Kodi Community Forum

DO i need to add winzip program to kodi

No.

What makes you think that?

do i need to add winzip program to kodi 17 please help new tp all this

Again, NO!

You don't need winzip or any other zip program.

Not sure, so may be typing complete rubbish, but wasn't core video player recently updated to require some addon for handling playback of video files within RAR and ZIP archives?
If so i'd guess that without such addons installed (and not even sure if a default install includes such addons) or with some odd coding faults sneaking in duing the transition to this addon structure (meaning the addon doesn't work as intended), playback may not work for OP hence his question.

Why anyone actually wants to rar or zip a video that is already heavily compressed is beyond my understanding as it seems counter intuative to be sure to be sure. .

Anyway to continue with my guesing, maybe the OP is using a build that requires such rar/zip addons and things aren't working for him (as his limited experiance or understanding may be from days gone by when it just worked) so he may think winzip needs to be installed.

So can anyone clarify if and when such changes were made to which version of kodi and whether such addons exist and what they are called.
Such info could help others (and me) to better understand the issues before starting a new thread

I haven't been following the archivers for quite a while, but there has been history and as archivers have evolved, some have taken odd branches and may no longer be 100% compatible with the versions that Kodi mainstream uses. I'm always hesitant when I see a .rar file, there has been a lot of variants which have had issues in the past, not to mention the operating overhead and un-archiving processes. http://kodi.wiki/view/Raspberry_Pi_FAQ#V...m_archives The reason one would use a compressor for the most part is not the saving of file size but more of the file/folder/directory structure and multiple sub files in a select order.
So NO you don't need extra programs, Kodi handles it all.

Features and supported formats (wiki) http://kodi.wiki/view/releases

Edited to reflect some lessons by Ironic Monkey.

kodi does not utilize 7zip code base. the zip support i wrote on top of zlib, and the rar support is based on 10-15 year old unrar sources. for the intended use case - stored (no compression) multi part rar volumes, that's fine, because those have not changed since rar 2. only compressed archives require newer versions.

I have actually been wondering about this.
Thank you for clarifying @ironic_monkey.

Did you have anything to do with how .iso files are handled?

(2017-06-01, 19:30)ironic_monkey Wrote: [ -> ]kodi does not utilize 7zip code base. the zip support i wrote on top of zlib, and the rar support is based on 10-15 year old unrar sources. for the intended use case - stored (no compression) multi part rar volumes, that's fine, because those have not changed since rar 2. only compressed archives require newer versions.

My apologies, I stand corrected, in some of the forums I got the impression 7zip open source was used.

no worries, just wanted to set the record straight, not like i was offended

atreyu depends on which iso files you mean. dvd i didn't do, but i did bd (the backport from the boxee sources that is), and i have done sacd sort of in an addon.

(2017-06-02, 14:07)ironic_monkey Wrote: [ -> ]i did bd (the backport from the boxee sources that is), and i have done sacd sort of in an addon.

Could maybe 7-Zip be done as a VFS addon to add LZMA and 7z decompression/decoder support to Kodi? Maybe with LZMA SDK? http://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html

it certainly could be done but i personally have no interest in doing it. media files in 7z is not very common, and for everything else you just'd use python..

(2017-06-02, 14:07)ironic_monkey Wrote: [ -> ]atreyu depends on which iso files you mean. dvd i didn't do, but i did bd (the backport from the boxee sources that is), and i have done sacd sort of in an addon.

I see. Just curious as i couldn't go without these capabilities anymore ;-)

Ok so Ive had Kodi since it came out.
And I know quite alot.
However tonight when doing a full backing up on one device and restoring on another I ran into an unzipping error.
So I went to my File Explorer on my box and attemped to unzip it and got the following error:
End Of Signature Directory signature not found (and then my path)
Ive done this a million times in the past so family and friends have the same set up as mine, with no issues.
Its been a few months (8 or 9)
Since I last did it.
Has something changed within the zip program?
Because that IS a zip error.
It actually means the following:
*The unzip command fails with the following error message:
End-of-central-directory signature not found.
Either this file is not a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive.
In the latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on the last disk(s) of this archive.*
So, now what do I do?
Ive used Backup, USD SDCARD WIZARD, and a few within other wizards.
To no avail.
Thoughts?

Hello @aj_1stone

What is in the zip file? Be specific
How did you zip it and what software did you use?
How are you trying to unzip it and what software did you use?

Thanks.