After having spent some time setting up and configuring my AFTV (box) with Kodi, I am very pleased with the outcome and user experience. In saying that, I'm thinking about picking up additional AFTV devices (box and stick) for other rooms. To make things easier for me for maintaining, and for the family usability (kids and wife), I'd like for each device to provide the same experience and functionality.
Things I'd like to accomplish:
- All Kodi settings be configured the same for all devices. If I make a configuration change on one device, it propagates to the others. If I install an Add-On and configure on one device, it syncs to the others. I want each device to be a mirror of the others on my network.
- All media libraries be synchronized. When something is added or removed, all Kodi instances have that update reflected. When something is watched, all Kodi's reflect that. If something is watched on one device and stopped, it can be resumed in another room from another device at the same spot. All metadata, posters, thumbnails, fanart from the library be the same across all devices.
I've done some searching on these forums, and it appears that there are methods for accomplishing these tasks, but from what I gathered:
- Leveraging the Kodi Add-On "Backup" can be used to backup the settings from one device, then the user can go to the other devices and 'restore'. This is a manual process and not done automatically on the fly. I've actually tried this method with a AFTV box and a Stick version. At first glance, it appears that most of the settings carried over, but I noticed some did not, and will need to dig in a little deeper to validate.
- I've read that library synchronization can be accomplished via leveraging a mySQL database. This involves some editing of some XML files on each instance of Kodi, and seems to be a Windows/Mac/Linux solution.
I guess what I'm asking is what are other Fire TV Kodi users doing to accomplish setting/configuration synchronization and shared library synchronization for their deployments of multiple AFTV devices on their network?
Thanks for any suggestions and recommendations.
Oooo, I too would be interested in a solution like this.
I'd say that the best way to achieve this is by using MySQL to share the library and path substitution to share the settings. You would put most of your userdata on the remote share and simply point each box to that share via advancedsettings.XML.
If I were working with Kodi installed on my Windows machine, I know how to navigate to the XML files to configure MySQL, specifically navigating to the advancedsettings.xml and userdata settings. But I'm not really finding any 'guides' or tutorials for configuring all this on an AFTV. Does anyone have any insight or 'guides' to editing these files and configurations for an AFTV, like the directory path/structure for the AFTV to accomplish this task?
^the simplest way, IMO, on the FTV is to use the File Manager in KODI. You can copy files from the userdata folder to a network directory, edit from a PC, then copy back.
For the keeping of all boxes the same.. I am currently doing this with ADBFire.. I have one 'testbed' fireTV and then simply backup all kodi and restore it out to others on the network once I am happy that the testbed box is exactly how I want. Its not as automatic as you want but that top down control also stops family messing up a boxes settings and propogating that out to each box. I prefer that and in turn that gives a restore state that I am happy with. Its simple and can all be done from my desktop without fiddling on each box.
As for the library sharing.. I am battling, and losing, setting up MySQL with my NAS.. Hence I am asking similar Qs about Kodi and uPnP.. Answers to whcih may also relate to you.
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid1900223
Right now I have a server / pc hooked up to my TV and it's running Kodi 14. This server is the data store for my media files. It's fairly silent so I can live with it. In my bedroom I have a Minix X5 mini. It's running 13. Soon, if all goes well, I'll be moving to a new house where I'll have the server in it's own room / rack, hooked up to the Minix in the bedroom over Cat. 6 and hopefully another Android box in the living room hooked to the TV. So I too would love to find some way of syncing device configuration and / or at least library. I too have found the tutorial by lifehacker for MySQL, but it seems to apply to PC's only.
Has anyone had any real success at syncing across devices on different platforms?
Just completed a backup of Helix 14 to my server from one Fire TV Box and a restore to another Fire TV Box, using adbfire for both, with no issues. Unless having to sign back into Pandora is an issue.
However using adbfire isnt ongoing and live syncing.. its merely sync of a snapshot..
Its what I am still doing also, due to have problems getting mysql working on my NAS.
I too would love to be able to do this. Ideally it would be great to have the ability to have all your settings files stored on a NAS and point each one of your devices to the NAS.
Has any accomplishes a solution to this?
Looking for the same thing!!
I have an Iomega home media drive NAS, which hold all my media and also backups, wallpapers etc.
Have 2 Android boxes and a new Pi and looking to add a FTV shortly (being told that a new FTV is coming....rumour mill!)
I use Mysql to sync all of my movies and tv shows instantly for my system. I have 3 aftv's.
MySQL is definitely the way to go here. It works quite seamlessly across platforms. I have ATV2, FireTV, FireTV Stick, PCs, and Macs all sharing the same library from my NAS. Depending on your network speed and devices, it can be noticeably slower to display lists than hosting the library locally, but for me, the benefits far outweigh the delay.
Mediabrowser, now Emby, is working on a new Kodi addon that will use their media server and keep all clients databases sync'd. Looks interesting. Not sure when that will go official, in beta now.
I use Plex server for my library and use the plexbmc add-on for all my various kodi systems works really well. Used to use mysql before but it was much slower and found plex server to be far superior.