My issues with XBMC

So, I built my machine with great pride and anticipation a month or so ago and have been fiddling with it to configure it the way I want... but havent been able to configure it the way I want yet... I m not sure if I m messing up or issues with xbmc.
So rather than creating multiple threads, I wanted to create on thread that asks all the issues I m facing and hoping the great souls here will help me resolve it.

So here s my main issue right now

#1 Fanarts are missing. I rescan lib with imdb/themoviedb nothing happens. I select a movie and hit reload and say get FANART, but it doesnt find anything. I was able to get the fanart before may be 2-3 weeks ago, but I always had the problem of it getting overwrriten or just goes plain missing after some days. So I have to either rescan the entire lib or hit reload on every single movie. But now if I reload or rescan, it doesnt make a difference. No fanart is grabbed, the thumb seems ok. Whats the solution?

#2. Smart playlists are either not smart or I am plain dumb:
I have multiple sources of media, like English movies, I have in D: and H:. So I create a smart playlist with D and H as the "path starts with" rule. This finds all the movies and displays, FINE. But now I want to create a HD playlist using the above playlist, so I use condition1. resolution >719 and playlist is English. But it doesnt find the right content. It pretty much gives me my entire library.

#3. How do I get backdrops for individual file submenu. So under Movies I have 3 submenus , English, language#2, language#3. and I want to create different backdrops for each sub menu. How?

My setup: Win 7 / xbmc dharma build. (no nightly builds installed yet)

As I get more problems I ll keep updating the above list. But these are my highest priority problems.
Any help will be highly appreciated.

Edit:
Also i have media center master running but thats not helping either. I think I have all the values set properly in mcm to get the fanart etc but still xbmc doesnt read any.

Some info from you is gonna help us help you. What version of xbmc are you using, what operating system?

A temporary solution for downloading fan-art would be the xbne program.

blueicing Wrote:Some info from you is gonna help us help you. What version of xbmc are you using, what operating system?

A temporary solution for downloading fan-art would be the xbne program.

I answered it above.. its win 7 x 64 and dharma build. If any more info needed, please let me know.

On #1
- Are you sure you have your source set to movies?
- Filenames are picky in XBMC. The way I name is: Name (Year).mkv.

On #3
- What skin are you using?

You have manually reset the movie or TV show information to make it refresh, yes? Once you have "groomed" your library to get the fanart, etc. you want I always export the library to individual files so it saves the nfo file identifying the video and all associated art in the folder with the video.

That way if your system crashes or you add a new xbmc player content it automatically loads the art, etc. you want.

It sort of sounds like your SQL database for xbmc is wonky so a reinstall maybe in the cards but as I said export the correct art, etc. into the individual folders first and when you reinstall xbmc it will just pick up everything in the individual folders.

Those 3-party apps simply do the same thing - they put the art and nfo files in the folder with the video to xbmc finds it automatically when you add the content.

Banditt Wrote:On #1
- Are you sure you have your source set to movies?
- Filenames are picky in XBMC. The way I name is: Name (Year).mkv.

On #3
- What skin are you using?

Yes the sources are set to Movies for sure, cos I always check that when I refresh.
I use folder names to lookup tho, that create a hug issue for me where it renamed about 20 movies I had in folder English. Now I have no idea what those movies are, but thats later to worry.

I am using Aeon MQ2, tho on different skins its not different.

seand Wrote:You have manually reset the movie or TV show information to make it refresh, yes? Once you have "groomed" your library to get the fanart, etc. you want I always export the library to individual files so it saves the nfo file identifying the video and all associated art in the folder with the video.

That way if your system crashes or you add a new xbmc player content it automatically loads the art, etc. you want.

It sort of sounds like your SQL database for xbmc is wonky so a reinstall maybe in the cards but as I said export the correct art, etc. into the individual folders first and when you reinstall xbmc it will just pick up everything in the individual folders.

Those 3-party apps simply do the same thing - they put the art and nfo files in the folder with the video to xbmc finds it automatically when you add the content.

The think even on 3rd party its the same ... if I look up for say Wall-E on xbne, or media center master I cant find backdrops at all. Same goes for the dark knight. I find it difficult to believe. for eg MCM found all the plot, cast, rating etc but no backdrop for dark knight. Whats going on? Tried the same for almost 15 movies on xbne, none could find backdrop/fanart from imdb and amazon.

Somebody I know very very well has copies of both of those titles in their XBMC library with background art currently.

I think your films or containing folders are titled in a way that messing up the scrapers. There is most definitely art and info available for both of those films.

When you manually try to refresh the data for the films in XBMC it shows you the exact text string it is searching by. Check again. I suspect something in your files or folder names is pointing it in the wrong direction.

Try putting each video in its own folder also titled by the name of the film. That way XBMC can put individual art, nfo and tbn files in the specific folder for each film. You can then organize those films into what ever larger folder structure you prefer.

seand Wrote:Somebody I know very very well has copies of both of those titles in their XBMC library with background art currently.

I think your films or containing folders are titled in a way that messing up the scrapers. There is most definitely art and info available for both of those films.

When you manually try to refresh the data for the films in XBMC it shows you the exact text string it is searching by. Check again. I suspect something in your files or folder names is pointing it in the wrong direction.

I did that too ..as i mentioned in OP. I manually reloaded individual file,it finds the movie from imdb, I click on it and it loads info, it even asks if i want to refresh local media with the online version I say yes and then when I go to Get fanart, it doesnt show me anything.. says no fanart/browse. so not sure whats going on.