[sanjonny]

I had about an hour of problems because the website format doesn't do any kind of error check to see http so I had http://http://whatevermysite was

There is mention of it the lambda.env, but it's true better examples could be given (though there are few mentions of it in this massive thread)

Seriously, why is amazons panel so darn complex

You get used to it, AWS is complex because it has to be (remember it is not really meant for muggles)

The logs are linked from the Lambda function screen (monitoring)

Anyway, I tried adding a new user and copying that info into the env file and loading that, but that seems to just wipe out my kodi-alexa-master so I got the other device working, but its one of the other. I cannot figure out if I need to change kodi-alexa master to a different name, run a different script, throw my computer out and move to an area with no tv, etc etc etc,. I can get it to work on one device or the other, what am i doing wrong and how do i correct it.

How are you deploying to AWS?

I think you might be deploying using:

Code:

lambda-deploy deploy

.. which would upload the entire contents of the folder it is run in.

It shouldn't be uploading the kodi-alexa-master folder if you are using the method as documented in the readme:

Code:

python deploy-to-lambda.py

.

The ability to control multiple kodi installs with a single skill has not been addressed yet. Until there is a way, you are right, the workaround is to have a separate Skill and Lambda function for each box. Not ideal, but not the end of the world either.

It is very easy to say to yourself "it can't be that hard to do..." and if you want to come up with a way, feel free. Some thoughts off the top of my head: A way of storing the 5 (or however many) sets of kodi details. Then would you have Alexa ask and remember what room you are in so it knows what kodi box to control? How would that work as a voice interface and how would you change the stored room? If so what if there are two kodi boxes being used at the same time in different rooms? Or do you implement a way to include and validate the room name every time you issue a command, requiring you to say "Alexa, ask kodi to pause in the living room". What if someone only has one kodi box? would they need to say the room name as well or would the Skill know that "not hearing a room" means there is only one box? You might then need to know what "hearing a room" sounded like in order to know when it was missing... etc etc. Well, you get my point

The Python 2.7 requirement is mentioned in the readme https://github.com/m0ngr31/kodi-alexa#aws-lambda not sure why you would have installed 3.5.

Extremely frustrating there is not on portal that you can do it all on with error checking. Their workflow and webdesigners need a boot to the head. Its like 5 pages of websites or more to do things that a simple python program can do in dos easy.

Computers are hard. AWS is not just for creating an Alexa Skill.

Makes no sense, but I am not a programmer.

quite


It is true it not easy to set up, but that's because it is not very easy to set up but it is the only way at the moment. And without implementing some sort of central registration system with an account that you can "link" the Skill to (like Hue, openHAB, Plex, Harmony etc) it isn't ever going to be that easy.

But input on the documentation is welcomed if you think there are areas to improve, but please do it via GitHub and not on a personal blog or third party site. The howtogeek tutorial is what many people use, but it has been out of date for a long time.

Plex have a Skill and they worked hard on it and they rightfully charge money for it. If you want easy, you have to pay for it.

But I think your rant was more to do with frustration, and you have it working now, setting up the other 4 will be a doddle. Good luck.

Of course I saw your response after I finished installing everything, I'm obviously behind on my email. For an update after you read my big posting with my learning and feedback, also add to it that I used both the read me and the thread on how to geek. When I tried the deploy to lambda and changed the on or whatever it is ( doing this from my tablet) it didn't work but they way I did it while not the directed way did end up working. I used 3.4 because that was installed to run a similar program to direct my TiVo and it had pip installed while 2.7 which was also installed on my system did not have pip in it for some reason and I not being a programmer figured that if 2.7 is good, 3.4 is better..

In doing stuff on my tivo, many of those threads are years old like 2008...did python exist then? And most odd those work on the latest version of whatever so unless something tells me it won't work, I think many people figure it will, and since I didn't see anywhere it wouldn't, I did what many non programmer, half understanding person would do and figured it would work. To me, that's really pythons fault for not giving an error saying we changed this when trying to execute and it telling you hey, perhaps this is crashing because you need to be using the old instruction set. But the error was instead something stupid like error in line 9 and in line 9 there was nothing.

Can you tell I both love and hate this stuff? I was in qa for years and actually could program in fortran, basic, original vbs, etc etc, but now stuff drives me crazy because of how modern programming works. Now you have statements that are three paragraphs long to define a variable and commands like do.something.java.how.is.The.weather to do some thing simple that 25 years ago by writing it would define the variable itself. Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for the programming work and all that, but we were taught to simplify code and run on the minimum so the coding software was much different. That of course was in the age of floppy drives and I spent more for a 40 megabyte hard drive then my car at the time.

Having that qa history you can see why I try and document and suggest stuff. And from my statements you can see I'm an old codger who still likes kodi and the programmers that help things run.

Truly thanks for all your help and hopefully my feedback helps you. Also, I get the s3 is complex but the Alexa stuff is overly complex for something that does not need to be. More power to you for figuring it all out and dealing with it. I just think it's crazy that you have to do so much thru a web interface (maybe you don't) to program simple stuff into Alexa and there are so many horrible bugs (I spent awhile on the Alexa forums also and noted my bugs with their service while doing this) that they have facing developers. I mean not being able to copy a skill, edit it and change it easily is nuts!