Kodi addon for LaunchBox

[CoinTos]

Kodi addon for LaunchBox 1.5.8 released!

CHANGES in 1.5.8:
- Fixed AutoHotkey location slow detection using debug help and code from @doogie
- Added some more logging to detect delays better

KNOWN ISSUES:
- The upgrade support in this addon's Autohotkey script will not work properly with the auto download background option for LaunchBox enabled. Current workaround is to remove the check mark from the "Automatically Download Updates in the Background" box in LaunchBox's Options under the Updates section.
- Taskbar will flash on Kodi Windows Store version (UWA). Current workaround is to switch to Kodi non-UWA or to minimize effects, enable hide task bar in advance options, remove Cortana search bar and change taskbar to black.
- Due to windows security restriction on SMB shares over IP  (eg. \\192.168.1.1\shared-folder\), the addon will produce an error saying it is not supported. Current workaround is to enable SMB fix in Advance settings to replace IP with supplied server name or enable SMBv1 on server and computer to allow NetBIOS name resolutions in Kodi.
- Kodi-six package is now required, addon will fail if after first installation of Kodi-six package dependency, Kodi was not restarted.

RELEASE NOTICE:
This release is an optimization fix and adds additional logging. I made a bone head mistake in my AutoHotkey location detection and did not ignore directories that would never contain it. Thanks to @doogie for taking the time I didn't have and locating as well as supplying fix.

IN DEVELOPMENT:
- Back to looking into multiple Launchbox support, most likely now a Kodi 19 only feature.

 

[Delllaptop]

So I am having an issue

"Failed to create mapped drive"

I have launchbox on smb 

The launch location for launchbox is //homeserver

It works for videos but not launchbox for some reason

 hope you could help

[CoinTos]

On 7/27/2020 at 1:48 AM, magerbooze said:

So I am having an issue

"Failed to create mapped drive"

I have launchbox on smb 

The launch location for launchbox is //homeserver

It works for videos but not launchbox for some reason

 hope you could help

Sorry it took so long to reply. I am in the process of rewriting a bunch of the smb logic as I finally got some spare time to look at it today. I will need some more information though and possibly a file path from launchbox's xml config (Launchbox\Data\Platforms\<platform>.xml) to see if my logic is even right. As for the fail to create mapped drive, can you try manually creating a mapped drive in cmd "net use * //homeserver/<some folder to test>" and see if it errors out.

[Bedwyr]

This is a new, esoteric one I haven't had before. It's not strictly Launchbox's problem, but I've lately been trying to run Kodi as my windows shell through Launcher4Kodi. It works fine unless I run BigBox through the addon. When I do that, I think what's happening is that explorer is launched (no problem there, I only want Kodi as a shell to launch as a higher priority on boot so that it acts more like a media appliance) but for some reason the B-Ray drive fails to load. This is signaled by AnyDVD every time and the drive is now unusable till reboot.

The kicker is that invoking explorer through Launcher4kodi (win+e) doesn't cause the same problem. Any insights on why that would be happening?

[CoinTos]

1 hour ago, Bedwyr said:

This is a new, esoteric one I haven't had before. It's not strictly Launchbox's problem, but I've lately been trying to run Kodi as my windows shell through Launcher4Kodi. It works fine unless I run BigBox through the addon. When I do that, I think what's happening is that explorer is launched (no problem there, I only want Kodi as a shell to launch as a higher priority on boot so that it acts more like a media appliance) but for some reason the B-Ray drive fails to load. This is signaled by AnyDVD every time and the drive is now unusable till reboot.

The kicker is that invoking explorer through Launcher4kodi (win+e) doesn't cause the same problem. Any insights on why that would be happening?

Maybe it's one of the exit settings in Launcher4Kodi for the whole taskbar starting, I use Launcher4Kodi 1.1 as my shell with all exit settings off and no problem with Kodi/BigBox. I don't use AnyDVD but I have never had an issue with my blu-ray drive after using BigBox from Kodi, Kodi still sees my drive/disc and hands it off as expected to PowerDVD. So don't think I can be much help on that issue.

[Bedwyr]

1 hour ago, CoinTos said:

Maybe it's one of the exit settings in Launcher4Kodi for the whole taskbar starting, I use Launcher4Kodi 1.1 as my shell with all exit settings off and no problem with Kodi/BigBox. I don't use AnyDVD but I have never had an issue with my blu-ray drive after using BigBox from Kodi, Kodi still sees my drive/disc and hands it off as expected to PowerDVD. So don't think I can be much help on that issue.

I forgot I had Explorer restart checked there. I'll give that a try, thanks!

 

edit: Yeah, that was it. Appreciate the assist.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Bedwyr
new information.

[CoinTos]

Kodi addon for LaunchBox 1.5.9 released!

CHANGES in 1.5.9:
- More fixes to AutoHotkey detection
- AutoHotkey is now copied from LaunchBox to the addon's userdata
- User can set their own AutoHotkey.exe from Advanced settings
- Some code clean up with the smb support

KNOWN ISSUES:
- The upgrade support in this addon's Autohotkey script will not work properly with the auto download background option for LaunchBox enabled. Current workaround is to remove the check mark from the "Automatically Download Updates in the Background" box in LaunchBox's Options under the Updates section.
- Taskbar will flash on Kodi Windows Store version (UWA). Current workaround is to switch to Kodi non-UWA or to minimize effects, enable hide task bar in advance options, remove Cortana search bar and change taskbar to black.
- Due to windows security restriction on SMB shares over IP  (eg. \\192.168.1.1\shared-folder\), the addon will produce an error saying it is not supported. Current workaround is to enable SMB fix in Advance settings to replace IP with supplied server name or enable SMBv1 on server and computer to allow NetBIOS name resolutions in Kodi.
- Kodi-six package is now required, addon will fail if after first installation of Kodi-six package dependency, Kodi was not restarted.

RELEASE NOTICE:
This release is another optimization fix. Cleaned up some code with the smb support. AutoHotkey is now save in the addon's settings to stop it from scanning for it on every launch, on first detection will copy AutoHotkey.exe and license.txt (if found) to the addon's userdata folder to fix AHK script update installer support. The installer was killing AutoHotkey.exe the addon was using in the LaunchBox folder causing the AHK script to close. Added option to set own AutoHotkey.exe in Advanced settings of addon.

IN DEVELOPMENT:
- Back to looking into multiple Launchbox support, most likely now a Kodi 19 only feature.

 

[testestestest555]

Hi CoinTos,

I have this and it works great, but I want the ability to switch power plans on launch of big box.  While I'm watching movies and browsing around Kodi, I prefer my cpu to clock down and not put out so much heat and use less power.  Unfortunately when I'm playing emulators, especially retroarch, the constant clocking up and down causes a lot of stuttering.  How would I go about creating a script that switches to max performance plan and then back to the balanced plan on exiting?  Thanks!

 

Edit: Nevermind, I figured it out.  I created a simple batch file with the following command to run at pre and post.  Change the GUID for each plan accordingly.  The one below is for balanced and should be the same on every machine, but you can check from the command prompt with powercfg /l.  I'm using ultimate for when I'm in launchbox.

CMD.EXE /c "C:\Windows\System32\powercfg.exe -setactive 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e"

Edited September 24, 2020 by testestestest555

[Bedwyr]

Should I not be using your python 3 file for 1.5.9? I just downloaded and re-installed/updated Kodi just to be sure and I'm still getting an xbmc.python 3.0 dependency error.

 

edit: I must have been confused about this before because I had both versions of 1.5.8 in my download directory and regular 1.5.9 worked so that's fixed. But that's still confusing me a bit because I thought that Kodi deprecated python 2.x and only works with 3.x. <scratches head>

Edited September 24, 2020 by Bedwyr

[CoinTos]

2 hours ago, Bedwyr said:

Should I not be using your python 3 file for 1.5.9? I just downloaded and re-installed/updated Kodi just to be sure and I'm still getting an xbmc.python 3.0 dependency error.

 

edit: I must have been confused about this before because I had both versions of 1.5.8 in my download directory and regular 1.5.9 worked so that's fixed. But that's still confusing me a bit because I thought that Kodi deprecated python 2.x and only works with 3.x. <scratches head>

Well, the whole Kodi and python 3 is fun story, basically Kodi 18 was python 2 like the ones before but they had Kodi 18 test builds with python 3 instead for those that were making addon's python 3 compatible to test on. Kodi didn't officially switch to python 3 till upcoming Kodi 19, currently in alpha.

[Bedwyr]

Ah. I thought the transition had already completed.

[aceuk]

I have win7 64bit with kodi 18.9 can you tell me which file I should use.

Thanks

[CoinTos]

On 12/1/2020 at 12:53 PM, aceuk said:

I have win7 64bit with kodi 18.9 can you tell me which file I should use.

Thanks

You want 'script.launchbox.launcher-1.5.9.zip' file. The other one is for Kodi 19+ as it's python 3.

[aceuk]

Thank you 

[aceuk]

I have a 10 second delay until BigBox opens.

How can I get it to open straight away.

 

 

[neil9000]

18 minutes ago, aceuk said:

I have a 10 second delay until BigBox opens.

How can I get it to open straight away.

 

 

You cant, it will take as long as it needs to take. It will be no different to starting it from the desktop.

[nadonate]

28 minutes ago, aceuk said:

I have a 10 second delay until BigBox opens.

How can I get it to open straight away.

 

 

I believe the initial delay is relative to the size of your collection & how many images need to be cached. 

 

You may see a speed increase if you move your installation to a SSD or something with faster read speeds. 

[aceuk]

That's disappointing, 

Thank you both for the reply.

[Deam]

I'm having a relatively new problem, and just updated to the newest version and still have the same issue.  Specifically, there is a long lag time between when Big Box quits and Kodi restarts.  

It didn't used to do this and can't even comment on what changed. During the time, the screen is just blank.

In one instance, the log actually says it failed to detect Kodi in 60 seconds and aborted. In the other, it detects it, but there is what appears a 20 second gap.  

Previously, it was fairly quick.  Has anyone else experience this recently?

I am using Kodi DS version 17.6.

EDIT: So, this was a premature post.  I hadn't noticed as well, but I think the issue is actually just Kodi.  It's startup time now seems to fluctuate from quickly to 10-20 seconds itself.  So not really an issue with the script.  More work on my end to do!

Edited December 7, 2020 by Deam

[Bedwyr]

Looks like Kodi 19 stable is released and Python 2.7 is deprecated.