PM4K / PlexMod for Kodi (18, 19, 20, 21, 22+)

[panni]

Yoohoo, I’ve managed to get some fixes and features in, again.

0.5.3
Omega is the desired target for now. It’s much more stable than nexus.

• Inhibit screensaver when in photo slideshow (Kodi 19 and above)
• Add addon setting to use old client profile from P4K instead of the optimized one (might fix 3D issues with DP; not sure why?); default: off
• Show video stream render type in preplay/epidoses screen (SDR/HDR/DV/HLG)
• Adjust default background image blur/opacity from 0/40 to 4/30
• Add addon setting to set solid background colour instead of pictures (Kodi 19 and above)
• Add addon setting to hide when current media will end (default: shown, as before)
• Split filename in info screen to avoid overflow
• Don’t show “no content” on home; amended PR #43
• Bad temporary fix for photo playqueues containing videos
• Photos: Use Kodi slideshow interval; fixes #41
• Add Simplified Chinese Translation (thanks @Liqianyu)
• Fix AV1 setting description
• Fix time display on Omega on Android
• Fix single-season pagination (anime)
• Update german translation (thanks @jamal2362)
• Fix issue when displaying a library that has no hubs to display (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Fixed an issue with video playlists and the general play button not working (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Fixed a couple of places that require integer division (thanks @bowlingbeeg)

[sonofdibnah]

Thank you for your continued support and for 0.5.3.

I’m still on Nexus and I’m baffled by something I hope you can help with. If I try to download subtitles for moviies (or films as I call them), I don’t get anything.and there’s a message “No subtitles found”. TV shows finds them.

I can download directly from kodi and place the subtitle in the Film’s directory and then I can use them in Plexmod I can only do this at home and have network access to the films directory.

I can’t see any difference in my library settings to explain this. I’d be grateful for any help or comments.

[panni]

More fixes and (smaller) features, here we go!

We’ve got a major contributor, @bowlingbeeg, who’s been featured in the last two releases, with a lot of great additions. This time they’ve added helpful modifications to the pre-play screen and resume dialog, as well as a couple of fixes. Thanks!

This update will might log you out and requires linking with plex.tv due to a client identifier change.

0.5.4

• Store user thumbnail in cache (improves home “load” time)
• Change client identifier from Plex-for-Kodi to PM4K;
  possibly fix “PlexNet” entries in Authorized Devices; might also break stuff, please report back
• fix closing quote in chinese translation
• Add missing German translations
• Add “Ends at” to player ends-at time by default; add option to disable this label
• Add fallback for missing audiooutput.channels setting (seems to affect libreelec only); relates to #48 (use old client identifier addon setting to try)
• Change resume dialog to show resume time (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Add unwatched status to pre-play screen and add progress bars to more hubs (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Fix missing parameters on Plex API queries (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Add time left to pre-play screen (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Fix audio/subtitle selection not updating correctly in pre-play screen (thanks @bowlingbeeg)

[sonofdibnah]

Wow, just got up and there’s another release. You have been busy. I’ve given it a run thro and I’d comment:

It didn’t log me out. I have done this manually and signed in again and the about section says 0.5.4 (as it did before I signed out).

I’d hoped that the last entry in your changelog would mean that my problems with downloading subtitles for my films was fixed but there’s no change. Incidentally, I’ve reinstalled Composite and subtitle downloading for films works when I use it. This is no big deal but it would a nice to have through your add-on.

If it helps, I’m using Coreelec 20.2 on and Odroid N2. Plex server is running on the SBC using docker.

[Tedess88]

Thanks Panni ! Working great with the PMS 1.32.6.7557. No issue.

Home really loads faster

[panni]

PM4K doesn’t handle the subtitle downloading, Kodi does. Not sure if I can do anything about that. Which subtitle providers have you configured for downloading?

[sonofdibnah]

Thanks for replying @panni. I’m using Opensubtitles.org but have tried others and I get the same results. This is what I’ve observed.

I get the same results with stuff viewed from my son’s server which is hosted on Windows, so it’s not down to my server being docker based and running off CoreELEC.

If I start the film playing from file manager and then look up subtitles, they are found and the filename “Fight Club (1999).mp4” appears at the bottom centre of the results window.

If i do the same thro PM4K, I get "No subtitles found’ BUT it says ‘file.mp4’ and not Fight Club (1999).mp4.

I thought this was significant until I tried a TV show. Search thro PM4K finds subs but with ‘file.mp4’ as the decription!

I am baffled by this but I do have a workaround. Please don’t spend too much time on it unless it’s something you can replicate.

[sonofdibnah]

SOLVED
Swapping from Opensubtitles.org to Opensubtitles.com has solved the problem. Thanks for the steer towards it being kodi related.

[panni]

Hey, can you try the latest version and set the “old client identifier” setting? That should behave like the non-modded Plex4Kodi. I wasn’t able to find any changes or get any hints by Plex Inc on how to change 3D behaviour, so I added that workaround.

[panni]

Even more fixes and quality-of-life improvements

@bowlingbeeg has been at it again and their second and last big changeset from their ZidooPlexMod fork has been merged back into PM4K, bringing a lot of fixes and improvements.

Apart from that there’s now a potential fix for accidentally overskipping one episode on post-play or “next”-button, for that please set the new Video played threshold main setting to the same value as your Plex Media Server>Settings>Library>Video played threshold.

A pretty great addition is the new (forgotten and backported) “Show intro skip early” main setting. This shows the intro skip button as early as possible, and the auto-intro-skip setting applies here as well, allowing for automatic episode-recap-skipping guys !

Additionally I’ve found out how to circumvent the passthrough-audio issue after standby on the NVIDIA SHIELD (by using a watchdog timer to auto-exit Kodi on idle), I’ll add a small tutorial to the first post.

0.5.5-rev2

• Fix auto intro skip not working after skipping to next episode
• Skip postplay when skipping to next video from player
• Limit early-show-intro-skip to intros occurring in the first 2 minutes;
• add advanced setting to customize this value
• Add option to show and episodes-windows (they toggle their show) to override the global auto-skip-intro setting for a show

0.5.5

• Add main setting to show the intro skip button early; enables recap skipping; works with auto-intro-skip!
• Move some boolean settings from Main>Advanced to Main
• Add main setting to use alternative home hubs refresh method introduced by @bowlingbeeg; default on
• Add main setting to specify item-played-threshold in main settings, please sync with your Plex Server; possibly fixes edge cases (postplay/next-overskip issues)
• Fix postplay timer-circle display on later (Nexus++?) Kodi versions
• Rework time formatting and hour padding detection for “Ends at” display completely
• Change watched status to also look at resume offset (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Fix crash when background threads are still running on library exit (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Fix playlist issues (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Change look of letter jump list (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Fix sorting/filtering issues (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Add second view type for episodes and albums (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Support showing collections inline (thanks @bowlingbeeg)
• Add support for smaller poster size view (thanks @bowlingbeeg)

Update: I’m thinking about adding a setting to disable/enable early-intro-skip per TV show in the next version. Let me know your thoughts (I love the Friends intro for example, and would like to see it)

Update 2: Done that, rev2.

[M_403]

First time I tried this, definitely smoother experience that official Plex addon. Thanks for developing it.

[panni]

Updated the above post with 0.5.5-rev2.

Edit: This is the most notable in rev2 (settable on episode as well, which sets the flag for a show):

[panni]

Stay tuned, it’s coming in 0.5.6

[jamal2367]

Hello all,

Is it possible to customize the UI to look almost exactly like the official Android Plex app?

I love this PlexMod but would like to see a newer UI.

Thanks for the great work!

[panni]

It’s a huge amount of work. I have plans to modernize its styling a little when I find the time, but currently I’m fully focused on features.

To get where the official apps are, there’d need to be a whole lot of rewriting the home screen, library views and so on. If I ever get to it, it will take a lot of time.

Anyone’s welcome to tackle it, though.

[jamal2367]

Thanks for the answer!

If I knew how to do it, I would have tackled it.
But as it seems, it is not so easy to edit the whole theme.

[panni]

The next version is taking a little longer than expected, but stay tuned, there’s a lot coming.
Internally on 0.5.6-beta9 now. Expect a release soon .

Edit: The amount of stuff added might justify 0.6.0 or even 0.7.0.

[Tedess88]

Such a tease can’t wait to see what’s new !

[panni]

[panni]

0.6.0-RC1 - Fairly massive release, bear with me!

OK, here we go.

Instead of writing up a little summary, I’ll lead you through some screenshots:

Revamped the settings, decluttered some of the sections.

Added user-specific settings.

Added TV binge mode

This can be globally enabled or disabled per user, and explicitly enabled or disabled per show (also via episode options for convenience). Due to how Plex generates its IDs, a per-show binge mode setting applies to the current server and current user specifically.

Binge mode automatically skips the intro and credits of an episode (when not the first episode of a season), trying to avoid recaps, without any postplay nonsense (goes directly to the next episode after finishing the current one).

Added smart Kodi Cache/Buffer settings

This has been a requested feature for years now. PM4K is now able to manage Kodi’s advancedsettings.xml and its <cache> section, without destroying anything else in there.

The recommended maximum cache size depends on the currently free memory. For non-Android it’s 23 % of the free memory, for Android it’s 20% (due to its sometimes weird memory management). Hard limit: 2GB.

Additionally there’s a pm4k_cache_template.xml in the addon folder, which can be copied to the userdata folder and customized there. PM4K will only replace {memorysize} in the XML, so you’re entirely free to add/customize other stuff.

Changing this needs a Kodi restart.

Added chapters to video player

Pretty self-explanatory I think. Can be toggled in Player settings

Added virtual chapters to video player

When the video file has no chapters, generate virtual ones if Plex detected any markers in the video (intro, credits). Can be toggled in Player settings.

If you have any further ideas for helpful virtual chapters, or want custom settings for them, please say so!

Enforce local connections and even manual servers

For the longest time, Plex4Kodi (and PM4K) basically ignored local connections if they weren’t secure (non-HTTPS). By proxy this also almost always ignored manually defined servers, unless no other servers were connectable.

Additionally, dockerized servers were basically never marked as “local” even if on the same network, due to how Plex.tv detects them.

The whole server/connection mechanism is now customizable.

We’ve added “Smart LAN/local server discovery” (Kodi 19 and above), which double-checks servers’ connectivity on the local network using icmplib and some netmask f*ckery.

Now for the biggest one: “Prefer LAN/local servers over security” has been added. This can be used to enforce local connections, even if they’re not secure (non-HTTPS). This speeds up a lot of things considerably, possibly avoids weird behaviour during internet-outages, and just makes a lot of sense. This needs the Plex Server setting Secure connections on Preferred, obviously.

Additionally a “Refresh servers” option has been added to the server dropdown, to force-refresh and thus revalidate connections after settings have been changed, a manual server has been added, or Plex Server network settings have been changed.

ATTENTION: The default HTTP request timeout has been lowered from 10 to 5 seconds. If you have bad connectivity or a slow server, and issues with PM4K, increase the timeout in the addon/advanced settings.

Much more has been added/fixed and changed, so now to the actual changelog:

0.6.0-RC1

• Add Kodi Buffer/Cache settings to new System tab
• Add pm4k_cache_template.xml to allow further customization (copy to profile folder)
• Add addon path and Kodi profile path to Settings/About
• Add advanced/addon setting to set (Plex) HTTP request timeouts; change default from 10 to 5 (on display/crash issues, increase timeout)
• Add explicit LAN check for servers (docker-based ones won’t show as local by default); only works on Kodi 19 and above; add icmplib and license
• Add setting to specify LAN check connection timeout (default 10ms)
• If desired, prefer an insecure local server over a secure one after switching users, as well
• Add warning when preferring local server connections over secure ones
• Add long timeout for essential plex.tv requests
• Add force server list refresh button to server list (allows reloading the available servers after changing PMS network settings)
• Add setting to verify local/LAN connections even if plex.tv doesn’t think they’re local
• Add setting to prefer local connections over secure ones, enabling enforced manual servers
• Add advanced/addon setting to add an offset to intro/credits autoskip, as the Plex markers might be a little early (default +2 seconds)
• Show video chapters if available in playback instead of bigSeek (also add a setting)
• Show virtual chapters in playback (from Plex markers, intro, credits etc.) if no chapters exist for a video file
• Reload items properly with chapters upon preplay-reinit
• Reorder settings, advanced is now system, add network settings
• Show chapters and/or markers in info view of a video item
• Implement TV binge mode (auto skip intros if not first EP of season; auto skip credits; skip postplay)
• Implement per-user settings
• Make Binge-mode overridable per show
• Make Binge-mode, all auto-skip and whether to display chapters or markers a per-user setting
• Fix focusing the wrong episode after opening the info screen
• Fix reloading episodes list after watching multiple episodes
• Strip out MP4 file name in stream URL to prevent subtitles trying to be downloaded, fixing long wait time (thanks @microadam)
• Fix failure on video with no audio stream
• Optimize remaining time calculations for preplay screen