[tryfos79]

I've been playing around with various settings in the addon. I want to save the selected fanart in my local server location, nothing in the client. A few questions:
1) I initially set up no. of fanart to be downloaded to 5. It indeed downloaded 5 fanart to my drive. After I changed the no. to 10 and hit -add missing artwork it never downloaded 5 more. I also tried reloading the movie from the info box, the same. I removed the movie from the library, shutdown Kodi, re added, re scanned  it-the same. Only when I removed the movie from the library, deleted all local artwork and rescanned did it add 10 fanart. Is this normal behavior?
2) I can see the movie set poster in the library, but it has not been downloaded to my drive next to the movie file. All relative options regarding downloading movie set fanart in the advanced settings have been checked. This is just a test movie from a set in its folder. I don't have any other movies from the set or a set folder. Where is this file and how can I also download it to the server location next to the movie file?
3) Is the "preload to cache" setting recommended in such a setup, or will it make the cache huge quickly?
4) How can we download more than just 1 fanart for the types that don't have a slider next to them (for example 2 banners or 2 clearlogos)?
Thanks in advance!

[Karellen]

Artwork Beef updated to 0.26.2

Fixes identifying existing local movie set artwork.

Movie Set seems to be working again. Thanks!!

But I have noticed another problem.

Poster artwork is being removed from movies when Artwork Beef runs after a scrape.
If I disable AB, then scrape the movie, the Poster is downloaded and cached. If I then manually run "Download existing remote images in the video library", it then removes so it is no longer available in Choose Art or visible from Kodi GUI. Fanart is downloaded to local movie folder, but poster is not. But the log states that 2 artwork were downloaded.

Movie is Beauty and the Beast (1991)
AB Log... https://paste.kodi.tv/eyalebigov
Kodi log. Line 1486 and there is no mention of Poster... https://paste.kodi.tv/bapaxolewa.kodi

Maybe I have a wrong setting, but not sure which one if that is the case. My settings... https://paste.kodi.tv/oboqejucik

[tryfos79]

This is one of the best program add-ons in the Kodi universe! I encounter the well-known problem that animated fanart/posters stored through AB in my network location are not...animated (a known Kodi limitation). My skin supports them, I've tested with locally stored files and it works. Could you please add a separate option in the AB's configuration to download specific artwork(particularly animated) in a user-defined local directory? I'm thinking of using a USB stick just for this reason.

[rmrector]

1) I initially set up no. of fanart to be downloaded to 5. It indeed downloaded 5 fanart to my drive. After I changed the no. to 10 and hit -add missing artwork it never downloaded 5 more. I also tried reloading the movie from the info box, the same. I removed the movie from the library, shutdown Kodi, re added, re scanned  it-the same. Only when I removed the movie from the library, deleted all local artwork and rescanned did it add 10 fanart. Is this normal behavior?

Yes, this is normal. Artwork Beef doesn't know which fanart you have so won't download more if any exist locally.
 

2) I can see the movie set poster in the library, but it has not been downloaded to my drive next to the movie file. All relative options regarding downloading movie set fanart in the advanced settings have been checked. This is just a test movie from a set in its folder. I don't have any other movies from the set or a set folder. Where is this file and how can I also download it to the server location next to the movie file?

See the Artwork Beef documentation on file locations for movie set artwork.

3) Is the "preload to cache" setting recommended in such a setup, or will it make the cache huge quickly?

I suggest it if you've got room on your client's primary storage. The image cache is pretty much always the biggest thing consuming local client space, though. I guess a quick and dirty line might be: 4GB no, 8GB possibly if your library isn't real large or you only configure a couple of artwork types, 16GB should cover a large library with many artwork types but not huge, 32GB would take a massive library with all of the artwork to fill.
 

4) How can we download more than just 1 fanart for the types that don't have a slider next to them (for example 2 banners or 2 clearlogos)?
Thanks in advance!

Artwork Beef can be configured to allow you to do this manually only.


@Karellen If you can reproduce this, can you reset the movie to scraped without AB, enable the setting Disable/Enable Artwork Beef debug context items (per skin) and select "AB: Log debug info" on the affected movie, then post the results from the debug log?

[Karellen]

@Karellen If you can reproduce this, can you reset the movie to scraped without AB, enable the setting Disable/Enable Artwork Beef debug context items (per skin) and select "AB: Log debug info" on the affected movie, then post the results from the debug log?

Could not replicate the poster being removed. I did notice in my previous log which I missed earlier and just noticed...
WARNING: [script.artwork.beef] Artwork caching requires Kodi setting 'Allow remote control via HTTP' enabled I have enabled it now. Would that cause a problem?

But in the four runs no extended artwork was fetched, and nothing was downloaded locally. I am sure it is just a wrong setting as nobody else has reported an issue, but I am a little bit stumped.
Here is the log using your method described above... https://paste.kodi.tv/dudakedune.kodi
Beauty and the Beast - Line 1294
Blade Runner 2049 - Line 1845

Artwork report... https://paste.kodi.tv/ujahedoned

[tryfos79]

1) I initially set up no. of fanart to be downloaded to 5. It indeed downloaded 5 fanart to my drive. After I changed the no. to 10 and hit -add missing artwork it never downloaded 5 more. I also tried reloading the movie from the info box, the same. I removed the movie from the library, shutdown Kodi, re added, re scanned  it-the same. Only when I removed the movie from the library, deleted all local artwork and rescanned did it add 10 fanart. Is this normal behavior?

Yes, this is normal. Artwork Beef doesn't know which fanart you have so won't download more if any exist locally.
 

2) I can see the movie set poster in the library, but it has not been downloaded to my drive next to the movie file. All relative options regarding downloading movie set fanart in the advanced settings have been checked. This is just a test movie from a set in its folder. I don't have any other movies from the set or a set folder. Where is this file and how can I also download it to the server location next to the movie file?

See the Artwork Beef documentation on file locations for movie set artwork.

3) Is the "preload to cache" setting recommended in such a setup, or will it make the cache huge quickly?

I suggest it if you've got room on your client's primary storage. The image cache is pretty much always the biggest thing consuming local client space, though. I guess a quick and dirty line might be: 4GB no, 8GB possibly if your library isn't real large or you only configure a couple of artwork types, 16GB should cover a large library with many artwork types but not huge, 32GB would take a massive library with all of the artwork to fill.
 

4) How can we download more than just 1 fanart for the types that don't have a slider next to them (for example 2 banners or 2 clearlogos)?
Thanks in advance!

Artwork Beef can be configured to allow you to do this manually only.


@Karellen If you can reproduce this, can you reset the movie to scraped without AB, enable the setting Disable/Enable Artwork Beef debug context items (per skin) and select "AB: Log debug info" on the affected movie, then post the results from the debug log?

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! Regarding no 2,I had read the documentation, but it only says where the artwork is being pulled from, not where it gets downloaded to, if the relevant download options for movie sets are configured in AB. Kodi has the option to 'show movie sets'even though only one movie is present at the library. Supposing I only have 1 movie of a set in my library (without a parent directory for the set), where does the set's artwork get downloaded to?it's visible in the library but not downloaded to the location. In other words,in order to have a set's collection's artwork downloaded,do we have to have at the source a parent directory (movie collection name) with all movies of the set in their own subfolders?

[Karellen]

where does the set's artwork get downloaded to?

You need to create a central Movie Set Artwork folder on your drive first and keep it away from your Sources. This will hold all your movie set artwork which contains a folder for each collection/set. Then set this folder in the Artwork Beef Settings for central movie set folder under the Advanced tab. The setting is process movie set artwork in a central info directory

See sect 1.2 here... https://kodi.wiki/view/Movie_sets_artwork

[tryfos79]

where does the set's artwork get downloaded to?

You need to create a central Movie Set Artwork folder on your drive first and keep it away from your Sources. This will hold all your movie set artwork which contains a folder for each collection/set. Then set this folder in the Artwork Beef Settings for central movie set folder under the Advanced tab. The setting is process movie set artwork in a central info directory

See sect 1.2 here... https://kodi.wiki/view/Movie_sets_artwork 

Ooooh, I get it now! It even creates automatically the collection folder! This is an amazing add-on! Tremendous options, fantastic code! Absolutely loving it!
I was afraid that I had to create parent folders for all my set movies etc. Now we have to create only a shared folder for movie sets and everything is added automatically! (Is there actually a naming convention for this folder or can I just name it "AB is the best add_on ever"?  
Now the ultimate/last thing: Get these animated fanart/posters to save in a separate directory locally, so that they can be played correctly. I can see that they are saved over the network to my folders but cannot be animated correctly (known Kodi limitation).
Terrific job!

[Karellen]

Is there actually a naming convention for this folder or can I just name it "AB is the best add_on ever"?

You can name it whatever you want.

[shedrock]

I am not sure if this post belongs in here so please let me apologize in advance if it's not.

My issue: Ever since I installed LibreELEC v9.1.501 I am constantly getting some strange interaction between AB and Library Watchdog, and by that I mean Watchdog keeps scanning as soon as AB adds new artwork to the library. It is always in a constant loop. When it is finally over AB just says "Artwork Beef: Adding Extended Artwork - 0%", and this never goes away unless I reboot. I have checked the logs, but I see no errors for AB or for Watchdog so I am confused as to what could be happening. However, if I disable either of the Add-ons (one at a time), then the problem goes away. It seems like I just can't run both at the same time anymore, so I am not sure if it is and AB problem, LE or Watchdog problem.

UPDATE: I downgraded to version 0.26.1 of AB while running on LibreELEC v9.1.501 and the problem as mentioned above has stopped if anyone cares.

Regards,

Shedrock

[skydancer]

This is one of the best program add-ons in the Kodi universe! I encounter the well-known problem that animated fanart/posters stored through AB in my network location are not...animated (a known Kodi limitation). My skin supports them, I've tested with locally stored files and it works. Could you please add a separate option in the AB's configuration to download specific artwork(particularly animated) in a user-defined local directory? I'm thinking of using a USB stick just for this reason.

The animated posters not working from network location are annoying problem to anyone who use it. 
It will be great if AB would download the animated posters / fanart to pre configured local folder instead of the actual movie folder.
something like skin helper service used to do...

[tryfos79]

This is one of the best program add-ons in the Kodi universe! I encounter the well-known problem that animated fanart/posters stored through AB in my network location are not...animated (a known Kodi limitation). My skin supports them, I've tested with locally stored files and it works. Could you please add a separate option in the AB's configuration to download specific artwork(particularly animated) in a user-defined local directory? I'm thinking of using a USB stick just for this reason.

The animated posters not working from network location are annoying problem to anyone who use it. 
It will be great if AB would download the animated posters / fanart to pre configured local folder instead of the actual movie folder.
something like skin helper service used to do...  

To be honest the whole Kodi 18 implementation of animated posters/fanart is buggy. As an experiment I copied an animated poster to my local system and set it as default poster through AB. It worked but after a restart of Kodi it didn't work and it threw a bunch of errors in the log, even though the file was indeed still in the local system.
I guess we'll have to wait until Kodi 19 for a stable implementation. I also suggested a similar setting for AB, but that would only be temporary until Kodi 19.

Another great feature would be a popup question when an item is removed from the library, if the user wants to also delete the downloaded art (if he also decides to delete the file in the network location after the relevant Kodi popup). As it is now, if the user decides to delete the video file through Kodi at the network location, the art remains. I guess whoever decides to delete the video file altogether would not want only the art files remaining behind. Anyway he would have the option.

[meowmoo]

hi there, I just found this wonderfull site https://theposterdb.com/ would it be possible to add it to AB and use it for Set/Movie Posters?

[docwra]

hi there, I just found this wonderfull site https://theposterdb.com/ would it be possible to add it to AB and use it for Set/Movie Posters?

Nice site design! love it.

couldn't see an API though.

[tryfos79]

I'm trying to add art (particularly thumbs) for tv series from TMDB. The reason is that episode thumbs from TMDB are far superior than TVDB. I have to use TVDB scraper, since it also scrapes IMDB settings for series (TMDB for series does not).
I tried limiting AB to downloading series art from fanart.tv, but its episode thumbs are also low quality (I'm trying for series Narcos: Mexico).

AB currently supports only Fanart.tv and TVDB for series. Is there a reason for this? Could also the TMDB be added for series?