[izprtxqkft]

my experience with kodi of late has been equatable to using windows xp pre sp1 and overall windows in general. strictly an opinion post, a little feedback to the community in general, not intended negatively.
my standard use case is 99% on a firetv cube so thats what "my experience" refers to

with kodi it feels unstable like windows xp pre sp1, it works fine if you dont do too much but if you do itll surely crash on you
if you put in the effort to customizing everything perfect, like you would on xp, you can pretty much expect good results with minimal crashing

i dont use windows because of the way i have to spend 85% of my time fixing it and 15% using it and it seems to be that way for me on kodi as well
it could be ocd wanting everything to just work as intended without much interference

im posting this because i realized i give up on features and addons that dont work properly just saying "thats a limitation of a free software, im sure glad people have put in the effort so i can have what i do"
but its happening more and more often, addons are breaking that did work, addons that should work dont
just yesterday i tried to setup audio passthrough for testing and when it didnt work i put my hands in the air and said oh well then didnt use it

then i tried to use the prime video addon and it kept freezing so i had to use the official app ignore this, the addon isnt even in development any longer
the youtube addon despite extremely detailed setup has never worked so i use the official app
and it just keeps going this way, "oh well that doesnt work dont use it"

if anyone reading this asks themselves "would i turn this over to my grandmother and expect she would be able to use it reliably?" most would answer no

i appreciate all the efforts that go into each and every addon and feature, i appreciate the difficulties of supporting such a wide array of platforms and i applaud them as well

i would just like to see a little more polishing and fewer options that dont work, i would rather say it something doesnt work because it hasnt been completed yet rather than because its broken

thank you for a good product at a $0 price and the ability due to open source to change add and fix everything i want the way i want

[PatK]

use case is 99% on a firetv cube

Thanks for the feed back, appreciated of course. In some defence of the effort that is Kodi, serious home theatre enthusiasts do not limit the hardware in respect of gfx engine, memory, processor power and connectivity. In many situations of under powered, hamstrung gfx, memory limitations and compromised o/s can be the root of some disconnect.  As noted Kodi across platform in a stable installation is very much a workable solution for many, but as an open source project we offer a gateway to many possibilities, which includes 3rd party coding that may not be vetted across multiple o/s to the dismay of those who take the opportunity to expand capabilities without regard to the nature of code overlays in some instances.

Look at Kodi as a media library manager with a built in player, if it all works well, then take it for what is offered and enjoy. Issues; look for support in this forum in the appropriate thread, but beware if your set-up includes 3rd party extras, then that responsibility will fall with those authors, artists and support personal (some of which have abandoned their contributions, or only support one specific configuration). As an exception Kodi offers the privilege of External players (wiki) this solution may not extend to all o/s but is an alternative worth exploring should the default be insufficient for your needs. Knowledgeable users that keep abreast of industry changes and the team efforts; and enjoy the capabilities of open sourced software, appreciate the advances we all enjoy.

Should you wish to bring some semblance of stability to your present set-up one issue at a time, post in the proper support thread with a proper debug log so others may comment.

[izprtxqkft]

there is no need to defend as im not attacking, yes i completely understand team kodi is not responsible for most addons i was addressing the community as a whole
my intention is not to tear down or diminish anyone's efforts or abilities i hope to encourage people to strive toward a more polished product that even grandma can use
there are indeed a lot of ready and willing people here on the forum waiting for an opportunity to help out, ive noticed the efforts and have tried to offer some of my own (whether or not my help is actually helpful is another subject)

im a stubborn person who likes to fix everything myself so i dont usually ask anyone to do things i havent put the effort in to try and solve myself first
inevitably that usually results in reverse engineering something to the point where its no longer feasible and taking the path of least resistance ensues, thus just use an official app

[jjd-uk]

In my opinion there's a good chance that nearly all your problems are due to running Kodi on Android. Never had a single crash in 3 years of using LibreElec, and have found Windows to be extremely stable as well. I once tried Kodi on Android, and the experience was too slow for me after being used to Kodi on x64 devices.

[izprtxqkft]

good call jjd-uk i raised a new feature request that addons could note they are targeting a certain platform so other results may vary

that was a good suggestion PatK with the external player, i tried to setup a custom protocol for prime video "amzn://" on android but with no fault of kodi whatsoever the prime video app doesnt want to be started with an android intent, was worth a try

i did as suggested and try to figure something out to stabilize my setup, 1 addon deprecated, waited 3 hours for someone to tell me they dont know what im talking about and 8 hours for no response to an over complicated question that exceeds what can be asked here. so doing it myself is still better. 10 hours later its still the same answer "oh well it doesnt work dont use it" and move on

[Flyinby]

Well, my wife (not a techie by any means) uses Kodi on a Windows machine, an NVidia Shield, and our Sony A80k tv, set to our liking, and I can't even remember the last time I had to help her out of a problem with either.  I have had some unexplained crashes using it on a little cheap 4k Android box, but mostly it works OK, and I attribute the crashes to the cheap Android box.  So maybe it's something to do with the Fire, or you're pushing the envelope too far in tweaking it.

However, I also use Windows on several at-home computers (10 and 7, not XP, of course) and once I set up the machine to my liking, very seldom have to deal with any issues.  Gave up on Macs years ago since they were always crashing where I worked at a prepress software developer.  I want things that work, without me having to tinker with them all the time.  Perhaps Windows knows you don't like it and is getting even...8^).

[izprtxqkft]

... So maybe it's something to do with the Fire, or you're pushing the envelope too far in tweaking it. ...

i am getting the impression that the fire is not the right device for the job, its what ive been using since the gen1 cube came out so i just keep on with it, lately utilizing streaming features that need L1 for 4k so going back to a non-L1 capable device isnt really an option, but its what i chose and i should learn to live with my choices

still i really just want to push people to do their level best and to continue redefining what their best level is

[black_eagle]

We have RPi's in the kitchen and 2 bedrooms running LibreElec and never have a problem with them.  Main instance runs on Ubuntu and again, no issues with it.  There is an android version installed on my main TV, but I can't remember the last time I actually used it.  Might update it to a current nightly just for the DV stuff as that's all it'll get used for.

[izprtxqkft]

well now the question is, which rpi's and can you get L1 widevine

[black_eagle]

well now the question is, which rpi's and can you get L1 widevine

All Pi3b's.  No need of widevine, I have no paid subscription services and don't intend on getting any.  Live TV comes from satellite and freeview tuners, aggregated by TVHeadend.  Radio is streamed off the net and the rest of it is local content on my server.

[izprtxqkft]

well the endless fixing things and the realization that my media experience is actually being diminished by using kodi on android tv (things currently being worked on in kodi already work in other apps) has finally come to a head

i hope to try newer versions of kodi in the future but as of the current stable release of v20 its simply not up to the task for me and addon developers arent keeping up with changes

if theres any consideration in future editions to lean on native android playback via exoplayer or another solution it would greatly improve user experience on this platform

another improvement for user experience would be to flag broken addons so kodi isnt held in a lower regard because of something outside its developers' control

yes i also realize this is all because i want to run it on an android tv os (fireos)

kodi itself is made to work on android but is not specifically designed for android

and if i were to use it on a platform it is designed for i would have a better experience

thanks for all the efforts, it is greatly appreciated in all aspects of the project

my experience is of my own doing, most people will disagree with this and thats fine, nobody is expected to agree

[PatK]

most people will disagree with this

Again thanks for the feedback, and yes I'm in that disagreement line-up, but appreciate alternative views. Using an Amazon fire stick 4K running Kodi offers most of my library at hand without difficulty along with the lean back offerings with commercials that the o/s provides.   Could Kodi be better? of course but it requires a community effort and willing participants with support. I don't think there is a lot of enthusiasm for minimal hardware adaptions that are produced as a manufacturers compromise (not a lot of complaints from the Nvidia Shield users given it's limitations). There is facility to lock out 3rd party apps that are marked broken or otherwise abandoned but keeping up requires community effort and reporting, we do our best. Should you or anyone else take up this opportunity, the effort will not go UN-noticed.

platform it is designed for i would have a better experience

Kodi in default mode plays well across platform, but of course heftier equipment offers more capability. In all, unless there is memory constraints, I suspect Kodi on your set-up will still be in your future.

[jbinkley60]

Similar to @black_eagle  I have many Kodi clients running on Intel NUCs, Vero 4K+ s, Raspberry Pis and Windows  (Not to mention many VMs running Kodi 18, 19 and 20 for development).  They are all Windows or Linux systems (LibreElec, OSMC etc..)  I choose to sync them all and maintain a very high level of automation with a "set and forget" approach to streaming my content leveraging Mezzmo.  Others here use different sharing solutions, which provides users options and flexibility.  Many other solutions may only provide one sharing option.  Prior to this setup I tried a number of other non-Kodi solutions over a few years with varying and less than satisfactory results.  I ended up and have stayed with Kodi and devoted a lot of my personal time to addon development because the platform is so open, stable and there is great community support.  

My setup is wife and grandchildren approved, which is the ultimate test.  A couple of things I try to is keep things standard (including how I rip media), let the various pieces do what they are best at,  keep it simple and keep the number of Kodi addons only to what is absolutely necessary.  I agree the more recent moves to Kodi 19 and 20 have introduced some instability into the community as support has dropped for some addons as Kodi has moved to a newer version of Python and deprecated some Python calls.  This is one of the reasons I have tried to add so much functionality int the Mezzmo Kodi addon I support and to keep the number of other addons as low as possible.

I think Google plays a hand here in some of the Android issues.  A simple look through the forums and you can see all of the various issues across the various Android platforms due to various updates.  I view Android as a necessary evil and not something I want to support.  I'll leave that to the professional developers.  At one point I started down the Kodi on Android route about 5 years ago, trying to get to that "one box which does all" and it didn't take long to see the issues begin to develop.  All of my main TVs have 2 boxes, a Kodi box and a Roku box.  The Roku box handles all of the various streaming services and the Kodi boxes handle all of my local 300GB+ of content, Internet radio and similar. 

This may not be for everyone but it is rock solid for me.  I spend no time on Kodi maintenance and minimal time managing / scraping my library.  It's pretty much automatic and just runs.  If it wasn't and I was always fixing things I wouldn't have time to do any development, help others and I'd be dealing with the wife / grandchildren.  That isn't an option at my house   


Jeff

[TheBuz]

I have done basically the same but with Emby. and the Emby4Kodi plugin.

Emby as the backend managing the library (and for remote) and Kodi as the frontend

[izprtxqkft]

Besides world domination ... not sure ... following that other thread with the FireTV Cube 3rd gen ... but honestly, not really interested to invest in yet another device that has firmware bugs ... what I have seen there in the first logs with even normal DTS not getting consumed by the sink for 5 seconds ... then all the 5s data was "gone" / "lost in transaction" and the Cube happily reported 200 ms delay back instead of 5.2 ... not really something I want to use in my living room.

Fixing DD+ means reading standards, technical stuff and finding out what is missing inside kodi. Most likely our SyncEAC3 needs some love, the Packer is relatively easy ... nice chance for the community to come up with a fix :-)
If you are interested, start reading here: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master...o.cpp#L314

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...pid3139770


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and now a disinterest in fixes for my chosen device sinks the boat for future use of kodi for me


now the post has been reversed. what a roller coaster.