[ozmale]

This is how I have my folder set up for extrafanart. Is it kodi or I'm i doing something wrong?

@nomnom27 

No it's not you, it's Kodi or some addon.

As I tried to explain earlier, in the last round of updates either the skin or one of the addons broke a bunch of stuff, extrafanart is just one of the victims.

At this point you have two choices: a) move your extrafanart from extrafanart folder to the movie folder or b) Sit tight and live with no extra fanart until it gets fixed. 

You most definitely are not the only user experiencing this issue and I trust it is being looked into as I type this.

As far I know, extrafanart folder support was or is removed/removing from kodi, the new addon that's replacing older artwork beef, atwork dumb, stores artwork in the same folder as movie or tvshow. Extrafanart support are harcoded in some skins and addons and, as far i know, is causing kodi crashes when trying to acces folder and it does not existe, now it's in early stages of removing from skins and addons, and latts have plans to remove support too, so maybe it start doing it... The solution is, as some one commented, move/copy artwork just out of the extrafanart folder (needed to rename to match movie file name or show folder name), or just use artwork-dump addon to retrieve again all existing artwork to the right place and maintain for some time extrafanart folder too to avoid unwanted kodi crashes.

It would seem you are correct.
I did some testing.
All my movies are in folders structured like this. Created by "Media Companion"

each movie is in it own folder

drive
   |------Movies (folder)
                  |-----Movie name (folder)
                                 |-------  .actors (folder)
                                 |                 |  actor1.jpg
                                 |                 |  actor2.jpg
                                 |
                                 | ------- extrafanart  (folder)
                                 |                  |  fanart1.jpg
                                 |                  |  fanart2.jpg
                                 |
                                 |--------- extrathumbs (folder)
                                 |                   | thumb1.jpg
                                 |                    | thumb2.jpg
                                 |
                                 Movie name.mkv
                                 Movie name.nfo
                                 Movie name-poster.jpg
                                 Movie name-banner.jpg

                                 etc


Kodi 18 was reading the content of the "extrafanart" folder and using it. Kodi 19 (or the MQ7 skin) (from my testing) is not reading the "extrafanart" folder at all.
For kodi 19 to read the extrafanart images they must be located in the same root folder as the "movie name.mkv" above.
If you setup "artwork dump" correctly it will download the extrafanart and save it where ever your movie file is located. BUT, it seems to only do this the very first time you add a particular movie. There seems to be no way to force it to download and save the extrafanart if the movie is already in the library.  Also "Artwork dump" defaults to downloading only one image you need to change that to as many as you want.

Foot note.  I have no idea if the "extrathumbs" (folder) is ever used for anything. Media companion creates it and is a duplicate content of the "extrafanart" folder.

[agungdeppe]

@agungdeppe
Have you tried removing your existing Skin Helper and install from the repo?

---

....

after I checked in my Kodi add-ons, Context Menus-Skin Helper Service is not yet install, and I couldn't install it, same error..
how to properly removing existing Skin Helper?
in my folder: /Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons/
I couldn't find any folder for Skin Helper, only folder something like this:
- script.skin.helper.backgrounds
- script.skin.helper.colorpicker
- script.skin.helper.skinbackup
- script.skin.info.service

@agungdeppe

Try checking folder /Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons/temp/  and delete anything in there then check /Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons/packages/  and delete any script.skin.helper.service files from there.
Then try to install from repo.
If it still doesn't work repeat steps to clean left over files.
After cleaning download zip file here and install from zip.
Finally should none of the above work the last thing I can suggest is unzipping the file and (with Kodi shut down) manually copy the unzipped folder to Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons/

Hi Juan,
Wow.. awesome! thank you so much....It Works !!
after deleting all files in /temp/ and delete script.skin.helper.service.zip in /packages/ 
finally I can Install Skin Helper Service from Latts repo, no more annoying pop-up to install this add-on 
and also thanks for free up space my android box, almost 1GB in temp folder 

[Panko]

@nomnom27 

No it's not you, it's Kodi or some addon.

As I tried to explain earlier, in the last round of updates either the skin or one of the addons broke a bunch of stuff, extrafanart is just one of the victims.

At this point you have two choices: a) move your extrafanart from extrafanart folder to the movie folder or b) Sit tight and live with no extra fanart until it gets fixed. 

You most definitely are not the only user experiencing this issue and I trust it is being looked into as I type this.

As far I know, extrafanart folder support was or is removed/removing from kodi, the new addon that's replacing older artwork beef, atwork dumb, stores artwork in the same folder as movie or tvshow. Extrafanart support are harcoded in some skins and addons and, as far i know, is causing kodi crashes when trying to acces folder and it does not existe, now it's in early stages of removing from skins and addons, and latts have plans to remove support too, so maybe it start doing it... The solution is, as some one commented, move/copy artwork just out of the extrafanart folder (needed to rename to match movie file name or show folder name), or just use artwork-dump addon to retrieve again all existing artwork to the right place and maintain for some time extrafanart folder too to avoid unwanted kodi crashes.

It would seem you are correct.
I did some testing.
All my movies are in folders structured like this. Created by "Media Companion"

each movie is in it own folder

drive
   |------Movies (folder)
                  |-----Movie name (folder)
                                 |-------  .actors (folder)
                                 |                 |  actor1.jpg
                                 |                 |  actor2.jpg
                                 |
                                 | ------- extrafanart  (folder)
                                 |                  |  fanart1.jpg
                                 |                  |  fanart2.jpg
                                 |
                                 |--------- extrathumbs (folder)
                                 |                   | thumb1.jpg
                                 |                    | thumb2.jpg
                                 |
                                 Movie name.mkv
                                 Movie name.nfo
                                 Movie name-poster.jpg
                                 Movie name-banner.jpg

                                 etc


Kodi 18 was reading the content of the "extrafanart" folder and using it. Kodi 19 (or the MQ7 skin) (from my testing) is not reading the "extrafanart" folder at all.
For kodi 19 to read the extrafanart images they must be located in the same root folder as the "movie name.mkv" above.
If you setup "artwork dump" correctly it will download the extrafanart and save it where ever your movie file is located. BUT, it seems to only do this the very first time you add a particular movie. There seems to be no way to force it to download and save the extrafanart if the movie is already in the library.  Also "Artwork dump" defaults to downloading only one image you need to change that to as many as you want.

Foot note.  I have no idea if the "extrathumbs" (folder) is ever used for anything. Media companion creates it and is a duplicate content of the "extrafanart" folder.

Don't know about extrathumb, I only use 1 thumb and its that kodi extracts from video, not downloaded. On the other side, to get more than 1 image you need to configure it on artworkdump addon. It can download all images and replace files where they exists if you want. Does not remember where you can configure artwork to download, I think I remember it was in skin settings or kodi settings, not in artworkdump config.
ah! Artworkdump will download all artkworks for your library even if it was created some time ago, not only for new additions.

Note: advancedsettings.xml are not use anymore, so artwork whitelist you have configured will not take in consideration, you need to configure "level" to download (all artwork, basic...) on skin or kodi settings.

[Juan Mortyme]

This is how I have my folder set up for extrafanart. Is it kodi or I'm i doing something wrong?

@nomnom27 

No it's not you, it's Kodi or some addon.

As I tried to explain earlier, in the last round of updates either the skin or one of the addons broke a bunch of stuff, extrafanart is just one of the victims.

At this point you have two choices: a) move your extrafanart from extrafanart folder to the movie folder or b) Sit tight and live with no extra fanart until it gets fixed. 

You most definitely are not the only user experiencing this issue and I trust it is being looked into as I type this.

As far I know, extrafanart folder support was or is removed/removing from kodi, the new addon that's replacing older artwork beef, atwork dumb, stores artwork in the same folder as movie or tvshow. Extrafanart support are harcoded in some skins and addons and, as far i know, is causing kodi crashes when trying to acces folder and it does not existe, now it's in early stages of removing from skins and addons, and latts have plans to remove support too, so maybe it start doing it... The solution is, as some one commented, move/copy artwork just out of the extrafanart folder (needed to rename to match movie file name or show folder name), or just use artwork-dump addon to retrieve again all existing artwork to the right place and maintain for some time extrafanart folder too to avoid unwanted kodi crashes.

Hi, yes I'm aware that Kodi has in fact never used extrafanart folder natively. It's the doings of addons and skins that made it work, BTW, it was I who suggest either migrating the art or wait on a fix. 

I spoke with Latts earlier and he is away from his rig for a bit but is going to get on it in a day or two. Hopefully a fix or band-aid will be ready by the weekend. These MQ skins and Mods have the extrafanart folder support either built-in or via skin.helper.service. I relayed to Latts my experiences and failed attempt to figure it out along with those problems other user have mentioned. I'm no coder but after activating script and addon's debugging logs it appears to my untrained eye to be one or two lines of code causing errors which then have a ripple effect.  

I too tried downgrading, upgrading and even sidegrading. Found and tried new scripts not in repos yet that I got off github but alas, just like you I got no love. 

I have been migrating my art since first install of Matrix RC1 to eliminate extrafanart folders. Even if Latts get this all working again I'm looking at as futureproofing so if, or rather when, developers get bored and abandon there scripts and addons I won't be left scrambling. Actually the art doesn't need to be moviename-whateverart.jpg to work. That's only required if movies are not in individual folders. They work fine with short filenames or even a mix so long as all the media files are in individual folders, which they should be anyway for a few other reasons as well.

So, the good news is that Latts is aware of the situation and has and will continue to work on these issues. Hopefully this whack-a-mole game will end sooner rather than later and we can all get back to spending our time using kodi instead of trying to fix it.

Thanks to everyone who has been posting bug reports and bouncing ideas back and forth with me, trust me even failed attempts at fixes help. It saves Latts from wasting time trying different things that we have already demonstrated don't provide a solution. As we all learn a bit more thru the trial and error process the likelihood that we will actually find solutions ourselves increases. It takes a village or in this case a community.

[Juan Mortyme]

As far I know, extrafanart folder support was or is removed/removing from kodi, the new addon that's replacing older artwork beef, atwork dumb, stores artwork in the same folder as movie or tvshow. Extrafanart support are harcoded in some skins and addons and, as far i know, is causing kodi crashes when trying to acces folder and it does not existe, now it's in early stages of removing from skins and addons, and latts have plans to remove support too, so maybe it start doing it... The solution is, as some one commented, move/copy artwork just out of the extrafanart folder (needed to rename to match movie file name or show folder name), or just use artwork-dump addon to retrieve again all existing artwork to the right place and maintain for some time extrafanart folder too to avoid unwanted kodi crashes.

It would seem you are correct.
I did some testing.
All my movies are in folders structured like this. Created by "Media Companion"

each movie is in it own folder

drive
   |------Movies (folder)
                  |-----Movie name (folder)
                                 |-------  .actors (folder)
                                 |                 |  actor1.jpg
                                 |                 |  actor2.jpg
                                 |
                                 | ------- extrafanart  (folder)
                                 |                  |  fanart1.jpg
                                 |                  |  fanart2.jpg
                                 |
                                 |--------- extrathumbs (folder)
                                 |                   | thumb1.jpg
                                 |                    | thumb2.jpg
                                 |
                                 Movie name.mkv
                                 Movie name.nfo
                                 Movie name-poster.jpg
                                 Movie name-banner.jpg

                                 etc


Kodi 18 was reading the content of the "extrafanart" folder and using it. Kodi 19 (or the MQ7 skin) (from my testing) is not reading the "extrafanart" folder at all.
For kodi 19 to read the extrafanart images they must be located in the same root folder as the "movie name.mkv" above.
If you setup "artwork dump" correctly it will download the extrafanart and save it where ever your movie file is located. BUT, it seems to only do this the very first time you add a particular movie. There seems to be no way to force it to download and save the extrafanart if the movie is already in the library.  Also "Artwork dump" defaults to downloading only one image you need to change that to as many as you want.

Foot note.  I have no idea if the "extrathumbs" (folder) is ever used for anything. Media companion creates it and is a duplicate content of the "extrafanart" folder.

Don't know about extrathumb, I only use 1 thumb and its that kodi extracts from video, not downloaded. On the other side, to get more than 1 image you need to configure it on artworkdump addon. It can download all images and replace files where they exists if you want. Does not remember where you can configure artwork to download, I think I remember it was in skin settings or kodi settings, not in artworkdump config.
ah! Artworkdump will download all artkworks for your library even if it was created some time ago, not only for new additions.

Note: advancedsettings.xml are not use anymore, so artwork whitelist you have configured will not take in consideration, you need to configure "level" to download (all artwork, basic...) on skin or kodi settings.

Media Companion can be configured to not use extrafanart or extrathumbs folder. It might still create it but it won't use it. Kodi itself never recognized extrafanart folders. That has and still is a mod contained in skins and addons.

I would caution anyone using the "import all artwork" setting in the media>video. It is serious when it says "all" it imported my icon files, folder files, and any other .jpg, .png, .gif, files that were lurking in the movie folders. Even misspelled files. I notice this when I trued to select artwork from within the Kodi gui. I ended up with a very long list of crap to scroll through in the select art dialogue. It is much much better to take the time to config "custom" setting.

Tip of the day. For those using Media Companion you can also save space by using a central folder to store actor thumbs rather than an .actors folder in ever movie, Tv show and music video. Using a central folder eliminates redundancy and in the case of large libraries can save significant space.

As for Artworkdumb if I'm not mistaken if you run it like you did artworkbeef it will move you artwork either copy the artwork from extraartwork folder to movie folder or redownload it, supposedly. I never had any luck with it as it consistently crashed kodi after a half dozen movies or TV shows.

[ozmale]

@Juan Mortyme Tip of the day. For those using Media Companion you can also save space by using a central folder to store actor thumbs rather than an .actors folder in ever movie, Tv show and music video. Using a central folder eliminates redundancy and in the case of large libraries can save significant space.

If you use Media Companion to create a central actors folder will Kodi find and use it ?  I am trying to avoid this constant downloading of images and stuff. I like it all stored locally.

Chris

[Juan Mortyme]

@Juan Mortyme Tip of the day. For those using Media Companion you can also save space by using a central folder to store actor thumbs rather than an .actors folder in ever movie, Tv show and music video. Using a central folder eliminates redundancy and in the case of large libraries can save significant space.

If you use Media Companion to create a central actors folder will Kodi find and use it ?  I am trying to avoid this constant downloading of images and stuff. I like it all stored locally.

Chris

Yes, Kodi will find local actor thumbs if there is a path in the nfo file. Media Companion with add that path if configured to do so. By using different profiles in Media Companion it is even posable to use different storage locations for different categories. For instance I have a separate storage folder for musicians and another for sports players. If you want to manually add thumbs that don't get scraped just add the path in the nfo.

This really only works properly with movies. Kodi has a completely different way of finding and rules to displaying actors for TV show episodes (which in my opinion is messed up). With a little work and experimenting you can get episode actors thumbs to display.

Also Kodi has/had problems displaying art and thumbs from local area networks and required art to be stored on individual machines. More on that in different threads.

[Juan Mortyme]

@Juan Mortyme Tip of the day. For those using Media Companion you can also save space by using a central folder to store actor thumbs rather than an .actors folder in ever movie, Tv show and music video. Using a central folder eliminates redundancy and in the case of large libraries can save significant space.

If you use Media Companion to create a central actors folder will Kodi find and use it ?  I am trying to avoid this constant downloading of images and stuff. I like it all stored locally.

Chris

@ozmale 

For you and anybody else using Media Companion here is the instructions page for using a central actors folder and having the path automatically saved in the nfo files.

Personally, I find this option extremely useful.

Note: if you decide one day to move or change the name of your actors folder you can use an xml editor capable of doing bulk/global edits (my choice is notepad++) to change the path in all nfo files at once which is a whole lot easier that doing them one by one. The same principle applies for adding missing images and path after the fact. Remember that after any edit to a nfo file the media must be reloaded or re-scraped for changes to take effect.

[Juan Mortyme]

after I checked in my Kodi add-ons, Context Menus-Skin Helper Service is not yet install, and I couldn't install it, same error..
how to properly removing existing Skin Helper?
in my folder: /Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons/
I couldn't find any folder for Skin Helper, only folder something like this:
- script.skin.helper.backgrounds
- script.skin.helper.colorpicker
- script.skin.helper.skinbackup
- script.skin.info.service

@agungdeppe

Try checking folder /Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons/temp/  and delete anything in there then check /Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons/packages/  and delete any script.skin.helper.service files from there.
Then try to install from repo.
If it still doesn't work repeat steps to clean left over files.
After cleaning download zip file here and install from zip.
Finally should none of the above work the last thing I can suggest is unzipping the file and (with Kodi shut down) manually copy the unzipped folder to Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons/

Hi Juan,
Wow.. awesome! thank you so much....It Works !!
after deleting all files in /temp/ and delete script.skin.helper.service.zip in /packages/ 
finally I can Install Skin Helper Service from Latts repo, no more annoying pop-up to install this add-on 
and also thanks for free up space my android box, almost 1GB in temp folder 

@agungdeppe 

I'm glad that worked for you. Cleaning the temp folder was something I tried after reading the log following a series of failed install attempt a while back. The log contained a line like "failed to copy to temp folder". It seems that there are left over files in the temp folder after any failed install and those corrupt files prevent future install attempts. So, now I just manually clear the temp folder after any failed install. I would recommend everybody do likewise.

The packages folder can get really large real fast. If space saving is an issue you should clean that folder regularly and particularly after installing or updating skins or large addons (like images or icons).

Another space waster is the thumbnails folder. Cleaning thumbnails folder regularly will free up a lot of space. The downside of deleting thumbnails folder are;  1) The first run of Kodi after cleaning thumbnails will be noticeably slower as art is re-cached, similar to first run after importing your library. 2) If you don't store you artwork locally it will need to be re-downloaded the next time it's needed this also slows things down and might be an issue for those with slow internet or limited bandwidth. Therefor I don't recommend it unless you store you artwork locally.

Anybody. On the subject of cleaning. There used to be addons/scripts that would do folder cleaning and cache cleaning. Most of them could even do it automatically. These addons have all but disappeared. Does anybody know of one that is still around and works with Matrix (and obviously, not associated with a banned repo or build)?  Suggestions, anyone?

[MB1968]

Anybody. On the subject of cleaning. There used to be addons/scripts that would do folder cleaning and cache cleaning. Most of them could even do it automatically. These addons have all but disappeared. Does anybody know of one that is still around and works with Matrix (and obviously, not associated with a banned repo or build)?  Suggestions, anyone?

Yes. Install KCleaner from the DaLanik repo:
http://kodi.lanik.org/_repo/lanik.repo/l...-1.0.2.zip

[Juan Mortyme]

Anybody. On the subject of cleaning. There used to be addons/scripts that would do folder cleaning and cache cleaning. Most of them could even do it automatically. These addons have all but disappeared. Does anybody know of one that is still around and works with Matrix (and obviously, not associated with a banned repo or build)?  Suggestions, anyone?

Yes. Install KCleaner from the DaLanik repo:
http://kodi.lanik.org/_repo/lanik.repo/l...-1.0.2.zip

@MB1968 

Thank you very much.  

I haven't had a chance to use all the options yet, it certainly is feature rich and doesn't try to push some bloated bs "build" on you. Potentially the best AIO housework solution I've seen. Nice! It's just what the doctor ordered!

Again, thank you.

[sridall]

Beautiful skin, absolutely love the Movie page...

This is my first post so apologies if I am in the wrong area.

I was wondering is someone can help me with the music Artist Sideshow. It works fantastically well when retrieving images from Fanart TV but I cannot get it to recognize my local artwork. I have tried adding images as fanartxx to the media extrafanart folder, creating customized local folder in add-on storage location and Music media (that seems to work as I can see it created extrafanart folder in that location). One thing I did notice is that there is an ERROR in the kodi log file that says it cannot open the media extrafanart folder but I see one of the images as background so I am assuming it can open the folder. I did manage to get the Thumbs and banner working by specifying the file location but not the slideshow. Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance

Steve

[Juan Mortyme]

Beautiful skin, absolutely love the Movie page...

This is my first post so apologies if I am in the wrong area.

I was wondering is someone can help me with the music Artist Sideshow. It works fantastically well when retrieving images from Fanart TV but I cannot get it to recognize my local artwork. I have tried adding images as fanartxx to the media extrafanart folder, creating customized local folder in add-on storage location and Music media (that seems to work as I can see it created extrafanart folder in that location). One thing I did notice is that there is an ERROR in the kodi log file that says it cannot open the media extrafanart folder but I see one of the images as background so I am assuming it can open the folder. I did manage to get the Thumbs and banner working by specifying the file location but not the slideshow. Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance

Steve

@sridall 

Not a guaranteed solution but rather a shot in the dark. There has been debate about "extrafanart" folders. To have or not to have, that is the question? Are you sure the image you do see is not fanart.jpg rather than fanartxx.jpg? You could try changing the ART settings in the Top Settings dropdown if it is available in the view you are using.

It might not be a skin specific problem since I've not seen it mentioned here before. If you fail to get a solution here I suggest you try the Artist Slideshow wiki page or Artist Slideshow support thread. You'll probably find answers there if others are experiencing trouble with that addon.

[MB1968]

Thank you very much.  

I haven't had a chance to use all the options yet, it certainly is feature rich and doesn't try to push some bloated bs "build" on you. Potentially the best AIO housework solution I've seen. Nice! It's just what the doctor ordered!

Again, thank you.

I'm glad you like it. The addon does wat it is supposed to do. I'm using it since I started with Kodi 5 yrs ago.

Here's the thread.
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=307919

Unfortunately the developer is no longer active on this forum. That's a pity because it was a kind fellow.

[latts9923]

UPDATE #10 - This will update the skin to v1.0.1.0

The newest version of my repo (v3.0.0) is now available. You should be able to update the existing repo with this version by changing the source URL of my repo, or download the zip and install it manually.

I will get back to work on this extrafanart problem as soon as I can.

Bug fixes

• I forgot to add the white IMAX icon to the Textures file. Thanks to ozmale for reporting the bug!
  

Maintenance

• I separated the HIDE STUDIO/LOGO FOR BOXSETS button in the Top Menu for KodiFlix and KodiFlixTV into two buttons...HIDE STUDIO FOR BOXSETS and HIDE LOGO FOR BOXSETS. Thanks to TrailFoX for the request!
  
• I changed the width of the poster, keyart and character art poster for the Video Info screen. It was a tad too wide and caused the image to be distorted. Thanks to shedrock for letting me know!