[Severian]

Hello,
This is an issue I've been experiencing for almost a year. After searching everywhere in these forums, I've finally decided to ask for help.
1. Kodi 19.4.0
2. Windows 10 Professional Version 21H2
3. AMD Ryzen 5 5600x
4. 16 GB RAM
5. When I stop moving around in the navigation menu, so when I'm highlighting an item like a movie or a show, and stop doing anything, the framerate systematically drops, which makes the navigation very sluggish and unpleasant. Also in that situation, if I try to play said highlighted item, it doesn't respond.
It's only after some moving around or alt tabbing that the framerate gets back to normal. For some reason, the framerate actually stays stable when debug logging is enabled and the Log/Mem/CPU texts are on top of Kodi.
This happens across all skins. I tried removing every addon then re-adding them one by one, but wasn't able to find the cause.
7. kodi.log : https://paste.kodi.tv/ikudapemoc.kodi

Thanks in advance.

[wyrm]

Hello,
This is an issue I've been experiencing for almost a year. After searching everywhere in these forums, I've finally decided to ask for help.
1. Kodi 19.4.0
2. Windows 10 Professional Version 21H2
3. AMD Ryzen 5 5600x
4. 16 GB RAM
5. When I stop moving around in the navigation menu, so when I'm highlighting an item like a movie or a show, and stop doing anything, the framerate systematically drops, which makes the navigation very sluggish and unpleasant. Also in that situation, if I try to play said highlighted item, it doesn't respond.
It's only after some moving around or alt tabbing that the framerate gets back to normal. For some reason, the framerate actually stays stable when debug logging is enabled and the Log/Mem/CPU texts are on top of Kodi.
This happens across all skins. I tried removing every addon then re-adding them one by one, but wasn't able to find the cause.
7. kodi.log : https://paste.kodi.tv/ikudapemoc.kodi

Thanks in advance.

@Severian ,

can’t see anything obviously causing problems in the log, but your issues are probably caused by a number of factors. 

From your description of what you are seeing one thing may be the “dirty regions” code used by Kodi to reduce system load. The frame rate dropping is not actually a bad thing as if there is no changes to the screen Kodi does not bother to update anything. When you turn on debug logging and have the various stats on the top of the screen updating, the frame rate goes up because the screen is constantly updating. Your system is actually under greater load when the frame rate goes up.

Next, there is a script (script.skin.info.service) that is throwing various errors into the log that might be causing issues. Basically it’s running in the background and has various syntax errors that are being reported. By its name it is probably a script used by one or more of the skins you have installed.

Also on the topic of background skin installed scripts, there are a fair number of those scripts running that probably don’t need to be. Examples of which include script.skinhelper.??? , script.embuary.??? and service.library.data.provider which mostly overlap in the services they provide to skins. Most skins usually stick to one of the three so the other two are running in the background for no real purpose.

And finally your problem could also potentially be caused by something else running on the system that is causing issues for Kodi.

I would suggest as your first course of action would be to uninstall any skins that you will not be using, which hopefully will ask you if you want to remove any of the unused services (say yes). The other thing you could do would be to check task manager in windows for any resource hogs running in competition with Kodi and shut them down to see if that is the issue.

Other than that, not sure, maybe someone else can give some hints.

Wyrm (AppTV)

[PatK]

Seems there is a lot of extras running some of which I'm unfamiliar with (I don't pretend to know them all) any of which might be a backgorund issue. Chief are plugin.video.plexkodiconnect v3.6.14 installed and multiple skins.  Instead of pouring over each & every call, allow me to use a bit of a shot gun approach which is easy for me, but a bit more difficult for you.

Suggestion: Instead of disturbing your present set-up, let's install a Portable mode (wiki) installation following the wiki instructions without launching, creating a shortcut with the properties calling the path & "Kodi.exe -p" without the quotes. Ensure the portable base function (launches & works nicely with your hardware then exit), copy from your old userdata folder in roaming/Kodi to  C:\Kodi-Matrix\Kodi\portable_data\userdata most of the .xml files. Add this to your advancedsettings.xml at the top <loglevel>1</loglevel> to eliminate the screen echo of the debug log and will give you/us tons more information each run. At this point you can choose to rebuild with your chosen add-ons (likely have to re-install) watching & testing carefully for each add-on that potentially could create this issue or just start fresh with a new local scrape.

I note that the present set-up is calling a lot of artwork in the background, some of which is not locally cached, there is going to be some delay in loading. Multiple skins, calling some of the extras and the gymnastics your set-up en-tales surely is the cause of your headaches. Cleaning out the dust bunnies from old used and non compliant code will spring this set-up into what the hardware is capable. Save the Plex connect add-on until the last.

[Severian]

First thank you for taking the time to look into it. My setup is indeed kind of a mess, I like installing things to try them out but I'm not so fond of uninstalling.

I would suggest as your first course of action would be to uninstall any skins that you will not be using, which hopefully will ask you if you want to remove any of the unusedservices (say yes).

I uninstalled all my skins, except the one I'm currently using. But I didn't get prompts to remove any services.

Chief are plugin.video.plexkodiconnect v3.6.14 installed and multiple skins.

Reason why I use PlexKodiConnect is I absolutely love Kodi's capabilities in terms of interface and artwork, but I trust Plex's scrapers (a lot) more. But I understand that it's a complex element added to an already complex program(Kodi) and that it has the potential to cause issues.

I note that the present set-up is calling a lot of artwork in the background, some of which is not locally cached, there is going to be some delay in loading. 

I do use a lot of artwork. Some of it comes from Plex, some of it was generated by PKC's Fanart scraping function, some of it I have stored locally and manually added to some items. So yes, not a particularly simple setup.

I'm now going to slowly rebuild, checking every add-on.

[PatK]

I uninstalled all my skins, except the one

Sadly some skins don't UN-install cleanly. I keep a specific portable version for experimentation not to muddy my fixed set-up. I steer clear of rotating fanart & posters, load up just enough artwork that I'm never bored, it's bad enough to try an watch something without having the graphics sidetracking.  Clean out the cruft as much as you can, enjoy a portable instillation that flies and then consider the extras. Kodi's scrapers have been pretty efficient in their latest incarnation.

[Severian]

So for a short update, after some extensive testing, it seems like PKC was slowing things down in my setup. Without it, and with my media scraped only by Kodi itself, it still happens from time to time but much less frequently. It would happen systematically to the point where I expected it to happen, and it would be  annoying to get rid of, now it's on occasion and it goes away quickly.
I'm considering avoiding the extrafanart rotation to further limit potential issues. Might be overkill though.

but I trust Plex's scrapers (a lot) more

About that, well, turns out I'm an idiot. 
When adding a new video source, and selecting TV Shows, "TMDB TV Show" is the pre-selected entry for me, so I always assumed it was the best and recommanded one. So I would get missing episodes, missing seasons, mistitled episodes, etc. It's only when I visited the TV show section of TMDB that I realized why. Now I use TVDB v4 and it's been almost perfect.