Kodi Community Forum

Hello,

I have read the relevant threads but I must be missing something. This can't be very difficult.

I loaded the wrong fanart on some music videos. I went back and found 1920X1080 fanart to correct my mistake and replaced it in the relevant folder. I used "I" and "C" on the keyboard to refresh the music video folder but it doesn't change. The "Get Fanart" button is greyed out. I understand that it must be pulling a cached image and I have to delete cache.

If that is true can someone help me find it and delete it.

I am using Eden and I am on a Windows 7 platform.

Help is appreciated. Please make it simple - this is confusing to me.

I found an article called "How to clear XBMC Thumbnails Cache and Remove Unused Thumbnails". It is here:

http://www.htpcbeginner.com/clear-xbmc-t...humbnails/

I think this will also remove old cached fanart that has been replaced with updated fanart. I found the appdata file after a search using %appdata%. I first had to tell windows 7 to show hidden files so maybe that was why I couldn't find my XBMC user files.

I found the texture file at C:/:User/User_Name/Apdata/Roaming/XBMC/userdata/database/Textures6.db. There are some other database files.

I am going to delete a slew of movies and add them back with some new movies. It is the easy way to get everything loaded. So I am thinking I may just want to rescrape everything.

Step 2 of the linked article says:

"If you are cleaning your entire Thumbnails cache (including videos) then the only way to clean the thumbnails for your videos is to remove the video sources and clean the XBMC database. If you do this you will have to readd your sources after cleaning and rescrape your library, which can take several hours. If you do not want to do this and would like to clean all thumbnails except for your videos, then skip to the next step."

So maybe the best thing to do is wipe out the tbn, gif, jpg files in the thumbnails file. Then delete the textures file. And then add back my sources and rescrape the library. I would like to scrape only from the local data and not the net.

Questions:

1. Is my approach sound?
2. Does the textures file just recreate itself?
3. Can I rescrape only the local sources?
4. I had a difficult time with music videos because it needed to be identified with a scraper. Does this wipe out my music video scraper or is it still there. My understanding is I had to have it even though I don't want to use it.
5. Will it take long to rescrape the entire library from just the data on my external drives as opposed to scraping off the net?

I hope this helps define my question and also help others who may have the same issue in Eden.

Bump

I understand, maybe wrongly, that if you export your library and delete your sources from xbmc followed by a clean library, all data for no longer available videos is wiped from the database. Presumably the cache is also cleaned but if not, you can always delete the cache contents manually. Then you can redefine your sources (and thus the scraper used for each source) at which point xbmc normally scrapes your library where it will retrieve all the metadata it needs. The priority is to look for local art files, then local nfo files (the stuff you previously exported) before looking on the web. Because you are now fetching local metadata, xbmc should not need to look on the internet at all (so the time taken is less relevant and much faster than scraping the net). Any new movies, series or music you subsequently add will be scraped just as before, using those scrapers you defined when adding your source to xbmc. Presumably this is an effective way to clean up the db and local cache.

Alternatively, i have a recollection where in one post it was stated that if you delete the cache file, xbmc will simply recreate the cache based on the textures database records using your local files if they exist, or from the web if not. This requires your textures database must be up to date which should be the case if you press "I" and "choose art" rather than "refresh", where you will be presented with "current art", "remote art", "local art" and "browse" to choose what you want to see within xbmc. Presumably the textures db and local cache is then updated.

To the more knowledgeable, if i'm wrong in the above, please correct my misunderstanding of how xbmc actually works, but be gentle as i'm new to xbmc

I did see some people talk about exporting my library. I am not sure why one would do that. But I did go looking for that command and I found it under settings. I looked online and it said I would have options of single file or separate files. I assume I would pick separate file. Still not sure what having an exported file does for me.

Then you say "delete sources". OK so I go back to Video and then down to "Files". I right click on each folder there and select delete source. I see this might be good. I am going to move a lot of files around for a couple of reasons and one is to create a "Kids" folder in my Eden XBMC along with movies, music videos and TV. So once I move all around I can add them back.

Then you say I can add back my sources and thus the scraper. I had forgot the scraper but I did a test add and see that I have to select a scraper. Just have to remember that for Music Videos I select AudioDB. Seems like that was an issue once but don't recall why. Anyway, I click the buttons for scan recursive, movies in separate folder, and automatic scan. That starts the scanning.

Then you say, it will look at my local files first. So it won't go to the net, because I have NFO files, TBN files and Fanart. That's good.

Then you say "alternately" I can delete my cache files. Shouldn't I delete my cash files before I do the above? That way any old image will be deleted. Remember, I changed fan art to fit XBMC specs but the old fanart still shows up. That's what started my questioning.

Then you say if I delete cache files, the textures db will recreate them. Do I need to delete the textures database though?

You say:

"This requires your textures database must be up to date which should be the case if you press "I" and "choose art" rather than "refresh", where you will be presented with "current art", "remote art", "local art" and "browse" to choose what you want to see within xbmc. Presumably the textures db and local cache is then updated."

I am confused by this last part. It sounds like I have to go to each Movie, TV show, and Music Video and press "I". That would take a long time. Do I need to do that?

Final two things - when I get done, what happens to the export file that I started with? and will the TV shows marked "watched" still be marked?

Sorry for all the questions but I am not very experienced and I am very cautious in these matters. I have things running pretty good and I don't want to screw it up. I thank you for helping me though. I hope to realign everything this weekend and get the right artwork to show up.

@wdpcpa: If you want to keep the watched status, then you must create an "advancedsettings.xml" file containing the following:
For windows users, place this file in %AppData%\XBMC\userdata and then xbmc should import the watched status flags from the .nfo files when you add the a source containing videos with corresponding .nfo and .jpeg files

Also, i'm a xbmc newb trying to understand the finer points of this great app. I'm not there yet and may indeed have misunderstood how some things work. As i said "I understand, maybe wrongly,..."
I'm hoping that if i do make a wrong statement, some expert will come and corrected my misunderstandings

Anyway, the first part of my previous post briefly outlined a mechanism to back up a database to .nfo and .jpeg files which are then stored alongside the media files. For all intents and purposes this "export" makes a copy of the database warts and all. Then by having such .nfo and .jpeg files collocated with the media files, i could simply move my media (as it's USB drives in my case) to a new PC without difficulty and quickly recreate the viewing experience (database) without the need for any internet connection. I presumed one could also recreate the viewing experience on the same PC by removing all sources, cleaning the library and redefining your sources. Keep in mind that when you remove a source you are presented with an "Unassigned content" popup which asks "Do you want to remove all items within this path from XBMC library?". Presumably this popup really means "do you want me to remove all database references associated with items within the source you are removing?" and by clicking "Yes" xbmc should clean the database files of all such references and repeatedly doing such source removal until no sources are left should in effect wipe the database nice and clean! At some point, since there is no data within the database, one would think there is some xbmc housekeeping that also wipes the cache clean (if not done bit by bit as we remove sources).

This understanding above was the basis for my thoughts and my post. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case as my tests today showed the database and cache retain their contents (filesize did not change), so i'm again confused! I then uninstalled and reinstalled xbmc on my pc's and redefine my sources to get a clean minimal cache (but have yet to find where the MyVideo75.db and textures.db files have gone)?

If such simple use cases as above seems broken, then either i have badly misunderstood the point of deleting a source and removing references or the "Unassign Content" function does not work as one should expect...

Can some expert clarify what should happen w.r.t. the above cases and enlighten us?

Is there any clarity on how the thumbs cache is processed?

Cheers.