Login at Kodi Home

sitush · 2018-05-02, 11:55

I've searched high and low for a solution but am getting frustrated now. Using 17.6 and Windows 10, I have set up a music source in Kodi that points to a NAS shared folder. Kodi scans that folder and produces a list of the artist folders on the NAS and sublists for each album within the artist folders. But if I click on any album, the content is blank - just a ".."

Clearly, Kodi is scanning the file system but not picking up the tags. However, the music most definitely is tagged and I used MusicBrainz Picard to do that job. The Kodi music settings are at their default.

Any ideas? I think I must be doing something obvious wrong but as far as I can tell I have followed the manual procedures and, as I said, I'm not finding any help in general web searches or past posts here. Thanks.

**Karellen** · 2018-05-02, 12:14

Hello sitush

That is an unusual issue.

1. What format are your music files?
2. Yes there must be some sort of tagging, otherwise Artist and Albums would not have appeared
3. If you go to Music>Files>YourMusicSource, can you see the music files? Can you play them?
4. Have you added anything music related to your advancedsettings.xml file?
4. A debug log will be useful. One that captures an album being scanned into the library. Enable debugging in Settings>System Settings>Logging, restart Kodi then replicate the problem. Once done upload to https://pastebin.com/ or https://paste.ubuntu.com/ and provide the link back here. Note: Full logs only. No partial or redacted logs

**DaveBlake** · 2018-05-02, 13:03

(2018-05-02, 11:55)sitush Wrote: I have set up a music source in Kodi that points to a NAS shared folder. Kodi scans that folder and produces a list of the artist folders on the NAS and sublists for each album within the artist folders. But if I click on any album, the content is blank - just a ".."

Just to check: on adding the music source you said yes to "do you want to add this media source to the library", and then could see a progress bar top right showing Kodi looking at files. Then you go into the music library, and can see artists, and click on that the albums by that artist, but not any songs beneath that.

Or are you looking at your file structure from file view?
If not then go to files view - "Files" on the far right of the list of nodes (labled catagories). Can you navigate the file layout and see the music files?

(2018-05-02, 11:55)sitush Wrote: Clearly, Kodi is scanning the file system but not picking up the tags. However, the music most definitely is tagged and I used MusicBrainz Picard to do that job.

If you go into the music library nodes and can see artists or albums then those are derrived from tags. So I am having big doubts over what you are looking at - library or fileview?

(2018-05-02, 11:55)sitush Wrote: Any ideas? I think I must be doing something obvious wrong but as far as I can tell I have followed the manual procedures and, as I said, I'm not finding any help in general web searches or past posts here. Thanks.

I'm afraid it is likely that you are missing a step, maybe the wiki will help - https://kodi.wiki/view/Adding_music_to_the_library

I think you have probably not created a music library, and are just looking at file view.

sitush · 2018-05-02, 14:10

Hi, I am trying to create the library using the steps that you refer to in the wiki. It shows a scan progress bar at top right and does appear to cycle through the folders. I've even removed the Kodi music library source and added from scratch in case there was some sort of corruption but the same problem occurred.

I'll try again shortly and enable logging etc as requested above.

**DaveBlake** · 2018-05-02, 14:23

Yes, a log may be helpful because this does seem very unusual.

What format are your music files - mp3, Flac etc.?
Can you see the music files from file view?

sitush · 2018-05-02, 14:37

(2018-05-02, 12:14)Karellen Wrote: Hello sitush

That is an unusual issue.

1. What format are your music files?
2. Yes there must be some sort of tagging, otherwise Artist and Albums would not have appeared
3. If you go to Music>Files>YourMusicSource, can you see the music files? Can you play them?
4. Have you added anything music related to your advancedsettings.xml file?
4. A debug log will be useful. One that captures an album being scanned into the library. Enable debugging in Settings>System Settings>Logging, restart Kodi then replicate the problem. Once done upload to https://pastebin.com/ or https://paste.ubuntu.com/ and provide the link back here. Note: Full logs only. No partial or redacted logs

Files are mp3.

Going to Music>Files>Source does not show the individual files - can navigate the tree through Artist to Album but below Album it is just ".."

Log at https://paste.kodi.tv/qulaqupowi

Nothing added to the xml file.

sitush · 2018-05-02, 14:48

Just hang on, folks. After uploading the log file, I turned off logging, deleted the music source and tried yet again to set it up from scratch. This time the scan seems to be taking ages compared to previous attempts. I have used exactly the same method as previous but let's just see what happens - no point wasting your time on this if it does resolve.

**DaveBlake** · 2018-05-02, 15:10

Could be some kind of access or permissions issue on the NAS. The log, took a quick look, just shows it check one folder and say it has not changed so no (re-)scan happened. Or maybe the NAS was sleeping and for some reason did not wake?

Let us know if you get a music library this time.

sitush · 2018-05-02, 15:28

It still failed. The NAS is definitely not sleeping, which I suspect is kind of confirmed by the fact that I get the Artist and Album levels.

**DaveBlake** · 2018-05-02, 15:46

When you say you get artist and album levels, I think you mean that you are looking at your folders in file view. To confirm this change an artist or album folder name on the NAS drive (from Windows). What you see is the new name? Kodi music library does not care what you call folders, it uses the tags to identify artists, and albums etc. not folder names.

If file view can not see the music files, scanning to a library isn't going to work. It will cycle through the folders (it can see) looking for music files to read tags from and build the library, but the result will be empty. Next time you do a scan to library it just checks the folders and finds them unchanged so does nothing.

So the question is why can't Kodi see your music files, when it can see your folders? That is a new one on me. Please check the file permissions.

The only other thing I know is that folders with names starting with "." are taken as system folders and ignored. But you can't possibly have every music file in a folder beneath an album folder named starting with ".", can you?

If you can't see anything odd about file permissions, then remove the source one more time, turn on debugging, and add the source again. Paste that log, and I'll see if I can spot anything.

**DaveBlake** · 2018-05-02, 15:57

My other suggestion would be use NFS not Samba. I don't understand the details, but I know that SMB can be trouble.

**jjd-uk** · 2018-05-02, 16:13

Can you access both the folder and files via Windows Explorer?

sitush · 2018-05-02, 16:17

(2018-05-02, 16:13)jjd-uk Wrote: Can you access both the folder and files via Windows Explorer?

Yes.

I am preparing a new log file.

sitush · 2018-05-02, 16:44

Replying to DaveBlake's post.

Yes, if I change a folder name in Windows and then view it using Kodi, I see the revised name. Sometimes when I go into Music I am told that no files have been added to the library, other times it gives me three options - Files being one of them. Playlists is another; I forget the third. I went so far as to completely uninstall/reinstall Kodi and still all this stuff was going on.

The NFS service is only available in Windows 10 Enterprise, I think. As far as I am aware, Samba can be iffy with Linux clients but is pretty much native to Windows clients. I use both Ubuntu and Windows 10 (and some other stuff - I'm an IT tech) but the Kodi device is on Windows 10 Home.

Permissions seem to be fine. Even the PC running Kodi can read/write the relevant shared folders if I drop out of Kodi itself. I saw the "." naming issue (".name" is how Linux hides folders) while researching before my original post here, thanks - none of my folders use special characters

Log at https://paste.kodi.tv/raruroquqe

I'm sorry that this is proving to be so troublesome.

sitush · 2018-05-02, 17:19

I am wondering whether this is some sort of tagging problem. If I open Groove Music on the Kodi machine and add the shared NAS folder then that too does not pick up the tracks; however, if I open the shared folder using Windows Explorer on the Kodi machine and double-click on a track, it opens Groove Music (the default app) and plays just fine.