v18 Artist info folder on SMB shared folder problem
#1
Got my wife a new win10/1703 laptop for Christmas and was setting it up.  Threw a win x32 nightly (1219) on it to see how it worked  (works fine but had a glitch).

My network environment is a primary LAN on which most clients and NAS are ethernet hardwared.  The clients / NAS use simple SMB folder sharing and name resolution via a single workgroup (no homegroup nor domain involved).  This LAN is on net 192.168.22.nnn.  I was using Wifi while setting up the new PC and I have a wifi extender setup as an access point.  The extender (Netgear) doesn't have the best documentation but it seems to default as a gateway/router (i.e., not bridged) so it creates its own net that happens to be 192.168.1.nnn that I guess uses NAT to forward traffic to the existing net.

Windows file explorer "network" node is able to see / get names from shares on both networks and I could enter my credentials and access all the file shares.

In Kodi, I could add a music share but when setting it up, using file browser dialog "windows smb" didn't see my NAS or other computers.  Instead I used the "add network location" option to specify the NAS using the IP address and using that I was able to add the share as music source and scan it the library.  (As an aside, I opened a cmd prompt and did a NET VIEW and it only returned computers on the access point's LAN.  Don't know why windows file explorer is "more powerful".) 

So next I attempted to set the artist info folder in the media/music settings.  But when the file browser dialog is launched here, there is no option for "add network location" so I couldn't add the artist info folder.  So my first question is "Why isn't "add network location" available from here?"

I thought I might work around the problem disconnecting from the access point and instead connecting to the main LAN wifi, which I did.  I could now set the artist info folder.  Having done that, I reconnected to the access point.  When I tried to refresh an artist, I got error in log that artistname has no path, nfo not found.  So that was a fail.  I then thought to try the file manager, to see if I could at least access the folder.  File manager brought up the file browser dialog, and in this case I did get the "add network location" and I could then add the shared folder as a file source.  After I did this, I could go back to the media/music settings and now in the file browser dialog the file source (i.e., the artist info folder) was available as an option that could be selected.  After doing that now I could refresh an artist and the nfo file was found.   So this is a valid workaround, but my question is "Why does this work?".

This is kind of a one-off issue, but in general it seems like adding a source -- either a media source or file source -- provides additional capability via file browser that isn't available when attempting to add an artist info folder.  And having a defined source provides additional capability to use those sources outside of the expected ones.  

scott s.
.
maintainer of skin  Aeon MQ5 mods for post-Gotham Kodi releases:
Matrix see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Matrix release thread
Nexus see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Nexus release thread
Aeon MQ 5 skin and addon repo 11.1.0
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#2
Thanks for this Scott and Merry Xmas. I'll take a look when I'll less distracted by festivities
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#3
Hi to all! I’ve recently the same problem in latest v18rc5. I’m trying the work around the info load ok, but the extra fanarts are ignored (I’ve the same share for music and info files). Any help? Thankssssss
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#4
A lot has happened / changed in the past year.  We now have an addon "Artwork Beef" that can find more types of online art and add it to the music database.  Also, we now have an entry available in the optional advancedsettings.xml file that tells Kodi to scan for different local art files.  With respect to "fanart", there is a new option (really just a convention as you can use any name you want for art now) to add these to the database with identifiers (Kodi term is arttype) for fanart1, fanart2, etc.  So with respect to art that is managed via the music database, there is much more capability.

But, skins must also be modified to make use of those expanded arttypes.  Skins can also use the Kodi Krypton practice of looking for art within folders instead of using the library -- it's a skinner's decision.  When looking for art in folders, skins should allow for placement of art files in the traditional (that is, commonly agreed to informally) place within source/artist/album/disc folder tree, or the new Leia artist info/artist/album folder tree.

I can just comment on Aeon MQ 5 Mod that I do -- I don't think I can pull the artist info folder tree location from Kodi settings so I have a button in the skin the user can use to set the location.  (Actually, that button existed before as it was needed in case user used the old cdart manager addon or artwork organizer addon).

scott s.
.
maintainer of skin  Aeon MQ5 mods for post-Gotham Kodi releases:
Matrix see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Matrix release thread
Nexus see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Nexus release thread
Aeon MQ 5 skin and addon repo 11.1.0
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#5
Thanks Scott for the explanation!

I’m using artwork beef and it’s fantastic! I’m also tried the advance setting options like the Kodi Leia wiki, but without success.

I think its like you said, we have to wait to skins adapt to Leia changes of music database.

Thanks for the help again!
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Artist info folder on SMB shared folder problem0