[themusj]

I just wrote a lengthy explanation and when I clicked on the "Got it" cookies button I lost it all. :-(

Well thank you all for your help. Yes, getting Kodi and Backup to see the shares was very challenging. I found SMB for Kodi I have to type exactly the path; no browsing to it. Backup would not see SMB, but nfs it did when typed specifically the path. Even then I had to make sure I picked the right level in the folder structure. My media is on several WD MyClouds.

I had to use Rufus to get my USB key to be seen by Kodi and Backup. My TV always wanting to format it and when it did the apps didn't see it. I just ignored what my TV requested and then Kodi and Backup saw it {but just a "number" and not its assigned name.}

I really do not know or fully understand what was different about my install of Backup that Kodi barked at the dependencies. Seems like I installed it as I have all other add-ons. I was relieved I could do them manually after what I shared earlier in this thread about many add-on's complaining about installing dependencies. I spent quite a bit of time online trying to figure out what the problem was only to finally give in and remove Kodi and start fresh. And then the problem continued until I followed the exact steps above.

As I shared I left out backing up the thumbnails which made the process much quicker. By not backing up the thumbnails, I am not sure what I was / am missing. I have exported everything to my NAS units except the actors. Is that the thumbnails that gets backup up and restored? I did find in order for my Vatse app to again show thumbnails, I had to scroll through every movie in Kodi, and let it refresh the background. Once I went through all 300 plus movies, Vatse was rebooted and it displayed all of the thumbnails again. Not sure what is going on behind the scenes there. 

In this journey I saw Kodi 19 is on the horizon and a new version of Backup. I almost downloaded the beta version thinking that might solve the problem. Then found it was for the upcoming version of Kodi.

Thank you all for you help and always great assistance. I have had Kodi three years now up and running. No issues at all until this week. Glad I was on vacation! Have a great and blessed New Year.

[themusj]

I just wrote a lengthy explanation and when I clicked on the "Got it" cookies button I lost it all. :-(

Well thank you all for your help. Yes, getting Kodi and Backup to see the shares was very challenging. I found SMB for Kodi I have to type exactly the path; no browsing to it. Backup would not see SMB, but nfs did when typed specifically the path. Even then I had to make sure I picked the right level in the folder structure. My media is on several WD MyClouds.

I had to use Rufus to get my USB key to be seen by Kodi and Backup. My TV always wanting to format it and when it did the apps didn't see it. I just ignored what my TV requested and then Kodi and Backup saw it {but just a "number" and not its assigned name.}

I really do not know or fully understand what was different about my install of Backup that Kodi barked at the dependencies. Seems like I installed it as I have all other add-ons. I was relieved I could do them manually after what I shared earlier in this thread about many add-on's complaining about installing dependencies. I spent quite a bit of time online trying to figure out what the problem was only to finally give in and remove Kodi and start fresh. And then the problem continued until I followed the exact steps above.

As I shared I left out backing up the thumbnails which made the process much quicker. By not backing up the thumbnails, I am not sure what I was / am missing. I have exported everything to my NAS units except the actors. Is that the thumbnails that gets backup up and restored? I did find in order for my Vatse app to again show thumbnails, I had to scroll through every movie in Kodi, and let it refresh the background. Once I went through all 300 plus movies, Vatse was rebooted and it displayed all of the thumbnails again. Not sure what is going on behind the scenes there. 

In this journey I saw Kodi 19 is on the horizon and a new version of Backup. I almost downloaded the beta version thinking that might solve the problem. Then found it was for the upcoming version of Kodi.

Thank you all for you help and always great assistance. I have had Kodi three years now up and running. No issues at all until this week. Glad I was on vacation! Have a great and blessed New Year.

[JoBar]

Hello
I'm a Onedrive user. Is a backup evolution for Onedrive?

[Tarkus_]

SMB is a bit tricky in Kodi.  You want to first set up a link to your computer (no paths), and then you should be able to browse from Backup and other programs.

Go to File Manager, click on Add Source, then Browse, then Add Network Location.  All I put here is Server Name, Username and Password.  Then click OK.  If you've done that correctly, and there are no authentication errors, you'll have a new path that shows smb://[Server Name]/.  You can then click on that to add specific paths or a generic path to your computer (only shared drives will be shown) for File Manager.  It doesn't really matter what (if anything) you add to File Manager, though, because that smb link you created is what you'll need for browsing.  If you try to click on "Windows network (SMB)", well, good luck with that, because it almost never works for me.  I instead click on the direct smb link I've created, which works every time.

I've been using Backup to SMB for years and it works great for me.

[themusj]

Wow that worked! I've had trouble getting smb paths to work in Kodi a long time, usually get it after much effort, and this trick worked quick!

1. Curious if smb is better than using nfs?

2. And by unselecting thumbnails/fanart I save a lot of space time doing a backup. If my fanart and posters are already downloaded on my NAS, and Kodi is just pointing to them, am I really losing anything by not selecting this option?

3. I asked earlier about backing up my skin tweaks and such. If the backup add-on backs up the entire Kodi add-ons, doesn't that mean the skin settings are indeed backed up? I would just need to run the skin add-on again and it would restore those tweaks?

[robweber]

Hello
I'm a Onedrive user. Is a backup evolution for Onedrive?

Currently there isn't a OneDrive support for this addon, I believe it's been asked for before. I know AWS has been a common ask. In order to get any of these solutions working some kind of wrapper needs to be made for the underlying service. Some services have a Python SDK that can be used (like Dropbox), but others don't. Once that exists it needs to be adapted to the Kodi addon system. It does appear there is a OneDrive Python SDK so this could be added at some point. I'll be honest that adding a new file system takes lots of my time to implement with all the dependencies and things. I recently had to rip out Google Drive support as it wasn't python 2/3 compatible. I'm going to work on a pure Python 3 version for the Matrix repo.

Wow that worked! I've had trouble getting smb paths to work in Kodi a long time, usually get it after much effort, and this trick worked quick!

1. Curious if smb is better than using nfs?

2. And by unselecting thumbnails/fanart I save a lot of space time doing a backup. If my fanart and posters are already downloaded on my NAS, and Kodi is just pointing to them, am I really losing anything by not selecting this option?

3. I asked earlier about backing up my skin tweaks and such. If the backup add-on backs up the entire Kodi add-ons, doesn't that mean the skin settings are indeed backed up? I would just need to run the skin add-on again and it would restore those tweaks?

1. Not sure if better or worse is the right way to look at SMB vs NFS. They're just two different types of file protocols. NFS tends to be more lightweight in terms of network traffic but they each have their uses. Do some web searching to see the important differences.

2. The way Kodi handles artwork is kind of interesting. For a given movie or TV show it pulls in the artwork file and uses the Textures.db file to store information on where the file came from, while the file itself is cached with a hashed name. Doing a full DB export as you did does exactly what you've mentioned. It pushes these cached files to where the video files reside (usually a NAS). This way if you lose your install you can do an import of the exported video files from within Kodi and it will pull the artwork from the NAS. By backuping up the Thumbnails with the Backup addon you're kind of doing the same thing. After restoring your databases and image files the system won't need to have them re-imported or downloaded. They'll already exist as local files. Both methods serve the same purpose. If you do regular Video Exports from Kodi you're image files will be preserved.

3. By skin tweaks do you mean the skin settings? If you are selecting the "addon data" option then yes, you should get the skin settings as well. These are stored in a folder for each skin within the addon_data folder. Now be careful by skin settings you don't just mean visual settings that are actually Kodi settings, those are stored in the guisettings.xml file. A good example of this are things in the Interface area of the settings. These are global to Kodi, not skin specific. After re-enabling your skin you should get the settings back provided you backed up the addons and the addon_data. If you mean changes to the actual skin, then just backing up the addons will work since that is where the skin files live.

[themusj]

Wow, thank you for a well-thought out and articulate answer to my questions. 

You are correct; what I have tweaked the most in my skin, the estuary mod, is the home page menu items. Which you made clear is actually the settings in Kodi under the Interface menu in the guisettings.xml file.

1. So will those 'precious' settings get backed up by the Backup Add-on or do I need to pluck them out manually?

Again, I appreciate your answers which really enriched my knowledge of this program and process. Have you thought about doing your own YouTube channel on Kodi? :-)

[themusj]

"The skin should be storing it's settings within its folder in the addon_data folder of your userdata (wiki) folder. The actual GUI settings are in the guisettings.xml file, which is in the root of your userdata (wiki) folder along with several other xml's which are worth backing up."

Maybe DarrenHill answered this earlier and I just saw it now again. It would appear this would be a manual process to back it up and is not included in the Backup add-on. Do I understand this correctly?

[DarrenHill]

If I remember correctly you can set a couple of custom folders to backup within the addon. Point one of those at the addon_data folder (or the skin subfolder if you just want that and no other addon's settings).

[themusj]

If I remember correctly you can set a couple of custom folders to backup within the addon. Point one of those at the addon_data folder (or the skin subfolder if you just want that and no other addon's settings).

Excellent idea. I saw the option, but didn't put two and two together. I actually check off all the Add-on settings except the thumbnails/fanart.

[themusj]

I just now tried to setup a Custom Folder in the Backup Add-on to point to the Kodi directory where guisettings.xml file is located and of course everything under Files is hidden under Android. I have X-plore file manager where I can browse for hidden files, but that won't enable the Backup add-on to see them. I am not aware of any setting on an Android TV to display hidden files. I don't recall seeing one anyway.

[Tarkus_]

I just now tried to setup a Custom Folder in the Backup Add-on to point to the Kodi directory where guisettings.xml file is located and of course everything under Files is hidden under Android. I have X-plore file manager where I can browse for hidden files, but that won't enable the Backup add-on to see them. I am not aware of any setting on an Android TV to display hidden files. I don't recall seeing one anyway.

That file gets backed up here (Fire TV) without using a custom folder.  Only things I have selected to backup are User Addons, Addon Data, Database and Config Files.  I'm sure Config Files is the one needed.

[themusj]

Thou are the man on this one! After you suggested that I found the Wiki which states the Backup Add-on does indeed include the guisettings.xml. So my tweaks to the skin should be restore able from the backup

Config Files - sources.xml, guisettings.xml, advancedsettings.xml, etc

[robweber]

Thou are the man on this one! After you suggested that I found the Wiki which states the Backup Add-on does indeed include the guisettings.xml. So my tweaks to the skin should be restore able from the backup

Config Files - sources.xml, guisettings.xml, advancedsettings.xml, etc

If you have more questions on what is included in specific selection items you can refer to "File Selection Options" on this page as well: https://github.com/robweber/xbmcbackup/w...figuration

[ntilikp]

Thou are the man on this one! After you suggested that I found the Wiki which states the Backup Add-on does indeed include the guisettings.xml. So my tweaks to the skin should be restore able from the backup

Config Files - sources.xml, guisettings.xml, advancedsettings.xml, etc

If you have more questions on what is included in specific selection items you can refer to "File Selection Options" on this page as well: https://github.com/robweber/xbmcbackup/w...figuration 

How can I install the latest version from file manager? It's the only way I can add add-ons to my xbox one Kodi app unfortunately