[riccochet]

Hey everyone,
have been working on getting my xbmc boxes (3 of them) to sync via mysql on a windows home server that has all my media. I believe i have finally gotten it working on the first box, i have all the databases populated with my media info, but i was wondering how i get it to sync with my other machines. I have done fresh installs of eden on the other 2 HTPCs and am just assuming i need to put the info into the advancedsettings.xml file. The initial machine i got it working on is a windows box, the other 2 are XBMCbuntu. I have made the necessary changes to the xml files on the other 2 boxes, but i haven't setup a library yet and i haven't restarted them to start using the file. Do i need to setup my SMB shares and have them scan for media to populate the library? or does it just get the info it needs from the mysql server that is dictated in the advancedsettings.xml file?
Just want to make sure I get this right cause i've been fighting trying to get this to work for 2 days.

[Ned Scott]

The advancedsetting.xml file is all you actually need to share the library. If you also want to be able to update the library from the XBMCbuntu machines then you will also want to set up the shares using the same exact network paths and settings as the Windows machine, but you will not need to run a scan (leave "run automated scan" off) for those new machines.

[riccochet]

Thanks for the update! I'll give it a shot and hope for the best.

[riccochet]

Well it did work. It sees all my media, but it didn't get any cover art for it. Is this normal? is there something else i should be doing to get that?

[riccochet]

So i guess a little bit of research goes a long way...
Please correct me if i got something messed up. I can do this via path substitution in the advancedsettings.xml file.
Which i just tried and didn't seem to work...
I can try to do this via symbolic links, but since its a XBMCbuntu machine trying to connect to a windows share it seems to have issues with that being on a different filesystem. I read that you could mount the windows share in Ubuntu and then try and create a symlink that way, but i haven't been able to get that to work properly.
The other option is to just copy the thumbnails folder to the machine itself, but again, with the cross platform stuff i got going on, it doesn't seem to want to work too well.
I guess the only option i have is to manually force the xbmcbuntu machine to get all the cover art itself... does anyone know if there is a script that i can use to do this automatically or something? the update library option didn't do anything, so i imagine i would have to do a refresh on each movie/show individually...?