't had a problem.

What seems to be working for me is

- set keymap as shown in the link

- copied the skin to my PC

- edit xml files using Notepad++

- copy back to RPi4 using FileZilla

- press f5 on RPi4's keyboard

Kodi's skinning is extremely powerful, extremely flexible and extremely difficult for a newbie to understand

I'm getting there slowly - very slowly

chewitt

Thanks

bierbaron

I've just found these

You'd be better off asking these sorts of questions over on the Kodi forum. They have fora dedicated to skins.

Having said that I'm trying to modify Estuary myself and I think you need to look in \colors \t the .xml files. Colours are defined as ARGB not just RGB. The important file is defaults.xml

What workflow are you using? Mine is

PC modify the skin
PC zip it

RPi4 select Embury skin
RPi4 uninstall modified skin

PC copy modified skin to RPi4 userdata
RPi4 reboot
RPi4 install modified skin
RPi4 test to see if I've got it right

Unless I reboot the RPi4 I just get told the modified skin can't be installed due to an invalid structure - it installs fine after the reboot!

There must be a better way.

ian_j

Whilst I agree with chewitt about the extra info needed I have seen this and I know exactly why in my case. I only see it on videos that have been initially recorded from TV to VCR tape, then from VCR tape to DVD then from DVD to HDD for Kodi.

Da Flex

Brilliant - have an upvote

Eureka - all I have to do is setup on a 16GB (the 8GB one wouldn't work) microSD card initially then I can clone to a 128GB card, plug into my Linux laptop to resize storage (weirdly enough it leaves c300MB at the end) but everything works.

I just wish I'd thought of that a couple of days ago.

vaughng

At this point I have no idea if it will be useful but its a good description of dd. Good enough so that I might understand and use it - thanks.

chewitt

If it was simply to use LibreElec/Kodi I would be happy to use the backup, reinstall and restore approach. However, what I want to do is see if I can make some mods to the system, starting with something simple like skins (I like most of the default skin but some bits I want to change) and move on to a couple of addons. Whilst I couldn't clone an entire IBM 4341 or VAX 11/780 ever since the advent of micros that's what I've done. It means that when, inevitably, I mess up big time I can go back to my original start point. That, as I discovered recently, is not the case with backup, reinstall and restore.

Whilst I've never had trouble cloning a system before I've only once tried it with microSD cards and RPi before. I might buy a couple of cheap SSDs and try those.

petediscrete

I asked because this

"This is an application which allows the SD card inserted into the Pi to be copied to one in a connected USB reader."

is at the top of the readme. I have no idea if piclone runs under LibreElec and if not how to use it, nor why it should be any more effective than those I've tried so far.

chewitt

You now seem to be recommending a clean install and restore backup not cloning which is what I want to do. I know I was able to clone a 32GB to a 64GB microsd card and then resize the 64GB card's storage partition but going from 128GB to 128GB seems impossible.

I haven't tried your idea of "preparing" the card (which I'm assuming means install LibreElec and then overwrite stuff) because my Linux PC doesn't want to recognise one card in its microsd slot and another one on a usb adapter at the same time.

Why this is proving such a challenge I do not know but would like to.

chewitt

Based on the fact that LibreElac/Kodi can be installed on different media I'm guessing that the position/size of the FAT32 partition is the critical one and the EXT4 partition can then extend to whatever's left. Is that right?

petediscrete

Have you used that utility on LibreElec rather than Raspberry Pi OS?

I'm currently running LibreElec/Kodi on a Dell Optiplex and a RPi4. The Dell uses a 256GB SSD and I've cloned that to a backup 256GB SSD with no problem - tested and it runs. Cloning the microSD (128GB to 128GB) is a nightmare. I've tried three different cloning systems (CloneZilla, Macrium and Disk Genius) both in disk to disk mode and in disk to image to disk mode. None of them work. The best gets through to displaying the Kodi (21.0 beta) logo and the worst tells me there is disk corruption (when I checking the micoSD - need both Windows and Linux - out I'm told its fine).

I'm assuming cloning should be possible since I can do it on the Dell - anyone tell me how.

Thank for the explanation. I suspected it might be something like that. I'm slightly baffled as to why I can still access the LibreElec repository from the Dell Optiplex running v12 2023-11-22.

I've just downloaded and updated my RPi4 LibreElec installation from the v12 nightlies from 2023-11-22 to 2024-01-01. None of the 2023-11 images will connect to the LibreElec repository, however, as soon as I load the 2024-01-01 (which also moves from beta1 of Kodi to beta2) it works.

My question is: is there something I can do to get the LibreElec repository working with 2023-11-22 or not.

I'd like to do this because the machine used to watch movies (Dell Optiplex) is running that and I'm modifying the Estuary skin so I'd like to keep things as near the same as I can manage bearing in mind the different architectures.

If there's nothing I can try I'll just accept what is and swear a bit

I just installed 20240128 12.0 and it loads the LibreElec repository straight away so its either a problem with 20231122 or something to do with the fact that LibreElec couldn't mount storage initially.

Thanks. I should have checked here (sorry) - I have access to both repositories on the Dell Optiplex but not the RPi4. Is there anything in the setup which might allow the Kodi repository but not the LibreElec one?

I did have the trouble with the RPi4 not mounting storage when booting for the first time but typing reboot and hitting enter it mounted the second time. I can access via SAMBA and ssh.

If I try and connect to the LibreElec repository by itself I get "Could not connect to repository"

I'm trying to set up a RPi4 to the same LibrreElec version as my Dell Optiplex - v12 nightly 2023-11-22 so I can create my own skin and test easily and check out the various addons I might be interested in (official repositories only).

Currently I need to download the TVHeadend stuff along with some look and feel addons and whilst the Kodi repository comes up the LibreElec doesn't, hence my question.

As always thank you. I've found the keymaps wiki and the github page with the templates now off to mess things up good and proper