PleXBMC client for XBMC

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281

Could someone just let me know where to put the folders when wanting to do it manually?

Im trying to get it to work on my appletv, I had it working previously on it but due to a firmware update I have to install it again. Just can’t find manual install instructions anymore :confused:



Any help would be appreciated



Best regards

282

Ah yes, I had forgotten that you could have multiple sources of media managed in PMS and of course each would have different file paths.

Your own current efforts sound interesting, I will have to experiment.

I will be having the media on a NAS so it will be accessible over the network, and was hoping to use an embedded PMS on the NAS.
283

Hello,



First of all, thanks for all the great work on PleXBMC.



I installed the latest PleXBMC plugin on XBMC 10.1 running on AppleTV 1st generation (running OSX). Followed the instructions and installed the plexbmc confluence skin.

I installed PMS on a Mac Mini (on 10.6).

My media is on a NAS (QNAP), the corresponding SMB shares are accessible from the Mac running PMS and the ATV running XBMC.



I am new to Plex, so I may as a dumb question.



I added Movies into PMS with the media manager, pointing to the folder in my SMB share.



In plexbmc on ATV I can browse the movies, and when I select one nothing was happening.

In the settings I selected streaming using SMB (not auto, or http), as I want plexbmc to get the media from the NAS and not from the PMS.



However in the logs, I see plexbmc trying to get the media from the PMS with SMB.



Is there an obvious settings somewhere in PMS or plexbmc to enable this ?



Thanks

284


It will try and get the media from the PMS server (via SMB) if it can't work out where it shuold get it from.

How has the file path been added to PMS? Does it look like \\server\media\file.mkv or /Volumes/media/file.mkv or something like that?
285


In PMS the file is /Volumes/...

So I guess it shoud be \\\... ?
286


I found a workaround:
- On ATV I mount the SMB shares
- On ATV I create symbolink links to the shares with the xact name of the path in PMS library: e.g. /Volumes/NAS/Movies

With this PleXBMC use the SMB share to stream, more efficient in my case.
287


Nice workaround. Yes, teh problem is that OSX uses /Volumes and therefore we don;t know the location of the files. The best guess we can make is the same servers as the PMS instance.

I *could* introduce a setting which you could fill in with the NAS IP address and use this to redirect the traffic - but it's a rather blunt axe and would mean that all media would be treated the same. Perhaps it's one of those "use at your own risk" advanced settings - it would only be an issue if you have media spread around different places...
288

ok, added and fixed a few things based on the posts and PMs I’ve had over the last few weeks:



https://github.com/downloads/hippojay/plugin.video.plexbmc/plugin.video.plexbmc-EDEN3.zip



[list]

[]Added: Ability to request a listing refresh from the context menu. Requested by beserk over at XBMC.org

[]Added: Ability to force a DVD to playback via SMB (or local file if it exists). Based on whether an .ifo file exists. You need to make sure that the folder/directory is shared. Enable via the settings

[]Added: Ability to override the IP address used to playback via SMB. Enable via the settings.

[]Fixed: Playback of webkit/flash plugins (XBMC/FFMPEG was not converting the URL correctly…)

[/list]



These are added only in the EDEN version of the plugin - because that’s what I have available to test on at the moment. If I get the chance i’ll port these back to the 1.9.6 version, but it might be a few days.

289

Also, just been looking at the download stats for PleXBMC over the last 6 months. I never realised that many people were using it (or at least gave it a go). (This only covers the direct downloads from github, not automated updates)



PleXBMC Version 1.9.6.3 - 966 downloads

PleXBMC Version 1.9.6.1 - 225 downloads

PleXBMC Version 1.9.5 - 666 downloads

PleXBMC Version 1.9e - 432 downloads

PleXBMC Version 1.7.7 - 2486 downloads



If you’re still using PleXBMC, Thanks!

290

I just found PleXBMC. I’m using it to access my Plex library on my old Mac Mini G4 and it’s working great. I couldn’t get it to stream for more than 2 or 3 minutes until I tried Eden but now it seems to be solid. It’s nice because this machine can’t pump out HD so I can use transcoding to lower the resolution (I have it connected to a CRT anyway). I figured I’d post in case anybody else was wondering if this will work on a PPC.



Thanks for the hard work hippojay!

291

Hi, thanks for PleXMBC, it makes life so much easier for my several HTPCs spread around the house to use Plex as the main media server for all of them.



Just thought I’d mention, since I’m not sure if it has been fixed yet, but I came up with a fix for the Plex background image problem (where it doesn’t show in XBMC).



The fix I wrote downloads the background into the plugin.video.plexmbc folder and then loads it in XBMC from there (which includes the file extension).



The code is:



<br />
HOME_DIR=os.getcwd()+"\\"<br />
u = urllib2.urlopen('http://'+server[1]+"/library/sections/"+arguments['art'])<br />
localfile = open(HOME_DIR+arguments["title"]."jpg", "w")<br />
localfile.write(u.read())<br />
localfile.close()<br />
arguments["fanart_image"] = HOME_DIR+arguments["title"]+".jpg"<br />


Replace the section in the SKIN function in default.py after:

if arguments['art'][0] == "/":
...
else


Note, I just wrote that code from memory, so it may not be 100% accurate, but you get the idea.

Also this code isn't ideal as it is, since it will download it every time, so it will be handy to check if the file exists and is up to date using the update value from Plex (I haven't implemented that myself yet).

Hope this comes in handy for people and/or gets included in the next version of PleXBMC.

***EDIT***

Updated the code to only download if the image is newer. Unfortunately, it doesn't check if an older version exists, so it leaves any old versions where they are (which is only a minor problem).

New code, insert into default.py at the corresponding place, replacing the existing code in the SKIN() function.


<br />
                if g_skipimages == "false":<br />
                    try:<br />
                        if arguments['art'][0] == "/":<br />
                            arguments['fanart_image']="http://"+server[1]+arguments['art']<br />
                        else:<br />
                            HOME_DIR=os.getcwd()+"\\"<br />
                            ART_PATH = arguments['art']<br />
                            <br />
                            offset = ART_PATH.find("updatedAt=")<br />
                            if (offset!=0):<br />
                                UPDATE_TIME = ART_PATH[(offset+10):]<br />
                            else:<br />
                                UPDATE_TIME = "";<br />
                            <br />
                            FILE_PATH=HOME_DIR+arguments["title"]+"_"+UPDATE_TIME+".jpg"<br />
                            printDebug("FilePath = "+FILE_PATH)<br />
                            <br />
                            if os.path.exists(FILE_PATH):<br />
                                printDebug("Art exists, not downloading.")<br />
                            else:<br />
                                printDebug("Downloading section art")<br />
                                u = urllib2.urlopen('http://'+server[1]+"/library/sections/"+arguments['art'])<br />
                                localfile = open(FILE_PATH, 'w')<br />
                                localfile.write(u.read())<br />
                                localfile.close()<br />
                            <br />
                            arguments['fanart_image']=FILE_PATH<br />
292

Thanks - This issue is fixed in Eden as I was able to alter the XBMC code and get it added. But for the current XBMC 10.1, then this would fix the problem.



I’ll check the code out and see what the impact is on the different skins. Thanks again.

293

Hi hippojay.

Would it be possible for you to add in the eden edition afp support? Since the nightly builds of xbmc has afp support?

This would be a great feature to the addon. Oh and both the smb and afp options should have support for username and password.

Btw would it be possible to add the feature of being able to use different user logins on different servers in the plugin?



Thx for a great plugin.

294

I’ll have a look at afp support. I guess it’s as easy as providing an afp option with afp:// instead.



I’ve had separate authentication for different pm servers on my to do list for ages. Just trying to think of a sensible way for users to configure it. I’ll have a play tonight.

295

Thx hippo for taking a look at my afp request. I am to lazy to configure smb on my linux machine :slight_smile: .

The most important thing is that it ahould support username/password.

Or would plexbmc access it anyway if i have done a manual mount of the location in xbmc.

296

Firstly - thanks for this addon. It’s brilliant. I have an issue however where the watched/unwatched status of a TV show isn’t being shown. I did briefly see them, but then i switched menus and they’ve disappeared. Am I missing something?



For one of my TV shows that I know is completely watched i see a tick next to the name but thats all.



Using XBMC Live 10.1, PleXBMC 1.9.6.3.





::EDIT:: Odd… If I mark a show as watched, it displays “working” then all the watch/unwatched flags appear. I’ve rebooted XMBC, now I cant get that method to work :confused:

297

By default XBMC shows a blank for unwatched (and partial unwatched) and a tick for watched, which is kinda the reverse of Plex.



The only way to display Plex style flags is to use a PleXBMC tweaked skin - for which I have altered the logic for watched/unwatched/partial.

298


Right I see.. I am using the confluence.plexbmc skin. Plex style flags is selected, but doesn't seem to have any effect. Could there be any reason it's not saving the preference?
299


HMm, I'm not sure. Everytime you reload the listing, it should take the watched/unwatched data directly from Plex. So, just now I've marked a tv show as watched (waited while it did the work), then came out and went back in . the flag still shows as watched (i.e. empty). However, if I go back one level (to show the season view) the season still shows a partial as the listing hasnt been refreshed yet. Go back to shows and then season and it shows as watched (as everything is marked).

It is going back a level and it displaying the old data where you are seeing this problem?



Code is written for AFP, multi-PMS server authentication and nas share username/password - but it's not fully tested yet. I've only had a chance to enable and investigate log files for output to show that it should work. the reason i'm posting this is that ill be away from the keyboard til Monday, so wont be testing it next week. but if you want to alpha/beta test it for me - here it is:

NOTE: This isnt an official stable release - its a testing release - please stick to 1.9.6.4 or EDEN3
300

hippo great I will test it to the bones as soon as I have time. Sitting in a car at the moment going home from Stockholm now. So probably not tonight.