I have never seen this and am stumped as to how to fix it. I have been searching all day, and tried a hundred things, but nothing worked.
I use xbmc on Debian Wheezy from git. I have done this for quite some time without any major issues. However, in one of the builds from sometime in the last couple of weeks, I have lost a lot of audio/video settings from the System portion of settings.
I can't import/export/clean my library, I can't select an audio output device or change settings like vdpau or sync settings.
I have tried deleting the userdata folder, rebuilding, moving backwards one revision, checking for issues with the kernel, used different skins, and more, with no change. I thought maybe it could have been a config setting I used, so I cleaned the build directory, and configured with no options but prefix. No dice.
Has anyone seen this before? Is it a git/current problem, or something I have done wrong in building xbmc?
Can I make the settings changes I want in guisettings.xml until this is sorted out?
I don't see anything in my logs that seems applicable; there are no errors about talking to kernel or hardware. And it doesn't report skipping over options for any reason.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
It will be related to settings refactor but user wise thers no information available except whats on the PR
I expect a flood of this kind of thread(s) and hopefully something will happen on the Discussion thread/wiki soon. If anyone knows something try to document it in
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=163867 with screenshots and details.
uNi
Left sidebar menu has a "settings level" option which will hide/unhide a bunch of settings based on the set level...
On a slightly related note, will this new settings system open up the possibility for moving semi-regularly used options out from advancedsettings.xml and into the GUI? That would certainly be a win from a user stand-point since a GUI is self-documenting, while an empty (even non-existing) XML file says nothing at all about what's configurable.
(2013-05-06, 16:32)negge Wrote: [ -> ]On a slightly related note, will this new settings system open up the possibility for moving semi-regularly used options out from advancedsettings.xml and into the GUI? That would certainly be a win from a user stand-point since a GUI is self-documenting, while an empty (even non-existing) XML file says nothing at all about what's configurable.
This is precisely why I made this
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=163867 therad, to get all this stuff documentation rolling, and to centralize all these side discussion which are rlated, so thers answers instead of questions.
While I would in principle agree that GUI is self documenting (to an extent) in ideal, this is not assumed and cannot ever be assumed, and that why a wiki exists and why its encouraged for users to go use it and document stuff.
Im in favor of fact over assumption and "guessumption", we have enough "guessumtion" and assumtion based "help" given around these parts, thanks!
uNi
(2013-05-06, 16:44)uNiversal Wrote: [ -> ]While I would in principle agree that GUI is self documenting (to an extent) in ideal, this is not assumed and cannot ever be assumed, and that why a wiki exists and why its encouraged for users to go use it and document stuff.
My point was that a GUI setting called e.g. "Decode MPEG-4 using VDPAU" is self-explanatory to such a degree that many people won't have to go to the wiki at all to find out what it does, whereas in the current approach the user would have to go to the wiki to even find out that there is such an option. Naturally the wiki still has a place as far as documentation goes, I'm just saying that having advanced options avilable through the GUI would be a major step forward when it comes to ease of configuration.
OpenELEC test builds have a new OpenELEC configuration tool that has descriptive settings. I LOVE it and am dropping hints like mad to the other Team members that we should do the same for all of XBMC's settings :D
Well, its a good idea, specially since one of XBMC main mission statements is user friendliness next to godliness sort of thing, that is not saying that its not user friendly as is, just that like anything can always get better.
The advanced settings as I understand, if someone made a addon with all the advanced settings and values etc its my understanding that addons can control XBMC settings.
In any event for either case, the Openelec method has a bigger chance of being a reality than the advanced settings job. Since the code already exists and only needs improving/adapting.
uNi
In theory, the settings refactor will do away with manual editing of advancedsettings.xml and all that. There's a good chance it can all be worked into the GUI :D
(2013-05-06, 17:33)negge Wrote: [ -> ]My point was that a GUI setting called e.g. "Decode MPEG-4 using VDPAU" is self-explanatory...
Actually bad example IMHO. MPEG-4 could be MPEG-4 Part 2 (xvid and cousins) or MPEG-4 Part 10 (aka h.264) and could also be mistaken by some for .mp4, a container format that has nothing to do with hardware decoding.
(2013-05-06, 22:49)Ned Scott Wrote: [ -> ]In theory, the settings refactor will do away with manual editing of advancedsettings.xml and all that. There's a good chance it can all be worked into the GUI 
There are times when advancedsettings.xml manual editing is very useful, like if XBMC gui won't start and you want to turm on debug logging.
There will still be xml files that can be edited that way. It's just that there might now be a GUI front end to it, like the other settings have.
(2013-05-07, 11:25)Ned Scott Wrote: [ -> ]There will still be xml files that can be edited that way. It's just that there might now be a GUI front end to it, like the other settings have.
As it should be says the commandline guy, thanks for the response
(2013-05-07, 07:20)nickr Wrote: [ -> ]Actually bad example IMHO. MPEG-4 could be MPEG-4 Part 2 (xvid and cousins) or MPEG-4 Part 10 (aka h.264) and could also be mistaken by some for .mp4, a container format that has nothing to do with hardware decoding.
You don't say Moving Picture Experts Group Revision 2 Audio Layer 3 either, MP3 is fine. Most people think about XviD et al. when they hear MPEG-4.
Memphiz beat me to it, but the sidebar setting was the key to getting all the settings back. Thanks for the help. Now if I could only figure out why my mythtv recordings play back so jittery…