[Karellen]

**** Update - 8 August 2019 ****
TheTVDB.com have completed their rollback to v2 and all cloudflare caches have been purged of v3 data

Most users should have received the updated scraper version through automatic updates, and scraping using TheTVDB.com is now working correctly.

If you do not have the update yet, see Option 3 below to confirm the correct scraper version and methods to download and install it.

---

This thread relates to the problem caused by the use of the TVDB Scraper after updates performed at TheTVDB.com site on the 2 August 2019.

This issue applies to TheTVDB.com only. TheMovieDB is not affected by this issue

TheTVDB.com are introducing a number of new features as well as some well overdue bug fixes. The most important new feature is adding Movies to their database. This required a redesign of their database and infrastructure which is being rolled out incrementally. The website went live earlier in the week and yesterday the new API was released. The API has caused problems.

For information on the changes to TVDB, read the blog post here... https://beta.thetvdb.com/blog/something_new
For more information on the rollback of the TVDB api changes see this thread on their forum.

The Problem
If you are using the TVDB and attempt to run an Update Library, Refresh or Scan To Library Kodi will crash. This includes Automatic library updates at startup.

This issue has highlighted two problems:

Problem 1- A problem with the new API released by TheTVDB.com which is providing corrupted data
Problem 2- A previously unknown problem within Kodi that causes Kodi to crash Fixed. See option 3 below

In addition to Kodi, the following may also be affected by the change at TheTVDB.com

• Artwork Beef
  
• Skin Helper Services and skins that use them to access extended information from TheTVDB.com
  
• Add-ons that access TheTVDB.com to obtain extended informaiton
  
• Media Managers
  

The Fix
There is currently no fix available to allow you to continue scraping using TheTVDB.com (problem 1). This will be investigated once TheTVDB.com make fixes to the API.
The developers are looking into problem 2.

The fixes are still in process as of 4 August
Problem 1- We are awaiting TheTVDB.com to complete their rollback to a point before this issue started.
Problem 2- Fixed. Kodi has released an updated version of the TVDB scraper. See Option 3 below


The Workaround
The following are temporary solutions to allow you to continue using Kodi and to scrape tv shows.

Problem 2- If you have Update library on startup enabled you may be unable to access Kodi. Two solutions are available
Option 1

• Disconnect from the Internet by removing your wired connection or temporarily switching off WiFi.
  
• Restart Kodi
  
• Once you have access to Kodi disable Update library on startup in the settings page here... Update library on startup
  

Option 2
If you have repeatedly attempted to start Kodi, the above solution may not work. Instead you will need to edit the guisettings.xml file to disable Update library on startup.
 

• The guisettings.xml file is located in your Userdata (wiki) folder
  
• Open the file using Notepad++ or similar text editor. Avoid using word processor type applications like MS Word
  
• Search for this entry <setting id="videolibrary.updateonstartup">true</setting>
  
• Replace with this <setting id="videolibrary.updateonstartup">false</setting>. You are simply changing the >true< to >false<
  
• Save the file
  
• Restart Kodi. You should now have access.
  

Option 3
For those not afraid to dive into the .xml files, see this quick fix posted by the developer of the scraper... https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...pid2873832

metadata.tvdb.com v3.0.16 is now available in the official Kodi repository for v17, v18 & v19.
metadata.tvdb.com v2.0.19 is now available in the official Kodi repository for v16 and older

• If you have not already received the update, then force a repository update by selecting "Check for updates" from the left sideblade menu in My Add-ons.
  
• Alternatively you can download and install from zip here... http://mirrors.kodi.tv/addons/
  
• Earlier versions of Kodi will still need to manually edit the xml file.
  

Note: This update will prevent Kodi from crashing. It will also allow normal scraping except no artwork is scraped as this is an API issue at TheTVDB. If you have local artwork, then this will not be a concern for you as Kodi will continue to scan local artwork.

---

Problem 1- You cannot use TheTVDB.com to scrape new episodes or tv shows into your library. There is limited scraping. See the note for option 3 above
TheMovieDB TV Show scraper is still a viable alternative to add new TV Shows and Episodes to your library.

To change the scraper from TheTVDB.com to TheMovieDB for TV Shows,

• Navigate to Videos>Files and highlight your Source
  
• Call up the Context Menu (wiki)
  
• Select Change content
  
• Select TheMovieDB for TV Shows scraper
  
• Adjust the scraper settings as required
  
• Select OK
  

Notes:

• If adding new episodes to existing shows, then you will need to Refresh the show first from the Information Page (wiki) to replace the TVDB <epidodeguide> URL with the one from TheMovieDB.
  
• If you then revert back to TVDB at a later stage, the show will need to be refreshed again to download the <episodeguide> URL from TheTVDB.com
  
• Other Kodi add-ons which deal with artwork (for example Artwork Beef and the Artwork Helper Script used in some skins) also refer to TVDB and can cause crashes too. If you see crashes when starting playback or when idle (ie not when doing a scrape), please check if you have such add-ons installed (some may be installed as skin dependencies) and try temporarily disabling them until the TVDB rollback is completed and the issue resolved.
  

How to force an update to the latest scraper (v3.0.16 for Jarvis and newer, 2.0.19 for older versions) with the crash fix in place if it does not happen automatically:

• Go to add-ons > add-on browser and then click left to open the blade menu. On there do "check update" and see if triggers things.
  
• If not go to add-ons > add-on browser > my add-ons > add-on repository > Kodi add-on repository and select update. After that try the above again.

Note the fix is only to prevent the scraper crashing Kodi. There are still some issues with the provision of artwork to the scraper, but those are at the TVDB end and are beyond our control (they are working on it).

[SUBJ3CT_M4YH3M]

Hi,

I'm newish to Kodi and I only generally use it for my own files. Without changing anything (it was working last night), it for some reason crashes upon startup. It begins loading into Kodi normally, it begins to scan HDD for new files and as it hits the 87% mark, freezes then jumps to 100% then closes Kodi (no error message, sound effects or anything). I uninstalled 18.2 and installed 18.3 and it has had no effect. I have no idea what's going on since I haven't changed anything. I've updated my graphics driver and any Windows Updates are complete, so I can only assume the Windows update did something...maybe.

I created the advancedsettings.xml file and here is the log: https://paste.kodi.tv/ozuqubixuz.kodi
I hope it tells you something. 

Thanks.

[Karellen]

Well, that is very strange and unexpected. I was able to replicate your problem. It crashed for me to.

Heading off to bed now, but I will look into it tomorrow if no-one else has responded to you. Without any investigation, I will say it is due to the changes TVDB are currently making to their website, and this is an early sign of bigger problems to come.

The issue is related to Demon Lord, Retry! tv show. If you change your scraper to TheMovieDB for TV Shows, does it still crash?

Moved to metadata scrapers forum.

[FlaggDK]

Same here. Kodi 18.3 on Raspberry Pi.
I agree that The TVdb changes seems to be the problem.

If I disconnect my storage before startup Kodi stays running.
If I then reconnect my storage and update a single episode it crashed again.

Check the forum at the TVdb... it seems that they’re having massive problems after updating their api to v3.

[SUBJ3CT_M4YH3M]

Well, that is very strange and unexpected. I was able to replicate your problem. It crashed for me to.

Heading off to bed now, but I will look into it tomorrow if no-one else has responded to you. Without any investigation, I will say it is due to the changes TVDB are currently making to their website, and this is an early sign of bigger problems to come.

The issue is related to Demon Lord, Retry! tv show. If you change your scraper to TheMovieDB for TV Shows, does it still crash?

Moved to metadata scrapers forum.

Ok, thanks for that. If TVDb is having problems then I suppose that does make sense. Just had a look and it looks like they're updating their site. Might explain the issues.

[LadyBananas]

Just wanted to add to the chorus here. I've got 2 OSX installs, and as of about 4 hours ago they're both crashing after 10-30 seconds of startup. Looking at the logs it seems to be the TVDB API, in which case I assume this will be easily replicated by devs, but let me know if you need any.

[HYPERIONzoom]

Me too. Just started for me tonight.

Using TVDB scraper, when a new TV show is found (any new TV show) Kodi crashes. I switched to "The Movie Database" scraper for one of my drives (the one with the new TV show) and that cured the problem. Updating the library using "The Movie Database" scraper does not crash Kodi however "The Movie Database" scrapes a lot of shows incorrectly so it's not a viable substitute for TVDB.

I noticed that TVDB made some changes to their website recently. Maybe that has something to do with it?

[DarrenHill]

Yes, it has everything to do with it unfortunately. They have a new version and API etc, and it seems to be causing no end of problems.

We don't currently have an active developer of the TVDB scraper, which is why the newer Kodi installs use the movieDB for TV as well as movies, albeit as noted their database isn't quite as good as TVDB in some cases.

But the team is aware of the issue and hopefully something can be done about it once the TVDB site gets their act together and stabilises things.

[HYPERIONzoom]

Thanks, I'm put at ease knowing that the Kodi team at least is aware of the problem and that someway, somehow that it will be resolved if not now but at least sometime in the future.

Thanks again.

[ribtin]

Good to see I'm not the only one having this problem.

I think I've found a workaround by using the XEM scraper for TV-series, and set that to get episodes from TVDB. As far as I can tell, the end result is just the same, but I'm not sure...?

[LadyBananas]

As far as I can tell, tvdb broke something pretty basic yet important. Hopefully they sort it out soon and everything goes back to normal!

[Stelth]

If show exist already, one can update that show with new episodes by using look for new content with tvdb scraper

[sPOiDar]

So, I understand that TVDB may be messing with their API, but there's no way that should result in a segfault of kodi - something is clearly quite wrong with the scaper/curl code for this to happen (this thread has a couple of stack traces). Since the scrapers are pure XML now, the bug that results in a segfault must be in the core kodi codebase, and probably affects all scrapers, under certain conditions.

[DarrenHill]

For those getting crashes on start-up due to having "update library on start-up" enabled, that can be disabled by manually editing the guisettings.xml file (found in the userdata (wiki) folder - back it up first before making any edits) and changing

Code:

<setting id="videolibrary.updateonstartup" default="true">true</setting>

to

Code:

<setting id="videolibrary.updateonstartup" default="true">false</setting>

(credit to @itom412 in this post for the details).

[shedrock]

Is anyone having an issue with The TVDB today? Every time I scan my library the system restarts. I am using LibreELEC if that helps. I also checked in the logs and I don't see anything in there.

UPDATE: I don't have this issue when I change the content to use The Movie DB, so I guess it's safe to say it is a TVDB issue?

Thanks in advance,

Shedrock