[RonTH]

Hello,

Here is the setup, I have a mini PC with batocera on it with of course kodi.
To the mini PC, there is an external HDD plugged into it, with videos.
This mini PC has samba set up.

I have a second kodi install on a fire tv stick in another room.
This kodi has access via local network to the samba share from the miniPC.
The fire tv stick kodi can add the HDD as a video source. no problem there.

I was trying to setup a mysql databaste to sync both kodi.
So I did the mysql setup on a raspberry pi always on.
But I'm trying to avoid having the HDD plugged into the raspberry pi.

So I was wondering, if I could, on the miniPC add as a video source the local HDD but with a network share path instead of the local path?
Beause on the wiki, it says "Even if the media is on the same computer as one of the Kodi instances, you MUST use a network share path. You cannot use a local file path with MySQL." at Kodi Wiki



I'm not sure if it's clear.
On the miniPC, I did try to add as a source the network share path to the HDD plugged into that same miniPC.
Example: smb://192.168.1.2/
But kodi says the source timed out.

Is there a way to set up in the miniPC the HDD with a network share path instead of the local path?
or do I really need to have the HDD on the raspberry pi?

[izprtxqkft]

I'm not sure if it's clear.
On the miniPC, I did try to add as a source the network share path to the HDD plugged into that same miniPC.
Example: smb://192.168.1.2/
But kodi says the source timed out.

sounds like you just need to diagnose why samba isn't working on the local minipc where samba is installed
start with checking the network settings in smb.conf
potentially routing settings

try either discord or reddit links from the https://batocera.org/ home page and see if you can get support from them

[CrystalP]

I'm not sure if it will help in your situation, but there is a path substitution feature.
https://kodi.wiki/view/Path_substitution