[fizzychicken]

tl;dr = is there an XBMC remote for Android and IOS which reads the library info from the shared database rather than any one xbmc instance?

having used XBMC/Kodi for many years, at the weekend I got adventurous and setup;

NAS:
WDMyCloud to store all movies, tv eps, and what-not.

SHARED LIBRARY:
Raspberry Pi running Raspian with MySQL and PHPMyadmin (cos I'm lazy)

XMC CLIENTS:
Win7 Gotham 13.1 (office)
Raspberry Pi Gotham 13.1 (lounge)
Raspberry Pi Gotham 13.1 (bedroom)

REMOTES:
Official XBMC remote on IPad
Yatse on Android (on two different HTC phones)

--

The main reason was because library updates seemed to take forever on the raspberry pis so I can now upload new content to the NAS and update the library on my PC which is nice n snappy. I also wanted the ability to have each instance of XBMC remember which episode had been viewed and resume and half watched episodes (My better half is currently binge-ing Greys Anatomy and gets into a rage when my tweaking with XBMC wipes out her 'watched' progress)
Everything is running great, menus are responsive on the pis thanks to changing the boot to USB3 keys. I have stripped down the interface so as not to confuse the missus, running Amber skin with only TV Shows, Movies, Setting visible on the main screen. The SQL pi is always on and I am fond of both the official remote for IOS and Android. shared 'watched' progress and resume from last point is working fine if I use the on screen menus but not so when it comes to the remotes.

I see that yatse can let me specify one instance of XBMC as the master however this appears to need to be 'always on' for this to work correctly. Only the SQL pi stays on all the time, the others could be off at any point so when I point a remote to a different host, it wont pick up the episode progress unless use of the onscreen pi menus triggers an update from the SQL database.

Unless somebody can point out what Im doing wrong, Is there a remote out there that reads the library and content direct from the SQL database and sends the instructions to the host, rather than reading library content from the host itself?

(tried to browse the forum and Google it but I have a feeling if my query has already been asked/solved then may be lost in the depths of the innerwebs....see previous lazy comment)

ta!

[PH-SYM]

I am not sure I am getting your problem, but assuming all your clients use the same database on the MySQL server, once you update the database via the xbmc client on your PC all the other clients should reflect that update.

[fizzychicken]

They do do that. and life is great. for a while.

Imagine this scenario.

I watch an awesome episode of adventure time in the lounge, the XBMC client knows I've just watched season 6 episode 1 and the IOS remote I used also knows I just played that episode.
I walk to the bedroom, I tell my remote to connect to the bedroom host client, but that client doesnt know Ive watched the episode yet as it wont query the database until I navigate to the tv shows menu on screen. without doing this, my remote is just syncing from the list of data that the bedroom host already held. Once I navigate to the TV shows on screen to force the client to update from the shared library, I then have to tell the remote to sync with the bedroom host so that the remote knows both the lounge and bedroom hosts are showing that season 6 episode 1 has been watched.

This is as irritating as my inability to explain things clearly.

I'm looking for an IOS and android remote that queries the shared database directly for episode information and watched/resume status, and sends instructions and retrieves current playing status from whichever host I point it at, cutting out the need to sync with the individual hosts as none of them have an independent library.

[Ned Scott]

It sounds more like the iOS remote is caching the data on iOS, which is why it doesn't show up as watched already. XBMC reads directly from the DB for watched information.

[fizzychicken]

Yup,

the IOS one - official remote, does it
and Yatse for android does it but can be made to treat one host as master to make some attempt at solving this issue, however that host has to be always on.

Im hoping someone one day comes up with one that can query the DB directly rather than what Yatse attempts. Id have a stab at it myself but Id only make the situation worse...or a remote that turns the power off to my entire house...I'm that level of useless.

[Ned Scott]

They already do. Go into the iOS settings and scroll down to "xbmcRemote" and you can turn off the library cache. Now whenever you use the iOS remote it will always show the updated DB info directly.