[Defence]

guys, i've resisted upgrading because I adore the PM3.HD skin. (incompatible with newer kodi builds) but it looks like now i must upgrade as scraping only gives me posters and fanart (no details at all - plot, running time, etc)

i've resigned to the fact i won't have ProjectMayhem3HD but i'm mega sad about it!!!

anyway, i tried the backup plugin but it's incompatible with 15, and the old 15 backup file is incompatible with the new version of backup for some reason.
i tried copying the folders userdata, media + addons from 15 to 19 to the new PC - when i loaded kodi, it had nothing at all in movies/tv but it did have my favourites with artwork and posters. it did say some addons incompatible.

i would love to get my setup across. should i just export to single file to test? (with images) last time i tried it took way too long (50,000episodes, 9000movies) that's why i tried the shortcuts above. lol.

thx

[Karellen]

@Defence

You are not going to like it, but I strongly recommend that you start from fresh and rescrape your library.

There have been too many changes between v15 and v19. There are new metadata fields, especially with Movie Sets. There are new artwork types and names.

I don't know if you have local artwork, but if you don't then most of your artwork links will be dead as the scraper sites have conducted a couple of massive artwork purges over the last 6 years.

If I were you, I would take this as an opportunity to rearrange your library (if needed) and rescrape fresh data and new artwork.

Ensure you have movies split into quite a few Sources (don't put all 9000 movies in one or two sources). For that many movies I would have 10+ movie sources. Then scrape a small batch at a time. Same with your TV Shows.

Ideally, before you start tearing apart your existing Kodi, install v19 as a Portable Installation and test it before starting on your main library... https://kodi.wiki/view/Portable_mode

When comes time to install Kodi, save your roaming folder just in case you need any info out of it. See the last picture on this page... https://kodi.wiki/view/Backup#Windows

[Klojum]

I'd do a Video Library Export with separate files, as the single-file export of Kodi v15 isn't fully dependable. It may take some time, but see it as an investment. On the one hand you have a metadata backup, on the other hand the import into the new database should go much quicker than with a fully new internet-download situation.

[Defence]

thx guys, Karellen is right i don't like that answer!! lol but i get it i'll give export separate files a whirl first, test the new skins etc on portable - i do have separate locations for the files so yeah i could do 1 a day if i rescrape everything. i hope i'll be able to find updated versions of my fave plugins

thx for the help