[Razorbob]

I've been trying to install AZ:FA from the Northbridge by Design repository and whenever I do, I get a black screen. Upon pressing back a few times, it gives me a UI with the majority of the elements missing. The same thing happens when install from zip too. The only way out is to shut down the Kodi application (Kodi 17 RC3, Win10 x64) and run it again, it then loads with the default skin. Here's my log: https://paste.ubuntu.com/23846127

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Guardian Hope]

I've been trying to install AZ:FA from the Northbridge by Design repository and whenever I do, I get a black screen. Upon pressing back a few times, it gives me a UI with the majority of the elements missing. The same thing happens when install from zip too. The only way out is to shut down the Kodi application (Kodi 17 RC3, Win10 x64) and run it again, it then loads with the default skin. Here's my log: https://paste.ubuntu.com/23846127

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hey there @Razorbob. This is the first time this issue has been reported. Typically, there is a black screen for a few moments when installing From Ashes as the menus are written and it waits for everything it requires to be installed but it looks like it would have never finished installing with you. It seems you're missing a few addons required by the skin that are in Kodi's repo like script.skinshortcuts (this writes the AZ:FA menus) and even the From Ashes Audio Suite. If you pressed "Esc" a few times and it got to the home screen without Skin Shortcuts saying "Writing Menu" in the upper right corner that explains why you had to force quit Kodi to get out of that mess.

I'm assuming since you said you tried to do this from repo, you're installing Beta 9 (Beta 7 and Beta 8 crash Kodi). Can you browse to %AppData%\Kodi\addons and see if there is a "skin.arctic.zephyr.fromashes.danvers" folder? If so, delete it. The next thing, and this is because I saw this at Kodi's startup, go to %AppData%\Kodi, right click on the "addons" folder, and make sure you actually have read and write permissions to the directory. Then try to reinstall from repo.

I will take a look into this. I don't think I've seen a log just say flat out 'failed to load skin' with no reason until you get down later where Skin Helper seems to be having a problem with the addon's ID which is a bit unusual.

How was this log obtained, through a repo install or a zip install? If the latter, how was the zip obtained - enterprise CDN or GitHub? If it's GitHub then you need to remove what GitHub automatically appends to the folder inside the zip so that it reads "skin.arctic.zephyr.fromashes"

Try the above and I will take a look into getting this sorted for you. This is the first report of Beta 9 not installing.

[Razorbob]

Thanks for your post. The log was obtained from a repo install. You were right about the addons folder, it was set to read only, I've changed that now. There was no skin.arctic.zephyr.fromashes.danvers folder, however, I did see a script.skinshortcuts folder. I tried installing from the repo again after removing read only from the addons folder, I didn't get a black screen this time, but the install just straight up failed. Here's the log: https://paste.ubuntu.com/23847883 Many thanks.

[Guardian Hope]

Thanks for your post. The log was obtained from a repo install. You were right about the addons folder, it was set to read only, I've changed that now. There was no skin.arctic.zephyr.fromashes.danvers folder, however, I did see a script.skinshortcuts folder. I tried installing from the repo again after removing read only from the addons folder, I didn't get a black screen this time, but the install just straight up failed. Here's the log: https://paste.ubuntu.com/23847883 Many thanks.

Hey there @Razorbob. It seems we got rid of those nasty Skin Helper Service issues now so that's good news. Your Kodi appears to be downloading AZ:FA Danvers but it's failing to copy those files to the addons folder. See relevant log notations:

Code:

19:57:55.529 T:9156   DEBUG: ------ Window Init (DialogAddonInfo.xml) ------
19:57:55.529 T:9156    INFO: Loading skin file: DialogAddonInfo.xml, load type: KEEP_IN_MEMORY
19:57:56.750 T:9156   DEBUG: Keyboard: scancode: 0x1c, sym: 0x000d, unicode: 0x000d, modifier: 0x0
19:57:56.879 T:9156   DEBUG: CInputManager::OnKey: return (0xf00d) pressed, action is Select
19:57:56.881 T:9156   DEBUG: CAddonInstaller: installing 'skin.arctic.zephyr.fromashes.danvers' version '4.9.92-beta9' from repository 'repository.northebridge.by.design.kodi'
19:57:56.884 T:9156   DEBUG: Keyboard: scancode: 0x1c, sym: 0x000d, unicode: 0x0000, modifier: 0x0
19:57:56.951 T:5244   DEBUG: Unpacking zip://special%3A%2F%2Fhome%2Faddons%2Fpackages%2Fskin.arctic.zephyr.fromashes.danvers-4.9.92-beta9.zip/skin.arctic.zephyr.fromashes/ to C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\addons\temp\94bf0585-9ddb-444d-bd1f-f50824b9fdb8
19:57:57.033 T:9156   DEBUG: ------ Window Deinit (DialogAddonInfo.xml) ------
19:57:57.047 T:9156   DEBUG: Keyboard: scancode: 0x1c, sym: 0x000d, unicode: 0x0000, modifier: 0x0
19:57:59.611 T:5244   ERROR: XFILE::CFile::Rename - Error renaming file C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\addons\temp\94bf0585-9ddb-444d-bd1f-f50824b9fdb8
19:57:59.611 T:5244   ERROR: Failed to move new addon files from 'C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\addons\temp\94bf0585-9ddb-444d-bd1f-f50824b9fdb8' to 'C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\addons\skin.arctic.zephyr.fromashes.danvers'
19:57:59.614 T:9156   DEBUG: ------ Window Init (DialogNotification.xml) ------
19:57:59.634 T:9156   DEBUG: CGUIMediaWindow::GetDirectory (addons://repository.northebridge.by.design.kodi/xbmc.gui.skin)
19:57:59.634 T:9156   DEBUG:   ParentPath = [addons://repository.northebridge.by.design.kodi/xbmc.gui.skin]
19:57:59.635 T:5244   DEBUG: CAddonDatabase: SELECT repo.id FROM repo .. took 0 ms
19:57:59.636 T:5244   DEBUG: CAddonDatabase: query  SELECT * FROM addons JOIN addonlinkrepo ON addons.id=addonlinkrepo.idAddon WHERE addonlinkrepo.idRepo IN (2) ORDER BY addons.addonID returned 6 rows in 1 ms
19:57:59.636 T:5244   DEBUG: CAddonDatabase::GetAddons took 1 ms
19:57:59.652 T:5244   DEBUG: CAddonMgr::GetAvailableUpdates took 16 ms
19:57:59.656 T:1576   DEBUG: Thread BackgroundLoader start, auto delete: false
19:57:59.657 T:1576   DEBUG: Thread BackgroundLoader 1576 terminating

I also now know why. It seems Beta 9's package, which somehow installed on everyone's computer, is missing the ".danvers" on its internal folder.

If you download the skin in a browser by visiting https://embycdn.northebridge.com/Natalie...-beta9.zip and then go into the downloaded zip folder and change the name of the internal folder from "skin.arctic.zephyr.fromashes" to "skin.arctic.zephyr.fromashes.danvers" it will install.

Please note that link is only going to be as good for as long as it takes me to fix it up and upload the changes so you can always wait for me to do that.

Thank you for helping to identify this oversight. Beta 7, Beta 8, and Beta 9 were all "shotgun" releases in terms that they came out in a span of hours of each other essentially and one typo can mess everything up.

Do note that the repo can take 2-12 hours to update depending on your geographical location (United States and England are the fastest to update). I'll let you know as well when it's been updated in the repo so you can watch out for it.

I am also happy to have helped fixed your permissions issues as well.

[Razorbob]

Excellent news. Thanks for all your help and I'm happy to have contributed to troubleshooting!

edit - I tried what you suggested and the skin installed, it looks great by the way! Although it seems as if a few of the menu background images are missing though, half of them are blank. I don't suppose I could trouble you for your thoughts on this?