[msfc]

I just deleted the mod from my production machine and then reinstalled it from the repo with no problem. All the files are there. Not sure what's causing your issue.

Thanks for checking. Indeed the problem was not at your end. Inspired by https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304600 I reinstalled Python and all python packages relevant to curl, ssl and cryptography. After that I was able to download and install your modified skin. At first I tried reinstalling just python-software-properties and python-pycurl. After that the connect error disappeared, replaced by the download getting stuck at 0% accompanied by Unity filling up my disk by writing log messages to ~/.cache/upstart/unity7.log regarding errors from the python cryptography library that stemmed from the attempted download.

The last couple of updates to Ubuntu 16 have been real disasters. First the WiFi driver disappeared in an Ubuntu 16.10 update and my screen went into high DPI mode so I couldn't read the text,. Now a 16.04 update broke python.