[PhilJW]

Im a new user of Kodi as I have had to install it on my new Sony XR-65X90J. In all honesty if their pre-installed Media Player worked as it should I wouldnt be here but Sony's advice to fix their problem is install Kodi! If anyone can help with that it would be much appreciated by the way.....

Anyway - Im not bothered about building a library and just want to access my Nas drive files as they are arranged currently and so have connected so that I can browse the files and playback through Kodi. I assume I am seeing the Nas with uPnP (rather than SMP) but Im not sure.

When I go to the file list I can see and play all the files but any thumbnail is a large picture of an old style movie camera and not a still from the video. This is the same still I see when using the Sony Media Player (although that then wont play the files) so it may be a Sony issue rather than a Kodi issue but I cant tell.

Is there anyway to get at least a thumbnail of a video capture from the file - I have enabled that function in Kodi but it doesnt seem to replace this generic image - as whilst I appreciate its only cosmetic as the files play okay, it is really annoying.

Apologies for any ignorance with Kodi - as I said Ive never used it before - but any help would be appreciated.

[Karellen]

@PhilJW

Could you post a screenshot of what you are seeing. We can start by figuring out if it is a Kodi icon or Sony icon you are seeing.

[PhilJW]

I suspect that its a Sony thumbnail as the same one appears when Im trying to browse Media Player (which fails to play the files....hence Kodi)

This is the screen shot from Kodi



And from the Media Player

[Karellen]

I suspect that its a Sony thumbnail

Yep. But you said movies, and that looks like albums.
So it looks like it is your UPnP server that is not passing along the image. See if anything here helps... https://kodi.wiki/view/UPnP
Do you have local image files for your album in the album folder? Try placing an album cover in the folder named folder.jpg.

A better setup is to use SMB and let Kodi access the media directly and control it. At the moment you are using Kodi as a dumb slave
https://kodi.wiki/view/SMB

[PhilJW]

Thanks - Ill go and try your advice.

But those are movies not music - episodes of animated Batman.

Ill revert when Ive tried to change to SMB

Thanks again.

[Karellen]

But those are movies not music - episodes of animated Batman.

Oh, right. It says "Album" in your screenshot.
And movies are not episodes. Movies, TV Shows and Episodes are not interchangeable here. They are all different entities.

So if they are episodes, the folder.jpg will not work as that is for music albums.
I don't know what artwork naming protocol would work with your UPnP server.

[PhilJW]

Its just the way my NAS drive is set up (or rather that was the default by both the Panasonic TVs and the Sony Bravia I have).

It goes Movies>Album>Subfolder where subfolder is the name of the folder in which the video files are in......in this case Batman, but other files are ordered into Simpsons, The Boys, Marvel etc depending on where the files (mixture of TV and Movies) live.

All I want to do is browse through the folder structure and choose and play that file - not to set up a library etc where I appreciate I would have to restructure the folders and probably rename all the files (and dont have time).

On my Panasonic TV theres a text only interface so I go to Media Server>Linkstation>Movies>Album>Batman>filename of episode to watch though I have no idea how the Panasonic is connected to the Linkstation NAS drive - SMP or uPnP and Im not sure theres even a way to easily tell (on set up it just linked automatically). The Panasonic Media Player does have thumbnails but they are tiny and so its never bothered me that they are blank as theres a small 'preview' window which plays the file and that works fine.

However in Kodi the thumbnail/preview is that much more obtrusive (unless theres a way to get of it) and although I appreciate its cosmetic, its annoying me!

[jbinkley60]

On my Panasonic TV theres a text only interface so I go to Media Server>Linkstation>Movies>Album>Batman>filename of episode to watch though I have no idea how the Panasonic is connected to the Linkstation NAS drive - SMP or uPnP and Im not sure theres even a way to easily tell (on set up it just linked automatically). The Panasonic Media Player does have thumbnails but they are tiny and so its never bothered me that they are blank as theres a small 'preview' window which plays the file and that works fine.

uPNP servers often provide artwork in different fashions.  If you want to try the Kodi Mezzmo addon, I try to capture artwork based upon a few different methods.  It might be worth a try and I am willing to debug the server response to see if your server is providing the artwork via uPNP at all.   Some uPNP servers do not. 

To use the addon with uPNP servers you need to disable the Only Show Mezzmo Servers option in the View settings.  Here's some more information on uPNP server support.


Thanks,

Jeff

[PhilJW]

So I tried connecting over WiFi and still have the same problem.

I uninstalled and reinstalled Kodi (just in case) and tried to connect to my NAS drive (with SMB as someone else recommended rather than uPnP) but I get 'Connection aborted by software' and it cannot see the drive.

This happens with WifI and ethernet and I believe Im pointing Kodi at the drive correctly.

Can anyone explain this - Im guessing its something on my network preventing a connection (from Media Player and Kodi) but when I run a connection check all is fine so Im mystified.

Any help much appreciated.

[Atreyu]

Switching to smb instead of upnp is a good thing.
What are your smb min and max settings in settings>services>smb client and what version of smb is your Nas using?
Since smbv1 has been deprecated for security reasons, server and client should be set to smb2+, but the Nas might be using smbv1 in your case. You might test it by playing around with the settings, allowing V1 connections but i highly recommend using smbv2+ if possible.
Note that while V1 allowed browsing network shares, if you use V2 the full share location must be entered manually.

/Edit looks like indeed smbv1 is used by default
https://forums.buffalotech.com/index.php?topic=24630.0

[jbinkley60]

Can anyone explain this - Im guessing its something on my network preventing a connection (from Media Player and Kodi) but when I run a connection check all is fine so Im mystified.

Any help much appreciated.

I will concur that uPNP has gotten a bad wrap due over time due to the myriad of bad implementations.  However, with the right software it is easier and more flexible than SMB based approaches.  It you want to try the Mezzmo Kodi addon I just posted a new version which has diagnostic options to record the server responses to the Kodi.log file to make it easy to see what the server is providing (i.e. art work or no artwork).  It could be a real quick test to see if uPNP is a viable option with your setup or not (i.e. if your server isn't providing the artwork via uPNP then we know the limitation).. 


Thanks,

Jeff

[Atreyu]

Definately worth trying, might lead to the faster/simpler solution.
I can tell from experience @jbinkley60 gladly helps out a bit

[jbinkley60]

Definately worth trying, might lead to the faster/simpler solution.
I can tell from experience @jbinkley60 gladly helps out a bit

Nice plug.  Thanks.  In case anyone is interested, here's the link to today's release and the support forum for the Mezzmo Kodi addon.


Jeff