[benicehavefun]

I have a weird problem that's cropped up in Kodi 17.3 (Titan skin) with not being able to play recorded TV from "Recordings" on any of my 4 LAN clients. No problem when doing the same from my HTPC which is also runnning the MediaPortal 1.15 TV Server. I can play from "Recorded TV" using the MediaPortal client on any of those same machines that run Windows. The recordings play fine once they've been scanned into my Kodi library and I play them from TV Shows. Occasionally I want to play something that's still being recorded and hasn't been picked up by "Library Auto Update". I'm running the latest version of TVServerKodi and all of my addons are up-to-date. I tried rolling one of my clients back to Kodi 17.1 but the issue remained.

Code:

15:48:52.450 T:19036  NOTICE: AddOnLog: MediaPortal PVR Client: OpenRecordedStream (id=1565, RTSP=115387928)
15:48:52.452 T:19036  NOTICE: AddOnLog: MediaPortal PVR Client: RECORDING: 1565|2017-05-29 18:00:05Z|2017-05-29 19:00:02Z|PBSe (SD01)|PBS NewsHour| (New: 5/29/2017)||D:\Recorded TV\\PBS NewsHour\Season 42\PBS NewsHour - S42E106 - -.ts|2000-01-01 00:00:00Z
15:48:52.452 T:19036  NOTICE: AddOnLog: MediaPortal PVR Client: TsReader open 'D:\Recorded TV\\PBS NewsHour\Season 42\PBS NewsHour - S42E106 - -.ts'
15:48:52.452 T:19036  NOTICE: AddOnLog: MediaPortal PVR Client: Cannot access 'D:\Recorded TV\\PBS NewsHour\Season 42\PBS NewsHour - S42E106 - -.ts' directly. Assuming multiseat mode. Need to translate to UNC filename.
15:48:52.452 T:19036  NOTICE: AddOnLog: MediaPortal PVR Client: Translate path D:\Recorded TV\\PBS NewsHour\Season 42\PBS NewsHour - S42E106 - -.ts -> smb://Home Theater:Password@HOMETHEATER-PC2/Recorded TVsmb://Home Theater:Password@PBS NewsHour/Season 42/PBS NewsHour - S42E106 - -.ts
15:48:52.566 T:19036   ERROR: AddOnLog: MediaPortal PVR Client: Cannot find or access file: smb://Home Theater:Password@HOMETHEATER-PC2/Recorded TVsmb://Home Theater:Password@PBS NewsHour/Season 42/PBS NewsHour - S42E106 - -.ts. Check share access rights.
15:48:52.566 T:19036   ERROR: CVideoPlayer::OpenInputStream - error opening [pvr://recordings/tv/active/ - PBS NewsHour - Season 42/PBS%20NewsHour s42e106%20-, TV%20(PBSe%20(SD01)), 20170529_230005, 1565.pvr]

I've replaced my password with the word "Password" for this post, but otherwise this is the relevant snippet from my kodi.log. It looks like the conversion from a local path to UNC is resulting in smb://Home Theaterassword@ getting inserted into the middle of the file path. I understand it showing at the beginning, but the second time doesn't look right...

Any thoughts?

[mcelliott]

I'd go into the Kodi settings for the MediaPortal plugin and reset everything.

I'd also try the IP address rather than computer name, assuming your TV server has a static IP address.

[benicehavefun]

I'd go into the Kodi settings for the MediaPortal plugin and reset everything.

I'd also try the IP address rather than computer name, assuming your TV server has a static IP address.

Good suggestions but no joy -- changing from hostname to IP address did nothing, in fact that IP address was translated back to hostname in the log. I re-entered username and password, but nothing there either.

On a lark, I built a new test backend sever, connected one of my Kodi clients to it, created a recording and viola, I was able to play recordings directly from the Live TV - Recordings list. A quick comparison of logs on the same client with one MediaPortal backend vs the other and I see a clear difference. Recordings I'm making on my working systems show the full LOCAL file name in this format:

D:\Recorded TV\\PBS NewsHour\Season 42\PBS NewsHour - S42E107 - -.ts

Which, when it gets translated to UNC looks like this (note the insertion of a second username@Password right in the middle of the path):

smb://Home Theaterassword@HOMETHEATER-PC2/Recorded TVsmb://Home Theaterassword@PBS NewsHour/Season 42/PBS NewsHour - S42E107 - -.ts

On the test backend, which works properly the LOCAL filename looks like this:

C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV\KARE 11 News at 4pm - KARE-HD - 2017-05-31.ts

When translated to UNC, it shows as this:

smb://T4H Convertibleassword@CONVERTIBLE-PC/Recorded TV/KARE 11 News at 4pm - KARE-HD - 2017-05-31.ts

It appears that in the first local filename example an extra "\" is present in between the folders "Recorded TV" and "PBS Newshour". I believe the resulting double backslash is causing a second username@Password to end up in the UNC file path. In the Windows world "\\" indicates the beginining of a UNC path, right where username@Password needs to be in Samba. I've checked everywhere I can think on the backend for places where a double backslash is being introduced. Likely suspects would be anywhere the recording folder name is listed -- none appear to have a trailing backslash. Everything shows a LOCAL recording folder of "D:\Recorded TV" and not "D:\Recorded TV\".

I'm going to take this over to the MediaPortal Forum since this would seem to be an issue with the MediaPortal Server plugin "TVServerKodi" which is my backend.

Any input from folks on this forum would, of course, still be much appreciated!

[benicehavefun]

I figured it out in case anyone with a similar issue finds their way to this thread. I was using "Custom Paths and Filenames" under "Recording" in MediaPortal TV Server in the format:

\%title%\[Season %series%\]%title%[ - S%series%E%episode% - %name%]

It was the leading backslash above causing the double backslash in the resulting recording's database record. It wasn't causing any other problems, except when I tried to play something back from the "Live TV" - "Recordings" list in Kodi on another system on my network. The local filename wouldn't be converted correctly into a UNC path. Anything played from a MediaPortal client or from "Movies" or "TV Shows" in Kodi worked fine

The proper syntax is:

%title%\[Season %series%\]%title%[ - S%series%E%episode% - %name%]

Easy to fix -- time consuming to find...