[kouklo]

Hi all!!
I was hoping to get some help. All I' m trying to do is launch a program/app from Kodi on Windows I have read 2 or 3 "How-tos" but they all seem to be for older versions and the steps don't make any sense or dont exist. 
So far all I have managed to do is make a "Apps" category/folder........I have spent over an hour on this and thats as far as I can get.

Any help would be great! Thank You!

[adriman]

Hi! I was looking for front end for retroplayer and found this interesting addon, thanks for your time!
I wonder if, like others systems, there is a default path where you can past All your roms and the addon can scrape them automatically. Or is absolutly necessary configure each path one by one?

[chrisism]

As of a few days ago I get error messages when AKL starts and games do not start when you try to launch them. It also says that there was an error with a database migration. The log has this here in regards to AKL (if you need the full log then give a holler and I will upload one) :

Edit: Looks like you're trying out stuff and I was still on the beta repo. After switching to stable and updating downgrading to that version everything is back to normal.

023-05-06 22:25:54.565 T:374047    info <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.services: ------------ Called Advanced Kodi Launcher : Service ------------
2023-05-06 22:25:54.566 T:374047    info <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.services: Found 1 migration files to process.
2023-05-06 22:25:54.595 T:374047    info <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.repositories: Executing migration script: special://home/addons/plugin.program.akl/resources/migrations/1.4.0.sql
2023-05-06 22:25:54.649 T:374047   error <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.services: Failure while doing database migration
                                                   Traceback (most recent call last):
                                                     File "/home/kodi/.kodi/addons/plugin.program.akl/resources/lib/services.py", line 63, in run
                                                       self._do_version_upgrade(uow, LooseVersion(db_version))
                                                     File "/home/kodi/.kodi/addons/plugin.program.akl/resources/lib/services.py", line 129, in _do_version_upgrade
                                                       uow.migrate_database(migrations_files_to_execute, version_to_store)
                                                     File "/home/kodi/.kodi/addons/plugin.program.akl/resources/lib/repositories.py", line 364, in migrate_database
                                                       self.execute_script(sql_statements)
                                                     File "/home/kodi/.kodi/addons/plugin.program.akl/resources/lib/repositories.py", line 404, in execute_script
                                                       self.conn.executescript(sql_statements)
                                                   sqlite3.OperationalError: no such column: c.default_icon
2023-05-06 22:25:54.649 T:374047    info <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.services: Skipping automatic scan and view generation. Last scan was 4 days ago
2023-05-06 22:25:54.649 T:374061 critical <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.webservice: Exception in webservice.is_alive [Errno 111] Connection refused
2023-05-06 22:25:54.649 T:374061    info <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.webservice: Stopping AKL webservice(127.0.0.1:57300)
2023-05-06 22:25:54.649 T:374061   error <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.webservice: Exception in webservice.stop(): [Errno 111] Connection refused
2023-05-06 22:25:54.649 T:374061    info <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.webservice: Webservice stopped
2023-05-06 22:25:54.649 T:374061    info <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.webservice: Startup AKL webservice(127.0.0.1:57300)

There is a bug in the RC/beta releases. Busy fixing that now, will come with a fix asap.

[chrisism]

Hi all!!
I was hoping to get some help. All I' m trying to do is launch a program/app from Kodi on Windows I have read 2 or 3 "How-tos" but they all seem to be for older versions and the steps don't make any sense or dont exist. 
So far all I have managed to do is make a "Apps" category/folder........I have spent over an hour on this and thats as far as I can get.

Any help would be great! Thank You!

So if you want to simply launch an application on Windows, you should point to the .exe file of that application. Using a standalone ROM and using the default file launcher this should be straightforward. Also, did you install the default launcher plugin for AKL?

Steps:
- Go to the category/folder where you want to add the program
- Choose "Add new ROM (Standalone)"
- Choose yes in "Is it a file based..."
- Look for the .exe file on your disk and select it.
- Done

Let me know if you encounter issues. Share logs/screenshots to help us out.

[chrisism]

Hi! I was looking for front end for retroplayer and found this interesting addon, thanks for your time!
I wonder if, like others systems, there is a default path where you can past All your roms and the addon can scrape them automatically. Or is absolutly necessary configure each path one by one?

Well this is of course possible per collection. So for collection "Atari games" you can select a directory full of the atari ROMs and it can go through the whole collection. The default plugin for AKL supports simple file based scanning that scans all child directories from a single top level provided.
So you can also make a collection called 'All ROMs' and apply a file scanner pointing to your top directory and simply scan with the filer "*.*", meaning all files.

However, I am actually thinking about something similar like you mentioned. I am thinking about moving the ROM scanning to a separate section, like 'Sources', similar to other library-type applications. You then create collections by importing scanned content. But this will take some time to implement and I haven't started yet. So don't expect it soon.

[chrisism]

I could not find any text inside the Edit Rom metadata menu related to Platform to edit, it's a standalone PC game, not emulator games.

Ahh, find the flaw. Platform options is only in the collection menu. Going to add it to the ROM menu too. Will be in the RC/beta releases. But I first need to fix the migrations issue.

[Watchstate]

Currently I'm still using AEL, but I would love to switch to AKL.
What keeps me from doing so is the lack of integration into the Estuary Skin.

I would realy love to have an integration for AKL in the Estuary Skin.
Are there any plans to for that?

[Juppstein]

No worries. By the way I switched to the regular repo and all worked well for a day. But today cover pictures are not shown when browsing a collection. Games are still starting up successfully though. 

Here's what the log says when switching to a collection in Kodi

023-05-10 10:52:53.941 T:7526    error <general>: Control 55 in window 10821 has been asked to focus, but it can't
2023-05-10 10:52:53.945 T:12991   error <general>: DoWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.gamestudios.grayscale/esrb/
2023-05-10 10:52:54.681 T:13005   error <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.views: vw_misc_set_AEL_Content() Invalid AEL_Content_Value "ROMCOLLECTION"
2023-05-10 10:52:54.688 T:13005 warning <general>: Setting most video properties through ListItem.setInfo() is deprecated and might be removed in future Kodi versions. Please use the respective setter in InfoTagVideo.
2023-05-10 10:52:56.604 T:12993    info <general>: Skipped 137 duplicate messages..
2023-05-10 10:52:56.604 T:12993   error <general>: DoWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.gamestudios.grayscale/esrb/
2023-05-10 10:52:57.945 T:13009   error <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.views: vw_misc_set_AEL_Content() Invalid AEL_Content_Value "CATEGORY"
2023-05-10 10:52:57.955 T:13009 warning <general>: Setting most video properties through ListItem.setInfo() is deprecated and might be removed in future Kodi versions. Please use the respective setter in InfoTagVideo.
2023-05-10 10:53:03.135 T:13016    info <general>: Skipped 13 duplicate messages..
2023-05-10 10:53:03.135 T:13016   error <general>: [plugin.program.akl] resources.lib.views: vw_misc_set_AEL_Content() Invalid AEL_Content_Value "ROMCOLLECTION"
2023-05-10 10:53:03.138 T:13016 warning <general>: Setting most video properties through ListItem.setInfo() is deprecated and might be removed in future Kodi versions. Please use the respective setter in InfoTagVideo.
2023-05-10 10:53:07.523 T:12991    info <general>: Skipped 110 duplicate messages..
2023-05-10 10:53:07.523 T:12991   error <general>: DoWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.gamestudios.grayscale/Strategic Simulations.png
2023-05-10 10:53:09.890 T:13025   error <general>: DoWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.gamestudios.grayscale/Krisalis Software.png
2023-05-10 10:53:10.372 T:13025   error <general>: DoWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.gamestudios.grayscale/Core Design.png
2023-05-10 10:53:10.606 T:12991   error <general>: DoWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.gamestudios.grayscale/Interplay.png
2023-05-10 10:53:10.841 T:12993   error <general>: DoWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.gamestudios.grayscale/Blue Byte.png
2023-05-10 10:53:11.089 T:12991   error <general>: DoWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.gamestudios.grayscale/Revolution Software.png
2023-05-10 10:53:11.489 T:13025   error <general>: DoWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.gamestudios.grayscale/Digital Illusions.png
 

[chrisism]

Currently I'm still using AEL, but I would love to switch to AKL.
What keeps me from doing so is the lack of integration into the Estuary Skin.

I would realy love to have an integration for AKL in the Estuary Skin.
Are there any plans to for that?

That will depend on the Kodi team, or those who maintain that skin. I did some special views for the Arctic Zephyr skin (see earlier posts). Maybe somebody can create mods for the Estuary skin based on those.

[chrisism]

No worries. By the way I switched to the regular repo and all worked well for a day. But today cover pictures are not shown when browsing a collection. Games are still starting up successfully though. 

Here's what the log says when switching to a collection in Kodi

.....

The migrations are fixed. However, since you already ran migrations from the beta release, you might encounter some error messages still. I have added an option available through the settings menu that can re-run or mark migrations as done. Let me know how this version works for you, if needed share logs through paste.kodi.tv. 
Check the directory %kodi profile dir%/userdata/addondata/plugin.program.akl/ for any .db files (sqlite database files). In the worst case we need to execute some queries on them to fix any half executed migrations. Let's take it step by step and keep me posted.

[chrisism]

I could not find any text inside the Edit Rom metadata menu related to Platform to edit, it's a standalone PC game, not emulator games.

and now this option is available, in the beta/rc version at the moment.

[chrisism]

UPDATE: Release 1.4.0

Version 1.4.0 of AKL has been released and is now available on the stable repository.
Changelog:

• Search term mode applicable for multi ROM scraping.
  
• Refactoring of default asset mapping
  
• Added setting to disable view rendering notifications
  
• Changed database migrations system
  
• Added 'edit platform' to ROMs
  
• Changed platform can be applied to all ROMs in a collection
  

[bradgy]

Thanks chrisism for the wonderful addon and continued support.

I have an issue with being unable to get the steam plugin to work - scanning and importing into a Steam collection has occurred successfully, but on launching a title/rom, Steam big picture just loads to its home screen and stays there without progressing to loading the game.

I thought it might be an launcher application arguments issue, so I changed the argument from "$rom$" to "steam://rungameid/$rom$" but that didn't have any effect.

The other thing I am wondering is if it might be a new steam big picture mode thing (I'm on the beta client that has the new Steam Deck UI), perhaps doesn't recognise the old arguments?

Wondering if anyone has any ideas, cheers.

[Juppstein]

Just got the update from the stable repo. Looking at the migration status in the settings I can see that it did go through the migration to 1.4.0_003 successfully though I see that the migration to 1.4.0_002 got marked as failed, that was probably the time where the cover art got ripped out of my views. After I rebuilt all views I can see the cover art again and the games do start successfully. Checking in the addon folder I do see a db file, in fact I have three files with different names but the same file size:

akl.1.4.0.db
akl.db
akl.db.bak

the timestamp is from the time AKL got updated for me today.

[sunlollyking]

Hi, i can't for the life of me work out how to get this running. The guides look different to how my AKL opens. When i first run i see
<Favourites>
<Most played ROMs}
etc
etc

I'm using LibreElec, and downloaded retroarch as an AppImage but i can't seem to get anything running through that. I'm wondering if someone could show me how i could use retroarch to use play just one of the games i've got.
I use the folder structure <Media Drive / Video Games / <Specific Console> / <Specific Game>