Kodi Community Forum

moby-uk Wrote:No.
You don't pass anything to the batch file, the batch files is your externalplayer, XBMC will pass the URL of the media you're playing to the batch file where it'll be %1 if you have no other args defined.

%1 is the variable I was looking for. Thanks! Already had the rest written just needed that.

Quote:What you asking is for XBMC to invoke program A (your mounting program) followed by program B (your player) probably followed by program C (your unmounting program). That's very much what batch files are for and something XBMC doesn't need to do.

I agree. A large part of my job involves writing batch files and it is more efficient and less time consuming than actually writing a program to accomplish the same task.

The main reason I mention incorporating mounting is for those that are not well versed in batch files. I would think one of the goals is to make XBMC as user friendly as possible and this would be the next logical step in the evolution of the plugin. That or a GUI. I would prefer a GUI. Then That.

Either way. I love this plugin.

plight Wrote:I agree. A large part of my job involves writing batch files and it is more efficient and less time consuming than actually writing a program to accomplish the same task.

The main reason I mention incorporating mounting is for those that are not well versed in batch files. I would think one of the goals is to make XBMC as user friendly as possible and this would be the next logical step in the evolution of the plugin. That or a GUI. I would prefer a GUI. Then That.

Either way. I love this plugin.

plight

Would you be so kind and let me know your batch file then? Ive researched a little on how to create batch files, but there are some things Im not sure of nor do I understand. If you need to know, Im using Virtual Clone Drive and TotalMedia Theatre 3 as my external player and all my files are ISO's.

Thanks so much in advance!

moby-uk

Implemented your info for entering the miliseconds and Im still getting the following Windows error:

XBMC Media Center has stopped working.
A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.

Of course then it has a "Close program" button which closes XBMC.

Any advise??

Bit of a strange question, but is there any way to select the player via XBMC's web interface ?
I have a stream that doesn't playback in XBMC so want to use the external player to get it going.. but the command to play this stream is sent to XBMC via it's web interface, ideally I'd like to keep the internal player for everything else - is that currently possible ?

jondr13 Wrote:moby-uk

Implemented your info for entering the miliseconds and Im still getting the following Windows error:

XBMC Media Center has stopped working.
A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.

Of course then it has a "Close program" button which closes XBMC.

Any advise??

XBMC is still being forced to shut down when the external player is started. Any ideas why and what the fix is??

Thxs

jondr13 Wrote:XBMC is still being forced to shut down when the external player is started. Any ideas why and what the fix is??

Repeating the question won't get you an answer any quicker, not everyone reads forums every day, you're just driving the signal-to-noise ratio down.

When, exactly, does XBMC crash? As soon as your externalplayer starts, shortly afterwards or when your externalplayer quits. Does your externalplayer even start at all?
What build of XBMC are you running?
What version of windows are you running, what graphics hardware do you have?
What, exactly, are you trying to play?

Try to provide this info in a single, succinct post, and then wait for a reply, if someone can help you they're more likely to do it under these circumstances than if you keep jumping up and down.

(You may have provided some/all of this information before but, frankly, there's been so many posts here recently that I can't be bother paging back far enough to find out.)

moby-uk Wrote:Repeating the question won't get you an answer any quicker, not everyone reads forums every day, you're just driving the signal-to-noise ratio down.

When, exactly, does XBMC crash? As soon as your externalplayer starts, shortly afterwards or when your externalplayer quits. Does your externalplayer even start at all?
What build of XBMC are you running?
What version of windows are you running, what graphics hardware do you have?
What, exactly, are you trying to play?

Try to provide this info in a single, succinct post, and then wait for a reply, if someone can help you they're more likely to do it under these circumstances than if you keep jumping up and down.

(You may have provided some/all of this information before but, frankly, there's been so many posts here recently that I can't be bother paging back far enough to find out.)

Understand everyone doesnt read this stuff every day and sorry to sound like Im "jumping up and down". Here is the info:

- XBMC crashes immediately when the external player opens
- yes, the external player does open
- was running the Babylon Beta 1 release...just installed the final version and havent tried the external player xml yet
- running Vista Home Premium 32bit with an ATI 4830 video card
- what am I trying to play?? cant play anything at this point because my files are ISO's and they are not being mounted to Virtua Clone Drive (hence my request for help with a batch file to mount the file....which I believe anyone could use...just change the path in the batch file to your mounting tool)

Hope this helps in solving it, thanks again and dont mean to step on toes

EDIT: moby-uk - if it helps here is a link to my debug file: http://pastebin.com/m3e62678c

jondr13 Wrote:- XBMC crashes immediately when the external player opens
- yes, the external player does open
- was running the Babylon Beta 1 release...just installed the final version and havent tried the external player xml yet
- running Vista Home Premium 32bit with an ATI 4830 video card
- what am I trying to play?? cant play anything at this point because my files are ISO's and they are not being mounted to Virtua Clone Drive (hence my request for help with a batch file to mount the file....which I believe anyone could use...just change the path in the batch file to your mounting tool)

I had a quick try of 9.04b1 last night but couldn't reproduce your issue (though a few variables were different). Try the following, one at a time (I'll assume your running 9.04 final now)

1) in your externalplayer config set forceontop to false, you shouldn't need this.
2) if your starting XBMC fullscreen then try starting it with the "(Windowed)" shortcut and just setting the resolution to match your screen's
3) try it with the default PM3.HD skin
4) try a different externalplayer
(I know 3 & 4 aren't solutions but may help track down the problem)

if none of that makes any difference then a workaround may be to change your externalplayer config to have hidexbmc set to true and startuptime set to 1

[ps, apologies for being grumpy yesterday]

moby-uk Wrote:I had a quick try of 9.04b1 last night but couldn't reproduce your issue (though a few variables were different). Try the following, one at a time (I'll assume your running 9.04 final now)

1) in your externalplayer config set forceontop to false, you shouldn't need this.
2) if your starting XBMC fullscreen then try starting it with the "(Windowed)" shortcut and just setting the resolution to match your screen's
3) try it with the default PM3.HD skin
4) try a different externalplayer
(I know 3 & 4 aren't solutions but may help track down the problem)

if none of that makes any difference then a workaround may be to change your externalplayer config to have hidexbmc set to true and startuptime set to 1

[ps, apologies for being grumpy yesterday]

No worries bro, I appreciate the help. Its just frustrating to me to spend all this time setting up XBMC (because truely, with the Aeon skin, cant compair to any other), and then come to this point where I cant get the my ISO's to mount and use TMT3.

I will try your work arounds when I get home to see if at least TMT3 starts without any problems. TMT3 has a 10ft Vista Media Center player and that is what Im starting up. I could try just the actual player exe instead of that to see if it makes any difference. It shouldnt though because I can start up the TMT3 VMC interface just fine by using OML (Open Media Library) in VMC.

Again, thanks for the help

moby-uk Wrote:I had a quick try of 9.04b1 last night but couldn't reproduce your issue (though a few variables were different). Try the following, one at a time (I'll assume your running 9.04 final now)

1) in your externalplayer config set forceontop to false, you shouldn't need this.
2) if your starting XBMC fullscreen then try starting it with the "(Windowed)" shortcut and just setting the resolution to match your screen's
3) try it with the default PM3.HD skin
4) try a different externalplayer
(I know 3 & 4 aren't solutions but may help track down the problem)

if none of that makes any difference then a workaround may be to change your externalplayer config to have hidexbmc set to true and startuptime set to 1

[ps, apologies for being grumpy yesterday]

moby-uk

Tried some of your solutions last night:
- Tried forceontop set to false and it XBMC still crashed.
- Tried XBMC "windowed" and it crashed on startup. I have only gotten that to work on an earlier version of XBMC
- Tried it with PM3.HD skin and it crashed when the external player started
- Instead of using TMT3's path to the 10ft VMC interface, I changed the path in the advancedsettings.xml to the actual player. This time, XBMC did NOT crash, TMT3 loaded up behind XBMC, and that is where the process stopped. I had to get out of XBMC to see if TMT3 had actually started and it did. Of course nothing played because no ISO was mounted Virtual Clone Drive to actually be played.

At least I got this far. I had selected the VMC interface of TMT3 because all you need to do is hit the Return or Backspace button to revert back to your media center. With the actual player I will have to figure out how to close it remotely instead of breaking out a mouse. I havent even started looking into eventghost yet to set up remote control features, but I will soon once I get XBMC set up properly. Wont do me any good if I still cant mount the ISO to VCD.

Again thanks for the help and if you have any info/suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

jondr13 Wrote:- Tried XBMC "windowed" and it crashed on startup. I have only gotten that to work on an earlier version of XBMC

that suggests to me there's something more seriously wrong somewhere outside the externalplayer bits

jondr13 Wrote:- Tried it with PM3.HD skin and it crashed when the external player started
- Instead of using TMT3's path to the 10ft VMC interface, I changed the path in the advancedsettings.xml to the actual player. This time, XBMC did NOT crash

is the VMC interface fullscreen and the other not by any chance? maybe there's some correlation with XBMC not starting windowed and crashing if something else wants to be fullscreen?
I'm assuming you're fully patched and have the latest drivers for your graphics card?

jondr13 Wrote:, TMT3 loaded up behind XBMC, and that is where the process stopped.

i'm guessing you have hidexbmc set to false and maybe you have startuptime set to 1 from my earlier suggestion? try putting the startuptime up (say 5000) or setting hidexbmc to true.

jondr13 Wrote:Of course nothing played because no ISO was mounted Virtual Clone Drive to actually be played.

At least I got this far. I had selected the VMC interface of TMT3 because all you need to do is hit the Return or Backspace button to revert back to your media center. With the actual player I will have to figure out how to close it remotely instead of breaking out a mouse. I havent even started looking into eventghost yet to set up remote control features, but I will soon once I get XBMC set up properly. Wont do me any good if I still cant mount the ISO to VCD.

Again thanks for the help and if you have any info/suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

The batch file is easy, create a file called something like "mountandplay.bat" set that as the externalplayer in advancedsettings.xml (and remove any args you have in there) and put in it something like (changing the paths and drive letter as appropriate)


for daemon tools or

for virtual clone drive. You'll probably also need to set hideconsole to true the externalplayer bit of advancedsettings.xml or you'll see a console window when the batch file runs.

moby-uk Wrote:that suggests to me there's something more seriously wrong somewhere outside the externalplayer bits

is the VMC interface fullscreen and the other not by any chance? maybe there's some correlation with XBMC not starting windowed and crashing if something else wants to be fullscreen?
I'm assuming you're fully patched and have the latest drivers for your graphics card?

i'm guessing you have hidexbmc set to false and maybe you have startuptime set to 1 from my earlier suggestion? try putting the startuptime up (say 5000) or setting hidexbmc to true.


The batch file is easy, create a file called something like "mountandplay.bat" set that as the externalplayer in advancedsettings.xml (and remove any args you have in there) and put in it something like (changing the paths and drive letter as appropriate)

Code:

"C:\<path to daemon tools>\daemon.exe" -mount 0,"%1"
"C:\<path to your player exe>" e:
"C:\<path to daemon tools>\daemon.exe" -unmount 0

for daemon tools or

Code:

"C:\<path to virtual clone drive>\vcdmount.exe" /d=0 "%1"
"C:\<path to your player exe>" e:
"C:\<path to virtual clone drive>\vcdmount.exe" /d=0 /u

for virtual clone drive. You'll probably also need to set hideconsole to true the externalplayer bit of advancedsettings.xml or you'll see a console window when the batch file runs.

Yeah, I dont know why the windowed thing isnt working.

Yep fully patched etc and yes the VMC TMT3 interface comes up fullscreen. Off the top of my head, I dont think it has something to do with 2 programs wanting to be fullscreen...or maybe it is a XBMC thing. I only say this because I can have VMC full screen and select an ISO and it start the TMT3 VMC interface fullscreen flawlessly.

I tried the start up time and but need to try that WITH the hidexbmc set to false and see if that has any effect....will get back with you on that one.

As far as the batch file to mount the ISO....THANKS! I will definately try this when I get home. Since I use virtual clone drive, will try that example you provided. Only question is, should it look like this? (My VCDMount.exe is under J:\ and the actual VCD drive is L:\ and the path to my external player is C:\):

mountandplay.bat

"J:\Program Files\VirtualCloneDrive\VCDMount.exe" /d=0 "%1"
"C:\Program Files\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Theatre 3\uMCEDVDPlayer.exe" l:\
"J:\Program Files\VirtualCloneDrive\VCDMount.exe" /d=0 /u

advancedsettings.xml

<advancedsettings>
<video>
<defaultdvdplayer>externalplayer</defaultdvdplayer>
</video>
<externalplayer>
<filename>C:\Users\Altex End User\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\userdata\mountandplay.bat</filename>
<forceontop>false</forceontop>
<hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
<hideconsole>true</hideconsole>
<hidecursor>false</hidecursor>
</externalplayer>
</advancedsettings>

EDIT: Tried running JUST the mountandplay.bat and seems it runs just fine by itself and start up the TMT3 VMC interface. But using it within XBMC, when I select a movie to play, its almost as if the movie isnt being "started" because XBMC just sits there and after about 20 seconds, I closed XBMC to see if the file even mounted to the L:\ drive which is VCD and of course it has not.

Again, thanks for your time, effort and patience helping me with this!!!

Make that
mountandplay.bat
i.e. remove the quotes around %1 and
advancedsettings.xml

The AltexE~1 is because windows is dumb and the command interpreter goes all wierd with quoted arguments; this may not work, in which case it would be easier to just put mountandplay.bat somewhere that there won't be a space in the path.

moby-uk Wrote:Make that
mountandplay.bat

Code:

"J:\Program Files\VirtualCloneDrive\VCDMount.exe" /d=0 %1
"C:\Program Files\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Theatre 3\uMCEDVDPlayer.exe" l:\
"J:\Program Files\VirtualCloneDrive\VCDMount.exe" /d=0 /u

i.e. remove the quotes around %1 and
advancedsettings.xml

Code:

<advancedsettings>
<video>
  <defaultdvdplayer>externalplayer</defaultdvdplayer>
</video>
<externalplayer>
  <filename>c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe</filename>
  <args>/C C:\Users\AltexE~1\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\userdata\mountandplay.bat</args>
  <forceontop>false</forceontop>
  <hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
  <hideconsole>true</hideconsole>
  <hidecursor>false</hidecursor>
</externalplayer>
</advancedsettings>

The AltexE~1 is because windows is dumb and the command interpreter goes all wierd with quoted arguments; this may not work, in which case it would be easier to just put mountandplay.bat somewhere that there won't be a space in the path.

Everything seems to be working fine up to the point of actually loading the ISO to VCD. Just implemented your changes and this is what Im getting:

TMT3 does open and the ISO is trying to load, but I get an error in TMT3 saying "Please insert a valid disc and try again".
But I can actually go to that ISO, double click it and it starts right up and starts playing. You think the "space in the path" thing you mentioned might be causing this? Like I said, it certainly seems like its working but its almost as if something is making the mount not happen properly. Any other suggestions?

THANKS AGAIN!

jondr13 Wrote:TMT3 does open and the ISO is trying to load, but I get an error in TMT3 saying "Please insert a valid disc and try again".
But I can actually go to that ISO, double click it and it starts right up and starts playing. You think the "space in the path" thing you mentioned might be causing this? Like I said, it certainly seems like its working but its almost as if something is making the mount not happen properly. Any other suggestions?

Not other than check your paths and the drive letter are correct (particularly the one to VCDMount if you're saying that TMT3 is starting but the ISO isn't mounted when it does); I installed VCD and TMT3, set it up as above and it worked fine for me.