[jim_p]

I use the forementioned addon since its 5.1.14 version (3+ years ago) and I got it from its github repo here.
https://github.com/opensubtitles/service...nsubtitles

It is developed by the same devs that make the one that exists on the kodi repo, which demands user credentials in order to work, so please take this into account before saying that this is an "bad" addon and lock my thread.

Since yesterday, I am getting an "error searching for subtitles" as a notification on kodi and nothing more, not a single word for it inside kodi's log. Does anyone else have the same issue?
I assume that the login credentials are now mandatory, so this version of the addon is completely useless. 
As a user, I refuse to make any credentials for the site so as to use them with the other addon. The reason is simple: the opensubtitles api is used by tons of players, e.g. vlc, mpc, smplayer and so on, yet it demands credentials on kodi ONLY, which is simply unacceptable.

[Statler1978]

I use the forementioned addon since its 5.1.14 version (3+ years ago) and I got it from its github repo here.
https://github.com/opensubtitles/service...nsubtitles

It is developed by the same devs that make the one that exists on the kodi repo, which demands user credentials in order to work, so please take this into account before saying that this is an "bad" addon and lock my thread.

Since yesterday, I am getting an "error searching for subtitles" as a notification on kodi and nothing more, not a single word for it inside kodi's log. Does anyone else have the same issue?
I assume that the login credentials are now mandatory, so this version of the addon is completely useless. 
As a user, I refuse to make any credentials for the site so as to use them with the other addon. The reason is simple: the opensubtitles api is used by tons of players, e.g. vlc, mpc, smplayer and so on, yet it demands credentials on kodi ONLY, which is simply unacceptable.

So what's your question? I am only hearing demands and refusals, but no questions.

[Klojum]

Since yesterday, I am getting an "error searching for subtitles" as a notification on kodi and nothing more, not a single word for it inside kodi's log. Does anyone else have the same issue?

The add-on works fine for me, I just used it a few minutes ago.
Doublecheck your login on the OpenSubtitles website, and on your Kodi setup.

and I got it from its github repo here.

Why do things the hard way? You can easily install it via Kodi's own repository, with version 5.0.16.
That github account was last updated some 8 months ago with different versioning.

[jim_p]

@Statler1978 
The question was "does anyone have the same issue?". I think it is the only sentence above that can clarify as a question, since all the rest are details on the subject.

@Klojum 
I do not have and I will not make any login credentials and the reason is explained above. If i did have, I would obviously install the one from the repo and be done with it.
Just to make sure someone can tell the difference between the 2
- opensubtitles = service.subtitles.opensubtitles = the addon made from the opensubtitles team that demands credentials and also is in the repo
- opensubtitles by opensubtitles = service.subtitles.opensubtitles_by_opensubtitles = the addon made from the opensubtitles team that can work and can work without authentication, not on the main repo
I am asking about the second one here, so please make sure you have it too. And, if you wish, I can expand more on my dislike for the above.

[Klojum]

I do not have and I will not make any login credentials and the reason is explained above. If i did have, I would obviously install the one from the repo and be done with it.

That's all fine, but you are on the Kodi forum asking about an add-on that is not created nor maintained by us, so don't you think that contacting the people at OpenSubtitles directly via their forum is a better option? Of course, that requires some registration as well...

Moreover, OpenSubtitles haven't updated their own version for some 3 years now. That is not really reassuring.

[jim_p]

I did open an issue report on the addons github page a couple of hours before opening this thread here. I think this was the best place to ask firstm but all I got was one lazy reply from some guy who seems to disagree with my opinion on useless credentials. 

One more reason for asking here for help was that if it was an api issue, the regular addon would not work too. However, I had it checked with some friends of mine that use the addon from the repo and have their own credentials, and no one had any issues. 

Again, I do not think that the "unofficial" addon breaks any rule of the forum or it should be avoided. It just gives kodi users what the users of other media players already have or take for granted, and that is anonymous access to the api.

[olympus]

I did open an issue report on the addons github page a couple of hours before opening this thread here. I think this was the best place to ask firstm but all I got was one lazy reply from some guy who seems to disagree with my opinion on useless credentials. 

One more reason for asking here for help was that if it was an api issue, the regular addon would not work too. However, I had it checked with some friends of mine that use the addon from the repo and have their own credentials, and no one had any issues. 

Again, I do not think that the "unofficial" addon breaks any rule of the forum or it should be avoided. It just gives kodi users what the users of other media players already have or take for granted, and that is anonymous access to the api.

Their service, their rules.
If they want credentials as a measure to limit the userbase, you know the bandwidth even for subtitles could be very big and they may can't handle it with the resources they have.
You may not care about it, but they care if their service is sustainable.
If there are players like VLC etc that disrespect the service and bite the hand that feeds them, that doesn't mean Kodi should follow this route.

[jim_p]

Lost revenue? Really? The site is so full of ads that when I have to use a browser, I don't even dare to visit it without adblock being active. And its ads are so intrusive that I can surely say I have seen porn sites with less intrusive ads. If you don't believe be, disable your adblock and go check yourself.
Not to mendion their "subtitles downloader" they promoted a couple of years ago to windows users who visited the site. There was a tiny checkmark box you had to untick in order to NOT download their app but the subtitle itself. Pathetic practices.
Other than that, there is also opensubtitles.com, which offers the exact same content and it is the so called "beta" version of a promised new site. Same ads etc. Aren't all those enough to convince you that their service is actually sustainable?

As for the other apps, they do not "bite the hand that feeds them", they just "eat the food that hand offers them". And they are not 1-2 apps, there are dozens and they are not only media players. e.g. subliminal. If they add paid access to their api, like e.g. most weather sites do, which app developer would pay for it? I am sure the kodi devs wouldn't.
Also, because I checked the issues posted on github, they do not seem willing to port the addon to python3, thus making it incompatible with kodi 19+.

[olympus]

Lost revenue? Really? The site is so full of ads that when I have to use a browser, I don't even dare to visit it without adblock being active. And its ads are so intrusive that I can surely say I have seen porn sites with less intrusive ads. If you don't believe be, disable your adblock and go check yourself.
Not to mendion their "subtitles downloader" they promoted a couple of years ago to windows users who visited the site. There was a tiny checkmark box you had to untick in order to NOT download their app but the subtitle itself. Pathetic practices.
Other than that, there is also opensubtitles.com, which offers the exact same content and it is the so called "beta" version of a promised new site. Same ads etc. Aren't all those enough to convince you that their service is actually sustainable?

As for the other apps, they do not "bite the hand that feeds them", they just "eat the food that hand offers them". And they are not 1-2 apps, there are dozens and they are not only media players. e.g. subliminal. If they add paid access to their api, like e.g. most weather sites do, which app developer would pay for it? I am sure the kodi devs wouldn't.
Also, because I checked the issues posted on github, they do not seem willing to port the addon to python3, thus making it incompatible with kodi 19+.

So you accept that they make money from ads to pay the biils for the bandwidth.
They don't find free money to the trees.
What do you pay to download subtitles from their API and use their bandwidth? Nothing.
If they have increased traffic these days then it makes sense to block the usage of API which gives nothing to them in return.
They are kind enough to keep API with credentials and don't block it too.
The site you mentioned doesn't have the traffic of the original, the comparison makes no sense.
The apps you mentioned scrape the website, that's why they keep working.
Yes, they bite the hand that feeds them.
When a service provides an API for 3rd party usage and you decide to scrape huge html pages instead of making an API call you increase traffic for no reason.
If they weren't a**holes with their html scraping and used the API, opensubtitles would have less traffic and maybe wouldn't have to block anything.

[Klojum]

Well, it's simple. Find yourself a different subtitle provider, or put on a bigger alu hat and create a login for the current OpenSubtitles add-on in the Kodi repository.

Either way, we're not going to continue yapping about what is wrong on that other OpenSubtitle version, or what doesn't suit your needs on the current one. The choice is yours.

[jim_p]

@olympus 
For the "apps that scrape the website and don't use the api". Here are the some source files of vlsub (vlc's addon for opensubtitles), subliminal and subdownloaded. If you take a closer look, you will notice that they all use the api. Notice the "api.opensubtitles.org" part on all of them. So, your claim about them is completely invalid. I have more stuff to do than search the source code of apps, so I just posted those 3 only

https://github.com/Diaoul/subliminal/blo...movie.yaml
https://github.com/subdownloader/subdown...btitles.py
https://github.com/exebetche/vlsub/blob/.../vlsub.lua

Do you see any of the devs putting any kind of credentials there? Because I don't.

Moreover, after reading the api's documentation here, I found out that there is an error code for when the download limit is reached, the 407. The problem is I do not get a 407 error, neither a 403 one, which is for the wrong credentials. As I said, I got no error other than the word "error" on the notification.
I agree with you on the rest. However, for me, opensubtitles still is a service with a great api but with a horrible page, and that is because of the ads.

@Klojum 
I do have a secondary service for subtitles via an addon, but it has 2 flaws compared to opensubtitles. It does not have an api, so all the search requests etc are done by scraping, which is really slow and it lacks the variety of opensubtitles. 
Also, thank you for your comment on the tinfoil hat. I have received similar comments in the past and if it was not for some issue reports I do here on the forums, because that is the only place I can talk to the some of the real devs of addons, I would have closed my account a long time ago. Similar comments also prevent me from filing issues on kodi's github page, although I am willing to help solve them.

Finally, the addon works as it should since last night, so I think the thread can be locked now. If anyone has to comment anything, you are welcome.

[black_eagle]

Finally, the addon works as it should since last night

So, what you are really telling us there, is that opensubtitles had some sort of issue with their API which has now been resolved and your rant was apparently totally unjustified.  Glad it's working for you again, but you might want to refrain from jumping to conclusions too soon if/when you have another issue.

[jim_p]

Maybe it was "some sort of issue which was resolved" this time, making my rant unjustified. What you may not know is that it has shown a similar behavior at least once in the past (2+ years ago) with a 503 error and at that time the "regular" addon was working as it should. This led to patches and forks from volunteers, but the issue was not on the addon itself but on the opensubtitles api, as the dev (or whoever has the username "opensubtitles" on github) admitted.

This time however, there was no error and there has been no statement of any sort for the issue, at least until today. What would you think as a user, if you say that I am just ranting with no reason? After all, what fueled the comments and my rant here was not the issue itself but my statement on denying to make credentials.
The only good thing that all those comments brought is the proof that other apps and scripts do use the api without credentials, thus making any statement like "you need a username and a password because of X reasons" completely invalid.

[Klojum]

*Sigh...*

Time to move on, people.

[olympus]

Maybe it was "some sort of issue which was resolved" this time, making my rant unjustified. What you may not know is that it has shown a similar behavior at least once in the past (2+ years ago) with a 503 error and at that time the "regular" addon was working as it should. This led to patches and forks from volunteers, but the issue was not on the addon itself but on the opensubtitles api, as the dev (or whoever has the username "opensubtitles" on github) admitted.

This time however, there was no error and there has been no statement of any sort for the issue, at least until today. What would you think as a user, if you say that I am just ranting with no reason? After all, what fueled the comments and my rant here was not the issue itself but my statement on denying to make credentials.
The only good thing that all those comments brought is the proof that other apps and scripts do use the api without credentials, thus making any statement like "you need a username and a password because of X reasons" completely invalid.

If an app kept working like you were saying when they had to close the door to anomymous API usage then it didn't use the API.
It's that simple.
When/if they have traffic issues again (maybe they have so much traffic now because of the corona-virus), the logical thing for them to do is to close the door to anomymous API usage and they have every right to "protect" their service.
I agree it's time to move on, but keep in mind that it can happen again, they don't owe us anything