[pkscout]

So as I suggested it doesn't seem to want to use local files. Local being artwork files on my file server. I have set the path to the root music folder in the AS settings as SMB://WHS/Music etc.

This is kind of buried in the wiki page for AS, but:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Add...rk_Storage

Which, to say you clicking says, "In some cases 'local' images stored on a network drive will only show correctly if you map a local drive letter or mount point in your OS."

[cw-kid]

So as I suggested it doesn't seem to want to use local files. Local being artwork files on my file server. I have set the path to the root music folder in the AS settings as SMB://WHS/Music etc.

This is kind of buried in the wiki page for AS, but:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Add...rk_Storage

Which, to say you clicking says, "In some cases 'local' images stored on a network drive will only show correctly if you map a local drive letter or mount point in your OS."

Pkscuot

Many thanks, least we got to the bottom of the issue. I'll look in to it. Main thing was turning off HTBackDrops so it doesn't find any incorrect artist images.

Cheers

[KevinSartori]

Thanks for creating Artist Slideshow! I really adds to my enjoyment of XBMC!

I'm having an issue where some of my Shoutcast radio stations show the same artist image every time, even though the song title and artist constantly change. I looked in xbmc.log, but nothing popped out at me. Does Artist Slideshow have its own log somewhere? If not, any idea why Artist Slideshow would do this with some Shoutcast stations, but not others? I'm reluctant to delete the Artist Slideshow addon data and start over, because I've been using Artist Slideshow for a while now and I don't want to lose all of those Last.fm images. I have 6+GB of artist images!

Thanks again!

[pkscout]

I'm having an issue where some of my Shoutcast radio stations show the same artist image every time, even though the song title and artist constantly change. I looked in xbmc.log, but nothing popped out at me. Does Artist Slideshow have its own log somewhere? If not, any idea why Artist Slideshow would do this with some Shoutcast stations, but not others?

Not right off hand. AS doesn't have a separate log file. If you set the XBMC log to DEBUG you will get a more robust set of information from AS in that log. If you would do that, try and recreate the problem, upload the log file, and post a link to it then I will see if I can see what's causing the issue.

I'm reluctant to delete the Artist Slideshow addon data and start over, because I've been using Artist Slideshow for a while now and I don't want to lose all of those Last.fm images. I have 6+GB of artist images!

You shouldn't need to delete AS and start over. Even if we decide to do that, you can backup the images by copying the AS directory out of your user data folder. The images in particular should be in userdata/addon_data/scripts.artistslideshow/ArtistSlideshow/ If you were to delete everything *but* that folder, it would, in essence, reset AS but keep all your cached images.

Oh, and you have a backup, right?

[ktjensen]

Okay trying to find a radio player that will work with artist slideshow. So far it works fine with local stores images for the artist. But no luck on pulling artists remotely based on the artist playing. Sure it's some other setting I am missing.

[pkscout]

Okay trying to find a radio player that will work with artist slideshow. So far it works fine with local stores images for the artist. But no luck on pulling artists remotely based on the artist playing. Sure it's some other setting I am missing.

Could you post a debug log? In theory AS will parse the artist name and song name out of the title of the stream (which is where most of those stations stick the artist and song name), but I don't do much streaming and haven't tested it recently. There are no additional settings needed to get it working.

The other challenge with radio stations came when I added support for theaudiodb and fanart.tv. I had to create a way to find the MusicBrainz ID for an artist. That requires having a fair amount of information about the artist (at a bare minimum their name and the name of the song, but the album name is *really* helpful). And that information has to match what's in MusicBrainz. So if the stations aren't sending the song name and artist name the way MusicBrainz is expecting it, we don't get the MusicBrainzID. Without that AS can't get images from theaudiodb or fanart.tv.

HTBackdrops only requires an artist name, so the other thing to check is to see if you have HTBackdrops enabled as an image source. You might get more matches from that site with streaming radio than the other two.

[ktjensen]

Will eventually find out how to post a debug log. Also seeing random inconsistent attempts to search. I turned on the text message that tells me if ARTIST SLIDESHOW even tries to find an artist. It flashes a few times after a fresh reboot. Then just stops

[KevinSartori]

Thanks for taking a look at this odd problem! Here's what I did: I enabled debug logging, rebooted, started up a problematic Shoutcast station and then let two songs play. Here's the xbmc.log:

http://pastebin.com/JXKG5zV0

I took a quick look at it and it looks like Artist Slideshow searches for Cal Tjader. I Googled him and, sure enough, that's the image I get when the station plays. Unfortunately, that's not what the station was actually playing! Any ideas?

Thanks!

BTW, I definitely keep my images backed up! I'm a nut about keeping backups!

[ktjensen]

I switched platforms to a win7-64bit machine. Will do testing under the CCM skin and report back after the holiday. Actually want both platforms to work. So will beat on it until it does

[curtis-r]

@ pkscuot,

What a great add-on. Wish I had discovered it sooner.

Liking things organized and clean, I have a couple of questions on whether you've considered: 1) having the scraped artwork get saved in the artist's folder, rather than the addon_data\script.artistslideshow\ArtistSlideshow folder? 2) having the extensions *.jpg rather than *.tbn so they are easier to check; and xbmc has moved on from *.tbn.

Thanks & keep up the great work.

[pkscout]

1) having the scraped artwork get saved in the artist's folder, rather than the addon_data\script.artistslideshow\ArtistSlideshow folder?

I don't really like the idea of cluttering up someone's music folder with artwork, especially without asking. So unless there is a sudden and large outcry to have the images stored somewhere else, they're probably going to stay put.

2) having the extensions *.jpg rather than *.tbn so they are easier to check; and xbmc has moved on from *.tbn.

Honestly, it's never come up. Storing them with the .tbn extension is how the add-on worked when I inherited it. I've been working under the assumption that it helped pre-cache the images or something. But if there's no advantage to it, I would certainly consider storing them in whatever format the source site uses.

[pkscout]

I'm having an issue where some of my Shoutcast radio stations show the same artist image every time, even though the song title and artist constantly change.

I installed Shoutcast to see what I could see. It took me about 20 tries before I found a station that was even sending metadata in the stream, and that one behaved strangely. It started out displaying Justin Timberlake as the artist with some album name, but no song title. Then it changed over while the song was playing and had Ludicrous and then a dash and then a song name in the song title. I honestly have no idea if any of that data matched the song that was playing or not. That kind of unpredictability isn't going to make AS very happy.

I know there are other streaming radio plugins that provide data in the stream in a way XBMC can interpret and pass to AS, but it doesn't seem like Shoutcast is really one of them.

[ktjensen]

Which radio tools provide metadata correct? Skyfm tool.

[curtis-r]

1) having the scraped artwork get saved in the artist's folder, rather than the addon_data\script.artistslideshow\ArtistSlideshow folder?

I don't really like the idea of cluttering up someone's music folder with artwork, especially without asking. So unless there is a sudden and large outcry to have the images stored somewhere else, they're probably going to stay put.

What about making it an option of whether to store data in the artist's folder?

EDIT: It is also advantageous to not bloat the xbmc folder for backup purposes. I for one, make many discrete backups of my xbmc userdata folder & keeping it's size to a minmum is helpful.

[cw-kid]

Hi

Should Artist SlideShow display images when playing a "Various Artists" album ? I seem to recall it did in Aeon MQ4 but in MQ5 its all just blank.

Music Playback Fullscreen



The skin is however displaying a 'Various Artsits' fanart image on the main XBMC menu OK, again AS is blank.



Many thanks