Posts by wyvernuk

Quote from Da Flex

Configure Samba to follow symlinks. Read here.

Thank you for your suggestion. I'll follow the reference and try to learn about 'symlinks'.

I have installed LibreELEC Kodi on a RPi 4 and everything works well on the Host. I am using the MariaDB/MySQL server add-on to store the Music Library. The main reason for this is so that the information can be shared by an Amazon Fire TV Stick connected to my television.

After considerable helpful advice from Kodi Forum Members (see my Post "Newbie's First Kodi System"): I have managed to navigate the Library on my TV, listen to music files, and view text contained in artists' NFO files. Unfortunately, no associated artwork appears.

I have Samba shares for two Music sources : 'Artist Music' and 'Compilations' on the RPi 4. These are accessible from Windows Explorer on my Windows 10 desktop computer. MySQL Workbench is able to examine the MariaDB data tables. Here are a few edited lines from the 'art' table:

Network Share

'album', 'thumb', 'smb://192.168.0.16/Maxtor 1/Artist Music/Christopher Hogwood/Clarinet Concerto Oboe Concerto/folder.jpg'

'album', 'thumb', 'smb://192.168.0.16/Maxtor 1/Artist Music/The Linsdale Singers/40 years in 140 minutes CD1 1977-2001/folder.jpg'

'album', 'thumb', 'smb://192.168.0.16/Maxtor 1/Artist Music/The Linsdale Singers/40 years in 140 minutes CD2 2002-2017/folder.jpg'

Local File

'artist', 'thumb', '/var/media/Maxtor 1/Artist Information/Christopher Hogwood/folder.jpg'

'artist', 'fanart', '/var/media/Maxtor 1/Artist Information/Christopher Hogwood/fanart.jpg'

You will see that the Album Art is referenced using smb:// network paths. These allow the Amazon Fire TV Stick to display the artwork (thanks to the advancedsettings.xml file!). The text information for the individual artists is stored in the MariaDB database directly. The Artist Art is, at present, referenced using a local file situated on the same USB 3 drive (Maxtor 1).

I reasoned that if I could reference the Artist Information folder as a shared folder I should be able to get the artist artwork to appear on the Fire TV Stick.

I have checked that the Artist Information folder is indeed shared correctly. It exists; and is readable/writeable from Windows Explorer and WinSCP. Using PuTTY, I have examined the directory permissions. They are: drwxr-xr-x (755). The owner is 'root'.

I believe that Music Sources and File Sources are handled separately in Kodi. I used Settings>Music>Artist information folder to browse for the Artist Information folder. The Browse for Folder screen showed the expected local path (see above) , namely, /var/media/Maxtor 1/Artist Information.

However, I wished to use a networked path, so I selected the New folder option and entered 'smb://192.168.0.16/Maxtor 1/Artist Information/'. I obtained the following error message:

"Couldn't create folder. Make sure the selected folder is writeable and that the new folder name is valid''. The folder already exists. Why does Kodi need to create it?

I did, temporarily, try the dreaded 777 permissions; but that made no difference. Could it be an ownership issue or something similar? I am now confused!

Quote from chewitt

Pi devices have no RTC chip so on boot before NTP has updated the clock the time will start from the release date of the current version of glibc which probably dates from a release in April. Once the network is up NTP updates the clock and dateTime changes.

How are you running MariaDB? .. it doesn't look like the DB is up/running before Kodi attempts to access it.

I am running MariaDB just as supplied via the LIbreELEC addon. I have now selected 'Wait For Network Before Starting Kodi' from the settings page, but the built-in 10 second delay does not seem to be sufficient.

When Kodi first boots-up, it states that my Music Library is empty. By entering Add Music>Files, Kodi reboots and the Library becomes available.

I used sytemctl to check the status of the 'kodi-waitonnetwork.service'. It reported the following message:

Apr 11 17:28:38 LibreELEC systemd[1]: Starting Wait on network...

Apr 11 17:28:48 LibreELEC systemd[1]: kodi-waitonnetwork.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=110/n/a

Apr 11 17:28:48 LibreELEC systemd[1]: kodi-waitonnetwork.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

Apr 11 17:28:48 LibreELEC systemd[1]: Failed to start Wait on network.

The TIMESTAMP (as per your comment!) is now explicable. It also shows the appropriate 10 second delay.

Is there a configuration file somewhere that allows the built-in delay to be increased? Maybe that would help.

I am a 'Newbie' trying to use MariaDB as a database server for Kodi on a RPi 4. I believe that I have set-up all the configuration files correctly, including the MySQL passwords, privileges, Samba shares, and the advancedsettings.xml file.

I can certainly access the MariaDB server from MySQL Workbench on a Windows desktop computer connected to my local network. For this I use the RPi 4's fixed IP Address as the Host. Directories and their contents can (mostly) be viewed using Windows Explorer. WinSP and PuTTY also function correctly; the latter giving me command-line database-control via MySQL on the Raspberry Pi.

Unfortunately, the Kodi LIbrary cannot be created on the MariaDB server, as it fails to connect. Repeated Errors, similar to that below, show in the crash log.

2019-04-11 17:28:42.867 T:2876646256   ERROR: Unable to open database: MyMusic72 [2002](Can't connect to MySQL server on '192.168.0.16' (101))

One strange thing about the log is the TIMESTAMP. I don't understand why this particular thread shows the 11th of April 2019. Other threads, not in this particular log, have the correct TIMESTAMP, for example yesterday (2019-11-06). I've only had the RPi 4 for about a month, so the April TIMESTAMP doesn't tie up!

I would be most grateful if one of the expert team at LibreELEC could possibly skim through the crash log and point me in the right direction to sort out the problem (http://ix.io/2159). I have been going round in circles for several days!