Posts by zomboided

4.2.0 is on the repo...no more NordVPN support

The add-on is at least 5000 lines of code, and there are multiple settings that all relate to the filtering. If you're wanting to do this you need to understand it all yourself - it's all on GitHub, and there are comments. Life is far to short to remind myself how it all works and then explain it all to someone else.

I had this problem on the Pi, frustrating as anything, and eventually diagnosed it to my VPN addon checking the connection during playback - it was running a system command to see if an executable was running causing the brief stutter. I'd been running like this for months previously with no issues. But maybe some scheduling has changed or newer versions of Kodi are generally more busy.

Even if you're not running my VPN addon, try disabling all other addons (particularly services) and see if you get the same problem. If you don't you can enable them one by one to find the problematic one.

Sure, trouble shooting link, including log gathering is in the first post.

This sort of problem existed on a beta level of LE some time back. I'm not interested in debugging problems on beta builds - report those issues to whoever made the beta build you're using. If you can recreate on the latest stable version (8.1.2?) then get a full log with debug switched on and I'll look at it.

Just a heads up for NordVPN users - I'm removing support in v.4.2.0 because the way NordVPN have chosen to implement their service, requiring constant changes to the servers unless you use their apps. This is not really compatible with the way my add-on works, and I'm fed up dealing with the repercussions.

If you want to continue to use NordVPN, then you can use the User Defined wizard to import the files - but you'll need to update them everytime they change something.

I've uploaded the latest definitons, which existing users can pick up by revalidating their connections.

Sometime during the week of the 20th November I'll put 4.2.0 on the repo. This will stop NordVPN from working and I'll not be looking at any more NordVPN problems.

If you want to stay on 4.1.9, then you can use NordVPN to the end of the year, at which point I'll remove the definitions that are needed from GitHub.

Well it's defined as multiple things in the addon.xml because it provides 3 different entry points. I see it as a service in mimic which is the first thing it's defined as, but I guess maybe other skins slice and dice things differently.

Quote from Ricardob15

I have a question i went and download the zip from github, then install it, but when i go to the program add ons the manager is never there.. is only in services.. why?

Because it's a service that runs all the time and not a program

Good man for helping yourself so much. The issue is that the ta.key can't be found because it's not path qualified.

If you'd supplied the .ta file on import like you did for the other files (.ca, .key and .cert) then the import code would have resolved this for you. The import code has no knowledge of the parameters (as there are too many and they change). It will just fix files that are referenced if you supply them.

The import puts files in /storage/.kodi/userdata/addon-data/service.vpn.manager/UserDefined. When you select UserDefined in the GUI, it'll copy all the files for use from that directory into the paths you see referenced. You should repeat the import and input the .ta file to fix this.

A quick google suggests the scramble option is something that was patched into some versions of openvpn that may have been made available by some VPN providers. I guess it didn't end up making it into 2.4.0. I didn't look closely enough. If your VPN provider is one of those that requires the patched ovpnvpn executable, then you might be out of luck if it can't operate without this. You're right to remove it meantime though.

It's telling you that you've supplied an ovpn file that contains a bad option. The import wizard isn't gonna fix that.

Here's the manual page with the options Openvpn24ManPage – OpenVPN Community

Work out what option it is by opening the ovpn file and determine why that line is bad.

I don't know why your provider would supply options files that don't work, but maybe the issue is with an option not being available in the level of openvpn you're running. If you're using LE, then you're using 2.4.0

Start again and use the import wizard and many/all of these problems will go away. Supply all of the files needed at the same time and use the resulting log and the openvpn log to debug the issues.

Use of the up and down scripts is documented in the wiki, along with an example you can enable. I don't have anything useful to say about what you'd put in them, but it's not unique to LE or Kodi, that's just "normal" iptables manipulation.

Why wouldn't you use PIA directly on your laptop via their app? You can connect multiple devices all at once and manage the connections separately depending on what you're doing. There may also be a performance benefit to having multiple tunnels, or a separation of traffic to avoid one application slowing another

4.1.8 is on GitHub

Trespasser It has a pop up connection table as an alternative to filtering, with a key map function to help set it up (see

Connection Switching if you want to do this manually). You can choose to display the entire list of connections, or just the validated ones.

If you already have a cycle key mapped, then you can optionally map the pop up table as a long press, but this seem to only work well with keyboards and not TV remotes via CEC.

I'll put it on the repo in a few days after I've tested it a little bit more.

Quote from danykid

You won't believe I too started from Nord and using PureVPN now and I hope will never look back.

Yeah this doesn't seem like the best move ever. This would upset me too.

I just tried this from another service (in case the values were somehow related to the service that wrote them), and I can see the values on the home window, no problem. Let's see what the collective knowledge of the kodi forums yield when they come back - or suggest an alternative interface?

Here was my test:

In /home/osmc/.kodi/addons/service.vpn.manager/resources/settings.xml the final (ish) line can be editted to be visible=true and enable=true which basically then puts a button at the bottom of settings/debug which when clicks, drives the API.

I then added this to the service.py, which basically waited until a property appeared on the window and then printed it out.

if not xbmcgui.Window(10000).getProperty("VPN_Manager_API_IP") == "":
    newPrint(xbmcgui.Window(10000).getProperty("VPN_Manager_API_IP"))

When I click the debug button to run the API, in the log I see:

21:52:25.881 T:19512 ERROR: x.x.x.x

So my conclusion is that the API is working, and the writing to the window is working when the API is called..

I don't know anything about skinning, or whether we're both looking at the same window (I had been lead to believe that window 10000 was always the home window, and it does look like you're seeing window 10000 from the filtering debug messages), but I do think that the values are being written. I also think you're calling the API and it's doing what it needs to find out the IP.

Check out the call you're making to read the properties. If you're still getting problems, PM me to debug.

Switch on debug trace. You should see in the log that the API is at least being called.

The API isn't available until VPN manager is running, so doing it before any services are started by Kodi could be an issue.