Kodi

Since we released 19.0 "Matrix", we've been hearing a lot of noise about how people's addons have stopped working, and why we're all Really Bad People for doing this. We thought it would be worth helping people understand what's happening here - mostly, because our fingers are getting tired from trying to explain, and it'll save an awful lot of typing in the forum, or on Facebook, or wherever. Please remember, first of all, that Kodi itself does not automatically update. We might tell you that a new version is available, sure, but we never force a new version onto you: that's entirely a product of your chosen operating system and configuration. It's probably enabled by d…

... yes, it's here! After several iterations of alpha, beta and RC, Team Kodi is pleased to announce that Kodi 19.0 "Matrix" has just been formally released on all supported platforms. Dare you take the red pill, and find out how deep the rabbit-hole goes? By the numbers, then, this version is the product of: Nearly 50 individual open source developers contributed code About 5,000 commits in over 1,500 pull requests since the first release of 18.x "Leia" Over 5,500 changed files, with some 600,000 lines of code added, changed or removed Countless hours of dedicated free time conceiving, designing, developing and testing (including all the infrastructure you see around …

And, off we go again. The dust settles on the festive season, so it's time for another pre-release to hit the streets... we're getting close to final release now, so we're moving out of Beta and into RC. If you want to know the main features in this release series, please refer back to previous blog posts: this is an iteration of previous Beta releases, not a feature release, remember. This is stable, reliable code, suitable for daily use. Please, then: install, test, and give us clear feedback on any remaining issues, either with the new features or perhaps with a regression in existing code. As this is a release candidate, we think it's basically ready to go, but let'…

Hey everybody, In June 2020 some suggestions on improvements to our add-on system were suggested by Matt Huisman and some minor changes were implemented. Who knew at the time but this turned into much more work both cleaning up the current add-on system and adding numerous new features. The main goal of this became to improve the add-on user experience and add security features in order to prevent add-ons and repositories from being misused by bad actors. The main problems were founded in the initial design of the add-on system, which doesn't distinguish between official and third-party repositories. This allows a mixup of installing and updating add-ons based only on t…

Heya fellow net dwellers, Right now the Remote Chaos Experience (RC3) is already running at full steam as virtual replacement for the 37th Chaos Communication Congress (37C3) that was supposed to be held in Leipzig, Germany, at exactly this time. While we did not register an official assembly, some Team Kodi members are roaming around the RC3 world and we will use the opportunity to hold a short "What's new" presentation plus Q&A session on the last day of the congress. The exact date and time is Wednesday, 30th December, 2 p.m. CET. The event is over and the recording is available on YouTube. View the full article

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 …

Lights! Camera! Action! ... nearly. It's Beta time for Kodi 19.x "Matrix", so let's take another step towards the Great Unveiling. As we now move into Beta, this release is much more about fixes than features: while there will be the odd new functionality, we're concentrating very much more on getting everything working properly from this point. To recap, then, one of the main objectives of 19.x "Matrix" is to release a production version of Kodi with Python 3 addons as early in 2021 as we can. That can only happen with enthusiastic community support, lots of good humour and willingness to see the best in others - well, that and coffee/beer (delete as applicable), of c…

Last year at FOSDEM, we were approached about our usage of analytics software on our websites that gives visitor data to big companies with servers located in countries with data protection laws that are less strict than what EU citizens are accustomed to. Team Kodi has always had a firm stance against user tracking in our software, so it felt inconsistent that we did not extend the same level of prudence to our websites. At first, we considered removing analytics altogether. But it quickly became clear that this would be problematic for our Wiki maintainers: Without any insight into what pages are viewed most, it is next to impossible to prioritize the pages to update a…

So... drum roll...hot on the heels of 19.x "Matrix" Alpha 2, and after a quick detour for an unexpected 18.9 "Leia" release, we bring you the stunningly-named 19.x "Matrix" Alpha 3. This will hopefully be the last of our alpha releases, before we move into beta and onto formal release (but no promises, obviously). Usual caveats: while we're approaching beta, this is still an alpha, and some things will be broken. That is, basically, the whole point of releasing it, after all: find the problems, and fix them before final release. Here's a non-exhaustive list of the major feature changes since the last release, although there have also been many more improvements and "beh…

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…