Path Substitution

[jcjefferies]

I have four clients all running X-NEWA on Kodi 17.6 but on only one does the path substitution work and has done for perhaps 2 years on latest LibreElec after several updates. It doesn't work on the Amazon Fire stick but I think that is because is runs SMB1. The RPi3 and AMD E450 nettop both had a recent clean install of latest LibreElec but path substitution does not work or at least you cannot fully play in progress recordings. I even copied the advancedsettings.xml from the working setup. The work around I have been using is to play the file on the D drive on the server in Kodi from "Videos". Below is the contents of advancedsettings.xml in ~/.kodi/userdata


<advancedsettings>
<pathsubstitution>

<substitute>

<from>D:\</from>

<to>smb://NPVR-SERVER/d/</to>

</substitute>

</pathsubstitution>
</advancedsettings>

What is the best way to find out what is going on Martin as I remember when I first setup path substitution it was difficult to tell from the logs what was happening.

Chris

[mvallevand]

It is very easy to tell from the ldebug kodi logs especially if you can play the file from a share in the library in the same run. Certainly I would recommend using the IP address of the server as shown in the sticky.

Also if you need smb1 why not enable it? Don't you trust your home network?

Martin

[jcjefferies]

Thanks Martin but using the IP address did not help! Went through the Debug log after a reboot and there is a "Notice" that there is an Advancedsettings.xml file and lists the contents.

On the box where path substitution works there is this line in the log when playing a file:-
DEBUG: CSMBFile::Open - opened smb://NPVR-SERVER/d/Wheeler Dealers/Wheeler Dealers_20180903_06000620.ts, fd=10000

Enclosed is a short Kodi log showing playing a file starting at 13:19:00 where path substitution is not working. It looks quit a bit different to the log from the one where it it is working.

Chris

[mvallevand]

Sorry I want the whole log, including the playback for the share in the library.

Thinking about it again, if you change from to D:/ does it work?

Martin

[jcjefferies]

Thanks Martin. I cannot do it today but will reboot, play from share and play from X-NEWA give times of each. I was able to check advancedsettings.xml on the Celeron client where Path Substitution is working and it is also using D:\ for "from" but will try D:/. There was a considerable difference in the logs from the start to end of the "Play" sequence between the client with working Substitution and the one where it is not working but that could be that one is a Rpi3 and the other a Celeron box.

Chris

[jcjefferies]

Martin on the RPi3 where Path Substitution does not work I changed <from>D:\ to D:/ but it made no difference so playback of in progress recording stopped.

After a reboot the debug log contains playback of a recording on the server via X-NEWA at 12:20:33 followed at 12:22:20 by playback of recording on the server D: drive under Kodi videos from a SMB source created in File Manager.

Chris

[mvallevand]

The one that works has

smb://npvr-server/D/

but your path substitution is

smb://192.168.1.146/d/

Try using the upper case D

Martin

[jcjefferies]

Upper case "D" did not work. I dont think it is relevant as "D" is what I chose to call the source on the server in Kodi file manager.

Just to double check I copied the advancedsettings.xml from the client where Path Substitution works the the other two clients but Path Substitution still did not work on either. However I got Path Substitution working on the AMD powered client!! LibreElec lets you save a System & Kodi configuration backup so imported the backup from the working Celeron PC into the AMD powered PC where Path Substitution was not working and is now working. Still not working on the RPi as the same configuration backup file seems to be ignored probably because of different architecture! What I will try is to doctor the backup so it contains the RPi system backup and the PC Kodi backup.

Chris

[mvallevand]

The D is r relevsnd because Linux is case sensitive. The x86 logic and RPI logic I use is different for how I do substitution so I need to check your log again

Martin

[mvallevand]

Ok you don't have debug logging turned on from the beginning so I am missing some info

In advancedsettings.xml could you add

<loglevel>1</loglevel>

This way you don't have to enable it.

Martin