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[RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - Printable Version

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+---- Thread: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi (/showthread.php?tid=157499)



RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - teeedubb - 2016-04-19

There is no window manager running. If you've followed the how to linked on the first page, it should be auto starting openbox. Repeat the steps in the guide to start the window manager.


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - Rooster7734 - 2016-04-19

(2016-04-19, 05:12)teeedubb Wrote: There is no window manager running. If you've followed the how to linked on the first page, it should be auto starting openbox. Repeat the steps in the guide to start the window manager.

ok did the part that involved setting up OpenBox again and now it launches! yay, your the man! Unfortunately It only takes up the bottom left corner of my screen and is cut off the screen. Any help with getting the picture to display right?


*Actually looks like I was wrong about it being cut off. The only issue I have is it only takes up the bottom left hand corner of my screen. My set up is my laptop with its screen set in kodi to be blank and my TV which is the monitor. I suspect dual screen setup might have something to do with it but im a total noob to this stuff. Thx again.


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - teeedubb - 2016-04-19

I'm guessing you need to play around with xrandr to set the correct resolution.


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - Rooster7734 - 2016-04-19

ok well was trying to figure out how to set resolution with xrandr and found out i can no longer exit kodi to get to lubuntu. Guessing I messed something up somewhere, should I wipe it and try again from a fresh install? When I click exit it goes back to the main kodi screen then when i click it again it goes to a black screen.


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - teeedubb - 2016-04-19

Depends... How good are you a fixing things? Tongue
If you haven't wiped your system post the output of xrandr


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - Rooster7734 - 2016-04-19

Ended up wiping it as I figured it might be the easiest solution. Now I can launch steam bpm at the correct resolution but I'm still running into two issues. The first one seems to happen every time. If I load a game and then exit the game it does not return to big picture mode but instead goes to the black openbox screen and i gotta right click and click on steam to get back into bpm. The second issue I'm having is with sound. The sound generally does not work in bpm. If I load a game the sound works about half the time (same game). Also I noticed if I exit a game and I'm at the black OpenBox screen and right click steam bpm, it loads steam with sound. Sorry im such a noob at this but I feel like im getting close with all this so thx for all the help.


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - teeedubb - 2016-04-21

Is steam and/or big picture still running when you exit the game? What about if you run steam and the game outside of kodi add-on? Also might be worthwhile checking out the steam log file to look for some hints on what the issue is.


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - Rooster7734 - 2016-04-21

How can I tell if it's still running? After I exit a game I'm at the black openbox screen and I right click steam bpm and it loads right back to the game page I was just on. So based on that I would say its still running. If I exit kodi and launch steam for the first time from the black openbox screen it will launch no problem and play the sound on launch. The games also have sound and everything seems to work fine except I still have the issue with exiting a game and going to the black openbox screen rather than returning to steam bpm. So kodi seems to be the cause somehow for my sound issues but does not seem to be the problem with not returning to the steam bpm. I also found the log folder for my steam but I'm not sure which log I should be looking at, any suggestions?


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - teeedubb - 2016-04-22

Id guess that pulseaudio isnt being used. check your system sound settings and double check the setup from the guide.


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - dustinarden - 2016-05-07

@teeedubb - Just came across this yesterday and setting it up went pretty smoothly. had a few snags but got them sorted. Only one problem still. Audio.

I've read almost this entire thread and while i've seen similar issues i havent seen my specific issue (i dont think)..

Kodibuntu 16.1 - I implemented all your steps via ssh as appropriate.

Kodi has sound. Works fine. When steam starts .. no sound. I get "cannot connect to audio service" in the audio menu as others have reported.

If i run the command pulseaudio from an ssh session while in steam and go back into the audio menu - i know see it has audio. I can go through the configuration menu and select my HDMI out sound source and sometimes it will work. Other times it wont. Both BPM and games have sound when it does work. If i exit steam it sends me back to Kodi as it should. Sometimes i have sound in kodi after exiting steam and some times i dont. WHen i dont i see pulse audio is showing up in kodi as my sound source .. which ..it shouldnt

i assume the pre and post scripts are not working? how can i confirm? which log shows errors such as that? do i need to chown them to root, or keep them as my own user name? I've played with the options in the script to varying levels of success, but the settings never seem to "stick" in both kodi and steam so that switching back and forth between the two results in sound as i want.

what can i show you to help diagnose?

thanks!!


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - teeedubb - 2016-05-08

Have you made the pre/post scripts executable (chmod +x scriptfile)? Also what happens if you run the script via ssh? Post the contents of the scripts.


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - dustinarden - 2016-05-08

yes they are both executable ..

if kodi is loaded and i run pre-steam.sh kodi closes and it goes to the openbox GUI

if i run post-steam.sh i get the following error.

E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to kill daemon: No such process

I changed the owner to root just in case
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root dustin 1150 May 7 09:06 post-steam.sh
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root dustin 402 May 7 09:27 pre-steam.sh


cat *.sh
#!/bin/bash
#change the ALWAYS_KILL_PULSEAUDIO_BEFORE_STARTING_KODI= to yes if you want to stop pulseaudio before starting Kodi
#killing pulseaudio before starting Kodi will ensure that Kodi always uses alsa, but steam may not like having pulseaudio stopped while steam is still running (via 'exit to desktop')

ALWAYS_KILL_PULSEAUDIO_BEFORE_STARTING_KODI=yes

if $ALWAYS_KILL_PULSEAUDIO_BEFORE_STARTING_KODI = yes (wiki) ; then
pulseaudio -k
fi

#change the KILL_PULSEAUDIO_ONLY_WHEN_COMPLETELY_EXITING_STEAM= to no if you dont want to stop pulseaudio only when completely exiting steam
#if yes Kodi will use pulseaudio when steam is running (via 'exit to desktop')
#change the SECONDS_TO_WAIT= to alter the time to wait after closing BPM to check if steam is still running, 2 seconds is good for my system although this could vary from system to system. This will cause Kodi to take 2 seconds longer to restart.

KILL_PULSEAUDIO_ONLY_WHEN_COMPLETELY_EXITING_STEAM=yes
SECONDS_TO_WAIT=2

if $KILL_PULSEAUDIO_ONLY_WHEN_COMPLETELY_EXITING_STEAM = yes (wiki) ; then
sleep $SECONDS_TO_WAIT
if ! $(pidof steam) (wiki) ; then
pulseaudio -k
fi
fi
#!/bin/bash
#change the KILL_KODI_BEFORE_STARTING_PULSEAUDIO= to yes if you want to stop Kodi before starting pulseaudio
#killing Kodi before starting pulseaudio will ensure the steam bpm gui has sound but will reduce the seamlessness of the addon

KILL_KODI_BEFORE_STARTING_PULSEAUDIO=yes

if $KILL_KODI_BEFORE_STARTING_PULSEAUDIO = yes (wiki) ; then
kill -9 $(pidof kodi.bin)
fi

pulseaudio --start


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - teeedubb - 2016-05-09

Did you run the scripts in that order as above? If so, pulse isn't being started. Does the pre steam script give you any errors? How about running pulse from the command line?


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - dustinarden - 2016-05-09

No I ran them pre, then post. That was just how cat *sh chose to display them.

The pre steam script doesnt give me any errors i dont think. I'll run them again when i get home. Running pulse from the command line (after launching steam from the steam launcher add-on) will sometimes mention that pulse is already running.

I'll provide specifics when i get home in a few hours.

Basically you want:

restart box so everything is right.
use kodi to launch steam with the add-on.
then what?

run presteam manually? paste output or anything i notice?


RE: [RELEASE] Steam Launcher - Start Steam Big Picture Mode from within Kodi - dustinarden - 2016-05-09

ok. lauched steam from launcher app.

no sound.

ran ./pre-steam.sh which gave me a usage error .. i assume since the PID didnt exist anymore at that point?

:~$ ./pre-steam.sh
kill: usage: kill [-s sigspec | -n signum | -sigspec] pid | jobspec ... or kill -l [sigspec]

when i run pulseaudio (after steam is loaded)
I get this.

:~$ pulseaudio
E: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed.

BUT - if go back to the audio section then now steam is seeing the audio interface as it gives me options.
its defaulted to "built-in audio" for internal sound card and port
its defaulted to "analog Stereo duplex" for sound presentation
its defaulted to "analog output" for sound output port.

No sound now. sometimes it lets me reconfigure the audio to use HDMI out and when it does it works, but when i leave steam and go back its back to the other analog defaults.