Posts by WarpLover

  • Automation for the Elderly

    Quote from chewitt

    Things you can do with kodi-send: https://kodi.wiki/view/List_of_built-in_functions

    I went to Kodi forums to post a similar message. Now I remember why I don't go there much. Since their hack they implemented something, 2FA?, that will not allow me to log in, or register? The email they send apparently gets sent over the cell carrier to my phone, instead of over to the internet to my PC, so I never receive it. (email has been disabled on my cell for 5+ years). Kodi is not the only one pulling this. I find it elsewhere too, even medical clinics. So that why I have to ask this question in this forum. Just FYI.

    I think I can edit the scripts, but am not familiar with systemd at all. I will review your link.

    PS You were right about moving from ext HDs to a NAS. But I was right about the cost. Thank God Black Friday prices on the 6-20Tb Exos helped! (raidz2) Wish I'd have gotten 7. I am nearing the 80% mark already.

  • Powered USB Hub

    My experience is >2 external USB drives connected to a hub, to a SBC is problematic. You'll be troubleshooting all the time. I had 7 drives and was lucky to see 4.

    1 or 2 very large drives is probably the best scenario when connecting directly to a SBC.

    Chewitt will tell you to build a NAS. (he's right, smooth as butter, but prepare to go into big debt/even DIY-use Black Friday sale prices)

    PCs have no trouble with multiple external drives, if you don't mind waiting for 5 minutes when it boots.

    Having said all that, I use ANKOR Hubs. But you are not facing a hub-quality issue.

  • Automation for the Elderly

    My mom is 90 with all the shortcomings that come with age. She is in an apartment on a limited income, therefore, no cable TV. The building is metal studs and stucco, which means she lives in a weak Faraday cage that robs her of TV signal, and she's on the worst side of the building relative to the source of the TV signals. No amplification of signal will help (enough). As a result her programs blink on and off all the time from fading TV signals plus she gets very few channels.

    The answer is a video box + storage + playlist. But it has to be highly automated because of her advanced age (and she's legally blind). It's hard for her to learn a 2nd remote control. So what my current idea is, is to find a way to automatically start a smartplaylist on power up, so the remote control is barely used. The smartplaylist needs to auto-start on powerup AND continue playing as if PLAY FROM HERE had been selected by the user in the playlist results.

    Requirements as stated:
    1) Power button on the video-box remote is activated.
    2) Once Kodi starts up, a particular smartplaylist is executed.
    3) The execution of the playlist will continue to play the next item from the playlist when finished, with no user intervention.

    The smartplaylist already exists, but currently I have to be there to start it for her. The playlist plays episodes from 12 TV programs playing in order (Show1 S1E1, Show2 S1E1...Show12 S1E1, Show1 S1E2, Show2 S1E2, Show3 S1E2...Show12 S1E2....). It will only play unwatched episodes. The effect is watching 12 TV shows in parallel from pilot to the last season's last episode. It would play for weeks if let alone, but we don't want that. Since it only plays unwatched episodes, the next power up of the video-box should start the playlist right where it left off.

    I saw a very old video on YT where it looked like they were using Aeon Nox skin on Kodi. That skin had the ability to autostart a playlist.

    What would it take today to make all three requirements happen?

    And now I am thinking this may have been more appropriate in a Kodi forum. My apologies, but thanks if you can help.

  • Persistant Info On Screen

    I am using a 2Gb RPi4.

    After this Pi had laid around for a while, I fired it up again. It was on 11.0.1.

    I noticed information showing in the upper left hand corner of the screen.

    There are three lines of information

    1 Starts with the word Log, and shows a path to a log file

    2 memory usage

    3 CPU usage

    It persists after a power down or reboot. It jumps around that corner a little, like its a screensaver not wanting to burn the screen.

    I dropped 11.0.4 into the update folder and it still persists.

    I don't understand where this is coming from. Did I flip some switch in the settings?

    I had a keyboard connected for a while and I tried all the letters to try and find one that would turn it off. No joy.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks.

  • [LE 11] Wetek play 2

    Quote from chewitt

    RPi5 would be my go-to (as it already is).

    I saw a review where they mentioned an increase in the power the USB could provide on RPi5. Sorry, I'm not a tech. This reminded me of v1 of RPi. I quickly blew the silicon fuse by hooking a hub of drives to it.

    I had been running a RockPro64 for a couple years, but it goes tits up every now and then. When it works, it works well. Snappy. The power switch is a little funky in its operation. It just failed me for the second time, and that's why I have the Play 2 out of storage. I am unsure of the problem.

    I have a high quality hub, Ankor, with 7 drives on it. The Play 2 can't seem to mount them all. If I plug in just 4 drives, they all show up. I am thinking this has to do with the USB power limitation issue I mentioned above? That the Play 2 might be limited in USB power and therefore can only deal with a limited number of drives? Is this a reasonable guess?

    If it is a reasonable guess, could the 7 drives "hurt" the RockPro64, or future Pi, or even the Play2?

    (all drives run on their own wall wart p/s, and the hub has a beefy p/s too)

    So I do not know at this stage whether to replace the RockPro64, or buy a new Pi. The winner gets saddled with a bunch of drives, for sure.

    Be well.

    PS I tried the RPi4 for video, It's OK in a pinch, but not as my daily driver. Vero 4K is not snappy enough.

  • [LE 11] Wetek play 2

    Quote from chewitt

    Nope. Amlogic S905.

    Thank you. Glad I didn't try.

    I have a hub of drives plugged into the Play 2. I am having trouble mounting the drives in windows. I can get to the userdata directory, but no drives are listed in windows to map. Would this be SMB a setting in Kodi? All drives shared is enabled.

    If you were choosing between RockPro64 and the virgin RPi5, which would you choose for a new box?

  • Headless Kodi Control

    I would like to upgrade the audio system in my old vehicle. I have a cassette based FM stereo in the dash that I don't want to change. The FM and amp are fine. (AC/heating controls are blended in too) There is also a 6 pack cd player in the console, between the front l & r bucket seats. Because the two units are separate, I'd like to pull the CD player and drop in a new digital player in its place. I have not pulled the CD unit yet, but we can guess we will find audio input wires to the amp, power wires, and wires for the CD player controls.

    Therein lies the issue. I still want to use the play, skip track, skip CD buttons to control Kodi. Kodi will be running headless.

    Does Kodi offer an interface that would allow me to use the dash board controls to control a headless Kodi? The functions on the dash would be remapped to ones useful, like a remote control, possibly with an arduino to navigate Kodi in a rudimentary way.

    Thanks

  • Plays in VLC but not in Kodi (RPi4)

    Quote from petediscrete

    Not as busy a schedule as the guys here have answering your query. You were asked to supply logs and possibly a snippet of the offending video. Still no sign of either. Maybe when you get around to it

    Debug logging has been turned on. But since none of my TV drives mount in KODI anymore, I cannot test the TV files in KODI on the Pi to get your logs. For the last while, only my movie drives show up. 7 drives, only 3 mount. So there is more than one challenge here.

    Once, while trying to figure out the mounting issue, I plugged the same usb hub full of drives into a Vero 4K box (I got the name wrong earlier) and found the same issue-just a few mount. Plug it into windows, and everything is good. I saw all the drives mount on the Pi, in KODI (10.95.1), back when the installation was new. After a few days, this problem appeared. (mentioned in another thread)

    Would the log file help you see why the drives aren't always mounting? It seems KODI does not like ANKER USB 3.0 hubs. I am willing to fulfill your request, if KODI changes its mind about mounting my drives.

  • Plays in VLC but not in Kodi (RPi4)

    A quick mention. The Outer limits files did not work on The Core (OSMC) video box either. It's not just the Pi!!!

    I have not tested The Shipwreck files on the core.

    Also, this complaint does NOT appear for my movies, just TV files, for what that is worth.

    I have a busy schedule today. I'll do as suggested above re: the logs and check back later.

  • Plays in VLC but not in Kodi (RPi4)

    I appreciate your reply. But I do not think "old codec" is always the answer. Go look for the 60s Outer Limits HD. The file sizes are about 5g. Almost none of them work.

    Re-encoding is an interesting idea, but costs way more time and $ than scraping and failing in Kodi.

    I see the same non-function with a newer show Shipwreck Hunters Australia. The first episode works. The others don't. This is a very new show but exhibits the same quick shutdown when asking to play it.

    I'm sure there are more examples in the library that I have not run across yet.

    Is there a way to check Kodi compatibility without going through the trouble of scraping and moving to the library before finding out it is a fail? Is there a stand alone Kodi player outside of Kodi?

    Playing a new file in VLC to test used to be all that was needed. Been building this library for 20 years.

  • Plays in VLC but not in Kodi (RPi4)

    I have some video files I downloaded and they seem fine in the windows environment. I DL in windows and try the files out by evoking VLC in windows. If they seem OK you scrape the files and scan them into KODI's library.

    I am noticing a number of files that work well when they are tested with VLC won't work in KODI. When played in KODI it quickly brings up a black screen that disappears just as quickly. Whole seasons of TV shows don't work in Kodi.

    I am not sure how to troubleshoot this problem. Is the file(s) broken and VLC does something to make them playable, but when used in KODI, KODI can't deal with the "error", so they seem unplayable? Is my down-loader suddenly not putting the rar's together properly after years of being dependable? Or is it actually something with Kodi that can't deal with a perfectly fine file?

    Thanks for your troubleshooting ideas.