Kodi

The Team Kodi PPA has long been a staple for Ubuntu (and similar) users wishing to use more recent, and less adulterated, versions of Kodi. It is with sadness that the team has come to a decision to officially retire the PPA due to the overhead of maintaining it. We want to express our sincere thanks to wsnipex for maintaining it for so many years, tirelessly making it available to countless users in the pursuit of making Kodi more easily accessible for the masses on many of the more popular Linux distributions. The Linux world is shifting slowly to packaged deployments and containers, and so, going forward, the team is looking to utilise Flatpak to hopefully give Linu…

Mutter, mutter... "18.8 will be the last", they said... "all efforts will go into 19.x now", they said... famous last words... Okay, one more roll of the "Leia" die, although this one is really driven by circumstances beyond our control. Technical changes by Cloudflare caused significant issues with HTTP access to any site using them - metadata sources, for example - and we need to put in a quick workaround before everyone gets too upset; while 19.x "Matrix" is close, it's not close enough to leave these issues unaddressed. So, as we're building that new code, we thought that we might as well fix a couple of other regressions while we're here. With no further fanfare, t…

It looks like one last hurrah was premature for the "Nexus" line: we find ourselves back again already, this time with a new 20.4 release. An assortment of bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 20.3 on Github, as usual. Release notes Build A backport aimed at fixing the failure rate of binary addon builds has been merged by @garbear. Input Update to the controller addons. Platform Specific Android Several fixes have been backported from master to fix deployment issues on Google Play. Thanks to @joseluismarti for working with us on these. A number of fixes backported to resolve input issues (remotes/controllers). iOS/tvOS A…

Welcome, everyone, to Kodi Devcon 2023, coming to you this year from halfway up an Italian mountain overlooking Lake Iseo. We're full of coffee, it's seven degrees outside, we don't have enough power outlets, and we're struggling to stream over dubious Internet connectivity (courtesy of Mr Musk). What could be better? A slightly different format this year: we want to use the time together as productively as we can, so there'll be less discussion and more collaboration than previously. So, let's go... Finance We kicked off the day with an overview on our financial position: income, reserves, commitments, sponsorships. We're doing okay, but the combination of Covid and t…

Happy Holidays, everyone! To celebrate, here we have release 19.5. This release caps off the v19 Matrix development cycle - we are not intending anything further now until 20.0 "Nexus". Without further fanfare, then I give you Kodi "Matrix" 19.5: more bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 19.4 on Github, as usual. Thanks, as always, to everyone who has helped us track down and fix any issues. As this is a point release, there are no major changes since the previous version, and you should be fine to install this straight over the top of any existing Kodi 19.x installation - indeed, this will happen automatically on many platforms. Howeve…

So, here we go again. Nothing earth-shattering, just a quick note to tell you that the second Beta of Kodi 19.x "Matrix" is now available for installation. If you want to know the main features in this release series, please refer back to previous blog posts, especially the Beta 1 announcement: this is entirely a bugfix release, so - as befits a second Beta - there are no new features over Beta 1. By this stage, there should be no show-stopping bugs, and this release should be pretty reliable - just make sure you know how to roll back, just in case. Please: install, test, and give us clear feedback on any issues you uncover, either with the new features or perhaps with …

Time for another Alpha release for the upcoming Version 20 "Nexus" release of Kodi. As always, thanks go out to all contributors for their work - not only those in Team Kodi, but also to all the third party users that choose to roll up their sleeves and fix an issue. Everyone appreciates you for making Kodi better! Release notes Addons Some crashes in addon installation and repository checks have been corrected (ksooo, howie-f) AlwinEsch has implemented a large feature to allow multiple instances of the same binary addon. This allows, for example, two instances of a PVR addon (e.g. PVR.HTS) to run using different backend provider instances. The usage of this will…

Here we go folks: ramping things up, so we now have the first Beta for Kodi v20, "Nexus". As always, thanks go out to all contributors for their work. We are nearing 4,000 commits since v19 "Matrix" was first released on February 19th 2021. For everyone that has contributed, both those in Team Kodi, and all other developers that choose to roll up their sleeves and fix an issue - thank you. Everyone appreciates you for making Kodi better. We also want to thank all those users who provide endless support on the forums, we appreciate you, and all the support anyone provides to our users. Release notes Addons Assorted binary addon fixes/updates - imagedecoder, screensav…

A new year dawns, and brings with it one last hurrah for the Kodi "Nexus" release line. An assortment of bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 20.2 on Github, as usual. Release notes Estuary An assortment of fixes for Estuary, including home categories' focus position, alignment of counter labels and Shift view for collections. Fixes to the weather layout when busy. Game/Retroplayer Fixed controllers not assigned to game ports correctly on Android. Fixed blue/pink washed out colours on Windows with 10-bit displays. Fixed possible crash in Port dialogue box. Fixed typo for the mouse middle button in Controller dialogue box. General …

Nexus just won't end, it seems: we're back already, this time what we hope will be the final release for the Nexus line. Welcome to 20.5! An assortment of bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 20.4 on Github, as usual. Release notes Input Reverted a number of controller changes that caused massive failures on Android devices. Input handling will now be the same as what was available in 20.3. Platform Specific Android Some great detective work was done by @spdfrk for a fix that meant Kodi would close the app during potential colour mode changes. A backport by @fritsch that intends to bring Nexus inline with Omega behaviour for Audi…

So, here we go, with no further ado, we'd like to present the first Alpha releases of Kodi 20.x "Nexus". This is a major release, so, as you'd expect, it comes with many new features. However, it will inevitably cause problems for some people, which is why we'll go through a more traditional Alpha/Beta/Release Candidate model. As such, then, please be aware that installing this will inevitably break things, and we'd really like your help at that point to identify the problems and get them fixed. So, all that aside... what's actually changed? Video AV1 hardware decoding for Android. PR AV1 hardware decoding for Linux via VAAPI PR Bump to FFMPEG 4.4 PR Subtitles Add…

It is a truth universally acknowledged that, no matter how much testing you do before a major release, you'll never find and squash anything like all the bugs until you get a proper, large-scale, mass test of the code. In other words, it's time for a bugfix release on the Kodi 19 "Matrix" series, as - thanks to your feedback - we've managed to fix a whole batch of issues over the past few weeks. In no particular order, this version includes fixes for the following: As a bug fix release, don't bother going to look for new features; while there are some, that's not the main purpose of this version. Full details are on GitHub, but here's the short form... Video Fixed: H…

New Year, New Kodi? Not quite, but here we go with the next point release of the 21.x "Omega" series. The usual story: bugfixes, not features. The full changelog can be found on Github, as usual. Release Summary Major user-facing changes include: Library/Sources and Management Fixed a bug that ignored images in the ...\season\.actors folder. The \season\.actors folders have been deprecated and all actors are saved in the \TV Show\.actors folder. (forum, PR) Restore performance of movie addition to the library to v20 (Nexus) level (PR) Fixed/improved playback from some UPnP server software (at least UMS and Gerbera. Some NAS UPnP servers are based on UMS under the cov…

Hello Kodi community. This is Scott, the founder of TheTVDB. There has been some confusion related to the availability of our API and the various Kodi scrapers for TheTVDB. Hopefully I can provide some clarity. TheTVDB was originally written in a weekend in 2004, with features and data slowly expanding with varying degrees of thoughtfulness. Inevitably, some mistakes were made and the industry has changed considerably in the years since. Through a complete restructuring of data a few years ago, we attempted to not only correct past mistakes, but also become more flexible in how we accommodate edge cases and non-traditional series. This rewrite forced us to create a new …

We are keeping things ticking over with Kodi 21 "Omega" with the second Beta release! This is a major release, so, as you'd expect, it comes with many new features. However, with a core change to FFmpeg 6.0, there is a very good chance that some regressions may occur. As such, please be aware that installing this will most likely break things, and we'd really like your help at that point to identify the problems and get them fixed. Please raise Github issues with full debug logs to help us resolve any issues you wonderful testers come across. First, we'd like to make a few targeted announcements. Android users Many users may still be on the Kodi testing track for the…

It's Time! We are pleased to present the latest release of Kodi, v20 "Nexus". With over 4,600 commits since v19 "Matrix" was released on February 19th, 2021, this has been a huge effort. Thanks go out to our team members, and everyone in our community who sent a pull request, tested and gave feedback, or provided support to users on the forum. We appreciate your contribution to making Kodi better. Let's review some of the changes you can expect: Major Features Multiple Instances of Binary Add-ons This allows Kodi to load multiple instances of a binary add-on. For example: TVHeadend users can now run more than one instance of the add-on to connect to multiple back-end T…

Hello - okay - new teeth, that’s weird. So, where was I? Oh, that’s right... Barcelona! Well, we did it. After a couple of years of pandemic-induced isolation, we managed to get most of the team together in early April for the first time in forever. We successfully brought people in from as far afield as western Canada and Australia, from Europe and from India, for a few days of brainstorming, hacking, direction-setting, updates and, yes, beer. Without straying into politics, we had notable absences, of course, from our Russian and Ukrainian team members. Stay safe, guys: you were genuinely missed. As a break from our normal day-by-day account, this year we're writing t…

Can you feel the excitement building in the air? Well, you should, as we are ready for our first Release Candidate for Kodi 21.0 "Omega"! This is a major release, so, as you'd expect, it comes with many new features. However, with a core change to FFmpeg 6.0, there is a very good chance that we'll get some regressions As such, please be aware that installing this will most likely break things, and we'd really like your help at that point to identify the problems and get them fixed. Please raise Github issues with full debug logs to help us resolve any issues that you wonderful testers come across. First, we'd like to make a few targeted announcements. Android users M…

Current Status - Last Updated, Monday 01 May 2023 Forum, Wiki and Paste sites are now all active. Systems have been rebuilt from scratch with new images, software and patches. All users will need to reset their passwords before they can log in. Forum registration is now open for new users. Known issues Fixed: We identified a login bug in the forum software which we've fixed and are reporting to the authors. The resolution may require some users to reset their passwords again. Fixed: There was an initial problem with registration of new accounts on the forum after we re-enabled registrations. This has now been resolved. Open: MyAlerts/Pings were not available because …

Hi, everyone! I am Mohd. Shaheer, Computer Science undergrad in freshman year. I am a GSoC contributor working on the project “Finish the web interface” for Kodi. I have been working on this project for the past 3 months. This blog post contains my experience through phase 2 (Final evaluation) of GSoC and an overview of my work during that period. In my previous blog, I wrote about my work up until the mid-evaluation of GSoC. You can find it here. Phase 2 (July 25th — September 5) This phase turned out to be more challenging than the previous one. During this phase, the first functionality I worked on was “Implementing the Video playback” which involved working on the …

This is perhaps a little short notice, but Jason from Flirc - a long-time friend of Kodi - is hosting an ask-me-anything on Cordcutters on 9th November 2022. We just wanted to let you know, and give him the chance to say a few words about what's going on. I originally made Flirc, my first product, because I was frustrated that I couldn't use our same television remote control with Kodi. That worked really well for a long time, but, as the years passed, and our Kodi boxes evolved, I became increasingly irritated with the growing number of remote controls and the state of universal remotes. I thought I could do it better. My vision for our first remote always favored a K…

The lights are dimmed, the projector is running, the microphones are tested, the coffee is on... yes, it's time for Kodi's DevCon once again! We're coming to you from beautiful Budapest, the grand capital of Hungary - which last hosted us eight years ago, and it's genuinely great to be back. With two thousand years of history, stretching from Celtic origins by way of Romans and Mongols and the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, modern Budapest is today a global city with vibrant finance, media, fashion, technology, and entertainment sectors. If you know nothing about Hungary, I promise you that you've seen this city and the surrounding countryside in more films and tel…

Time for the next milestone release for Kodi 21 "Omega". Slightly delayed this time around compared to what we were striving for, however we are happy to announce the arrival of Alpha 3. This is a major release, so, as you'd expect, it comes with many new features. However, with a core change to FFmpeg 6.0, there is a very good chance that some regressions may occur. As such, please be aware that installing this will most likely break things, and we'd really like your help at that point to identify the problems and get them fixed. Please raise Github issues with full debug logs to help us resolve any issues you wonderful testers come across. A further 176 Pull Requests …

As is always inevitable in software, we are back with a new release of Kodi 20.x "Nexus". An assortment of bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 20.0 on Github, as usual. Release notes Audio @fritsch has been working feverishly on Android-related audio issues over the past couple of months, and in combination with @thexai has introduced an algorithm to look to overcome some audio issues particularly aimed at Android devices. A summary is: Algorithm runs for 30 seconds to learn what is going on: during this time no corrections are done, but the internal m_disconAdjustTimeMs is updated to a new value whenever when the sync error is foun…

It's been some time since we released 19.1, and numerous issues have revealed themselves and been resolved in the intervening months. As such, we're probably overdue a formal release of the updates, so, without further ado - here's the latest release in the "Matrix" series. As with other point releases, don't go looking for new features, as that isn't really the purpose here. Full details are on GitHub, but here's the short form... PVR Fixed: crash when accessing invalid PVR channel from favourites Fixed: crash on startup while searching for missing channel icons Fixed: crash on startup caused by missing timer type Fixed: "Delete permanently" of recordings from trash …