[right.vote]

XMBC seems to not be correctly building it's library - misses newly added titles; omits many titles in the drives it's supposed to scan. Tried deleting the program, downloading fresh version, starting over - in the idea it would build a new library - but it came back with the exact same titles, no improvement. Guess the list is kept elsewhere than in the Program Folder ....

Only fault i can see is at launch get "Unable to connect to remote server - want to continue to scan?" Clicking "Y" just gets the message back, over 7 over. WHAT remote server?? The titles are all on local drives!

Suggestions?

[DDDamian]

Yep, post a debug log. Much easier to figure out what's wrong.

[kegobeer]

It sounds like it's unable to find online entries for your media. That happened to me on two movies that are in my collection that my son made and I ripped to my WHS. XBMC is trying to find meta data for your music/movies/etc, and when it encounters one it can't find, you get the generic "unable to connect to remote server - want to continue to scan" message.

[DDDamian]

The databases are stored in \users\(yourusername)appdata\roaming\xbmc\userdata\database\

Deleting the program will not delete the database, nor will a fresh install, both of which are good things.

Again, if you post a debug log it takes much of the guesswork out.

[right.vote]

OK - think I found how to create a debug log & found where stored. Let me know if what I attached is wrong.

Thanks, Damian, for the place where the database is stored. Deleted it and the rebuilt one seems better.

BUT

somehow got into "library mode" and can't figure out how to get out of it (the button and the title 'library mode' are greyed out; clicking on them does nothing. So, now what I see is a set of 'sources' instead of a single database I can sort by genre, year, etc. How do I get out of this?

ps: still getting the 'can't connect to remote server' message

pps: just saw I am not allowed to post attachments fro some reason, so ... no log.

[DDDamian]

Hi there - okay so you've got the database rebuilt - the files now need to be scanned into the library. You're in File mode now, and it's showing you your sources. There's nothing in the Library so you can't switch to it.

Go to System>Settings>Music>Library and select a scraper (Last.FM will give you the least headaches) for album and artist. Also be sure to select "Download additional information during updates"

Go back to Music>Files in the main menu. Right-click on the source and select "Scan Item to Library". It should launch off on it's scraping activities and get the info from LastFM.

When done, the Library item should no longer be greyed out and your files should be scraped and in the library.

To attach a log: go to pastebin.com. Paste the contents of your xbmc.log into pastebin and upload. When done, copy the link and paste it here (there's an icon for insert hyperlink). Make sure before you take a debug log that debugging is enabled in System>Settings>Debugging or it will not contain detailed information.

[right.vote]

Thanks for the help!

I DO have music on one of the drives, but mostly videos.

Will try first with the music per your instructions. But - suggestion about which scraper is best for videos?

ps: I already have all the metadata for every movie (gathered via MediaCenterManager). Does this matter? Don't want to delete any of that since it is very complete, with many, many titles, gathered over a long period of time.

[DDDamian]

Thanks for the help!

I DO have music on one of the drives, but mostly videos.

Will try first with the music per your instructions. But - suggestion about which scraper is best for videos?

ps: I already have all the metadata for every movie (gathered via MediaCenterManager). Does this matter? Don't want to delete any of that since it is very complete, with many, many titles, gathered over a long period of time.

No prob bud. For your movies, if you have good data in .nfo files XBMC will scrape them by default, so go ahead and place those with the same name as the movie in the movie folder and XBMC will read it by default! Just don't reply yes to any msgbox asking "Ignore local data and refresh from internet" or it will go to the scraper.

For those without .nfo files I would either create them or use IMDB as the scraper.

Cheers, Damian

[right.vote]

Hi again Damian

Not doing so well. OK, partial success - the many thousand music files went fine! Even picked up some art to go along with them! Thx!

But as for the video files ....

I now have a 'source' for each of the 4 drives in the system. However:

1. there is no IMDB listed among my agailable scrapers. There is MTV, a tv scraped, a movie scraper ... I selected 'NONE' since I don't need any metadata.
2. Call em stupid, but I cannot for the life of me find where to initiate a scrape.
3. I selected "scan new titles", thinking it might do the same, but simply get the old "unable to connect to remote server" msg and nothing scrapes.
4. Thought I had run another diagnostic for ya, but when i looked the only file there was from this mornign. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not very cheerful ..........

John

[DDDamian]

you would need a scraper selected to pull metadata. But you say you don't need it?

EDIT: forgot you had .nfo's. Right-click on the source, select Change Content. Make sure it's movies and add a scraper like IMDB or The Movie DB. At the bottom deselect "Exclude from scans". Done there. Then right-click on source and scan for new content.

[gabbott]

1. there is no IMDB listed among my agailable scrapers. There is MTV, a tv scraped, a movie scraper ... I selected 'NONE' since I don't need any metadata.

Even if you are are using nfo files (I use them exclusively) you still need a movie scraper selected so xbmc knows the type of content the source is. XBMC will prioritize local nfo files over the scraper site selected. You DO need to get metadata, it just needs to be obtained from your nfo files.

Don't check the item "exclude from scans" otherwise it won't scan your items in.

[right.vote]

Sorry about the growls. Just had a beer and feel better !!

OK - went through each of my 4 sources (one for each hard drive). For each one selected TheMovieDB as scraped. For each one made sure "exclude from scans" was deselected.

After all 4 were set up this way, went back to the 1st source, rt clicked and selected 'scan for new content". Progress bar scooted all the way to the right, then a pause, then "Unable to connect to remote server". Clicked on "no" and that scan stopped.

Repeated this, one by one, for each of the other 3 sources. Two of them IMMEDIATELY came back with "unable to ..."; the last had a pause similar to the first and then gave that error message.

Guess I have something really, really messed up .......

[right.vote]

And - why do I not see IMDB as an available scraper?

[gabbott]

And - why do I not see IMDB as an available scraper?

by default only themoviedb scraper is installed. You can install the IMDB scaper by going into add-ons.

[right.vote]

YEA! Success!

Went to add-ons, got IMBD for each of the 4 sources.

......... and it's now scanning w/o the error message !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!! As much as its frustrating when lost, it's GREAT when things finally get sorted out! Thanks DDDamian & Gabbott!

about add-ons:

seems like a ton of them. Any favorites (I have pretty much zero TV shows saved -- just 24, V, Pacific and 1 or 2 more).

Is it correct that TV CONTENT is available via add-ons? Would LOVE to find a way to see out-of-region tv content!

Have a slew of adult movies w/o metadata. Can XBMC grab this stuff (for adult movies) via some add-on?

THX again for the help and for hanging in there as i floundered.