[cw-kid]

Hi Pkscout

Artist SlideShow add-on has worked brilliantly in Aeon MQ5 for a long time now with no issues at all. 1.6.7 appears to have stopped something from working correctly, as I said 1.6.5 still works perfectly.

I have not enabled this new Transparent Background option in AS as I wasn't sure what it was for.

If I enable it now and do the same as above and start playback from the main menu widget, now when I go in to full screen mode the AS box in the bottom right is still blank, but I now have a single fanart image in the middle panning and zooming around. If I then access the settings on the OSD menu Aeon MQ5 is still set as Mosaic SlideShow + Viewing but as you can see in the screen shot below mosaic is gone and no longer working when this Transparent Background option is turned on in AS.



Here is a debug log file as promised. (Did not include when I turned on Transparent Background option).

http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=239838

Many thanks

EDIT:

Whilst the Transparent Background option is turned on:

This artist "Zola Jesus" is a new artist and does not have an extrafanart folder on the file server.

If I play another artist "Grimes" that does have an extrafanart folder present on the file server then when I go in to full screen mode then multiple images of this artist are displayed in the mosaic slideshow. However in the AS box in the bottom left it only shows one static image of the artist "Grimes" and this no longer changes as it normally does.

If I then go back to the XBMC main menu it shows in the AS box a static image of the previously played artist which was Zola Jesus and not the currently playing artist Grimes.

Whilst the Transparent Background option is turned off:

If I play the artist "Grimes" who has an extrafanart folder on the file server with the transparent background off then I just get all blanks in the full screen mode no images at all. Same as I reported in my first post.

If I play the artist "Zola Jesus" who does not have an extrafanart folder on the file server with the transparent background off , then its the same all blank.


However with version 1.6.5 the artist Zola Jesus shows multiple images in the full screen mosaic slideshow even though I have no local fanart images for her in a extrafanart folder on the file server. What ever this Transparent Background option is meant to do has had serious side affects on Aeon MQ5 and AS working properly as they have been doing fine. As always I am using the Local and Remote image option in AS and am using a SMB:// path to the music folder on the file server.

[cw-kid]

My system (OpenElec Gotham / Aeon MQ5) just updated AS to version v1.6.7 and now its broken.

I've rebooted the HTPC but its still the same, if I roll back AS to v1.6.5 (there was no option for v.1.6.6) everything works OK again.

I'll be happy to look at it, but to be honest I don't understand how this ever worked in Aeon Nox5. It appears that their home screen widget starts AS, and then if you switch to the full screen mode Aeon Nox tries to start AS again. The second attempt at starting AS fails, so no path to the artist images ever gets set. If you can manage to get into fullscreen mode before Aeon Nox5 shows the artwork on the home screen, it works fine.

The only things that got added to 1.6.7 (1.6.6 never got released) were an option for a transparent background and default disabling of all logging (which means you need to enable that before sending me any debug logs). The former was three lines of code that really shouldn't have (I would go almost as far as saying couldn't have) changed anything if you don't turn the setting on, and the latter is all in a support library that doesn't even touch the main AS code.

All I know is that the "home screen widget" is powered by the Skin Widgets add-on which gets installed when you install the Aeon MQ5 Skin as does your add-on. I'll post another log file soon when the new Transparent Background option in AS is turned on.

Thanks

[cw-kid]

OK I think to get to the bottom of this we need to start over and do some tests.

ArtistSlideShow V 1.6.7

Test1:

Artist "Zola Jesus" NO extrafanart folder present on the file server, AS Transparent Background option OFF

Result:

AS on the main XBMC menu initially shows correctly multiple images for the artist in the AS box.
Upon entering full screen playback mode everything is blank with no images, both the mosaic slideshow and the AS box in the bottom left are blank. Upon returning to the XBMC main menu again the AS box there is now also blank.

Debug Log File:

http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=239865

Test2:

Artist "Zola Jesus" NO extrafanart folder present on the file server, AS Transparent Background option ON

Result:

AS on the main XBMC menu initially shows correctly multiple images for the artist in the AS box.
Upon entering full screen playback mode one static image of Zola Jesus is displayed with pan and zoom affect, the mosaic slideshow which is enabled no longer appears. The AS box in the bottom left is blank with no image. Upon returning to the XBMC main menu the AS box there is now just showing one static image of Zola Jesus and is not changing images as it should.

Debug Log File:

http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=239870

Test3:

Artist "Grimes" extrafanart folder IS present on the file server, AS Transparent Background option OFF

Result:

AS on the main XBMC menu initially shows correctly multiple images for the artist in the AS box.
Upon entering full screen playback mode everything is blank with no images, both the mosaic slideshow and the AS box in the bottom left are blank. Upon returning to the XBMC main menu again the AS box there is now also blank.

Debug Log File:

http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=239872

Test4:

Artist "Grimes" extrafanart folder IS present on the file server, AS Transparent Background option ON

Result:

AS on the main XBMC menu initially shows correctly multiple images for the artist in the AS box.
Upon entering full screen playback mode one static image of Grimes is displayed with pan and zoom affect, the mosaic slideshow which is enabled no longer appears. The AS box in the bottom left is blank with no image. Upon returning to the XBMC main menu the AS box there is now just showing one static image of Grimes and is not changing images as it should.

This static fanart image I see in the full screen mode, is the default background image for this artist, so ArtistSlideShow is clearly not working here and the skin must be falling back to the default fanart image.

Debug Log File:

http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=239875


ArtistSlideShow V 1.6.5

Test1:

Artist "Zola Jesus" NO extrafanart folder present on the file server

Result

AS on the main XBMC menu initially shows correctly multiple images for the artist in the AS box.
Upon entering full screen playback mode the mosaic slideshow correctly displays multiple images of the artist and also the AS box in the bottom left shows multiple images of the artist.
Upon returning to the XBMC main menu again the AS box there still displays multiple images of the correct artist.

All working normal as expected!

Debug Log File:

http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=239876

Test2:

Artist "Grimes" extrafanart folder IS present on the file server

Result:

AS on the main XBMC menu initially shows correctly multiple images for the artist in the AS box.
Upon entering full screen playback mode the mosaic slideshow correctly displays multiple images of the artist and also the AS box in the bottom left shows multiple images of the artist.
Upon returning to the XBMC main menu again the AS box there still displays multiple images of the correct artist.

All working normal as expected!

Debug Log File:

http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=239878

I hope this information and log files help, good luck!

[pkscout]

I found the problem. Aeon MQ5 is really not calling AS the way it should be called if you use it in multiple screens. If you are using AS on multiple screens, you should really start it when the skin starts using the daemon mode. AS then initializes itself at startup and will happily tell any window where the currently playing artists' images are.

Aeon MQ5 starts AS in multiple locations, and up until now that had never caused any problems. While a second AS instance will quit if it discovers another instance running, it does do some initialization before that check is done. I moved the initial setting of the "empty" background into an area that runs before the check, so the second AS was setting the background to empty and then quitting. I have put some logic around that not to set the background if another instance of AS is running, but I can't say what else might happen in the future when skins call AS multiple times. The Aeon MQ5 folks really need to fix their skin for long term compatibility, as there is a limit to how much I'm going to hack up AS to fix skin specific issues.

v.1.6.8~beta1
- moved creation of ArtistSlideshowTransparent to after Window creation
- fix for skins that improperly call AS more than once

There are now two ways to get beta releases:

• via my beta channel repo (as noted now on the AS wiki page)
  
• via direct download
  

The direct download for 1.6.8~beta1 is at http://raw.github.com/pkscout/repository...~beta1.zip

Because it will make rolling back easier during testing, I'd strongly encourage you to use the beta repo.

[Wanilton]

@pkscout, thanks, work fine again.

Wanilton

[cw-kid]

@pkscout, thanks, work fine again.

Wanilton

Many thanks Pkscout knew you'd be able to fix it!

@Wanilton can you please pass this issue on to Marcos to be looked at in Aeon MQ5 / MQ6 ?

I'll add it to my bugs / issues list.

Cheers

EDIT: Added to the list under bugs, issue number #19

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...pid1564361

Request for this issue to be looked at on the Aeon MQ5 thread:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...pid1747037

[cw-kid]

Hi

I can also confirm that the new beta version has fixed all the issues in Aeon MQ5! I tried to play the same two artists with and without the Transparent Background option enabled.

So about this new Transparent Background option it says in the settings: "Use Transparent Background when no artist images found" presumably this kinda conflicts with the other option to "Use Fallback SlideShow"

So I guess one or the other option should be enabled, but not both?

Thanks

[pkscout]

@pkscout, thanks, work fine again.

Wanilton

Many thanks Pkscout knew you'd be able to fix it!

@Wanilton can you please pass this issue on to Marcos to be looked at in Aeon MQ5 / MQ6 ?

I'll add it to my bugs / issues list.

So, it turns out this isn't *really* a skin issue after all. I tried the 1.6.7 code with my Confluence mods again and tried to kind of duplicate what was happening with Aeon MQ5 (that is, music starts, AS starts, then the window changes and AS tries to start again). I did find a way to duplicate the problem in Confluence, it's just a little bit of an odd use case for that skin that I'd never tested before.

Given that, we can call the 1.6.8~beta1 an actual fix for an actual problem. It was just much more obvious in Aeon MQ5 than it ever will be in Confluence. Unfortunately, I just posted 1.6.7 to the official repo, so it'll be another couple of weeks before I can post an update there. Until then, folks can get the update from one of the links above.

---

So about this new Transparent Background option it says in the settings: "Use Transparent Background when no artist images found" presumably this kinda conflicts with the other option to "Use Fallback SlideShow"

So I guess one or the other option should be enabled, but not both?

If you want the transparent background, you definitely need to disable Use Fallback Slideshow. Technically you will get the transparent background, but the fallback show will play on top of that, so you'll never see the layer below.

[hosko]

Edit - Yes to comes pre-loaded, I tested it with the spotify top 100 and it really struggled when there was more then one name in the artist. For instance Dark House by Katy Pery, Juicy J doesn't pull any images. Even if it just pulled the first artist named would normally identify the main artist Also my normal screen saver kicked in, is there a way to tell it not to start if music is playing? I'm having to use the waveform visualization to get around this.

Unfortunately there is no way to tell the difference between Katy Perry, Juicy J as two artists and Earth, Wind, & Fire as one. AS supports three ways of identifying multiple artists:

1. When scrapped, XBMC will separate artists based on the separation string (by default that is ' / '). AS asks XBMC for the list of artists associated with the song. (this one probably doesn't apply in your case since Spotify music obviously isn't scrapped into the library).
   
2. AS will also look at the artist string and try and parse multiple artists. AS looks for the standard XBMC separator (' / ' <- that's a space, a slash, and a space) as well as 'feat.' and 'ft.' (for featured).
   
3. AS also looks in the song title for 'feat.' and 'ft.' (this is the iTunes/Amazon style for featured artists)
   

Thanks I modified the python script in spotimc so the seperator between artists is ' / ' and its working perfectly. Its line 153 of addons\script.audio.spotimc\resources\libs\spotimcgui\playback.py if anyone else is wanting to do it. For some reason ' feat. ' didn't work, not a real big deal I just think it looks better.

[Mudislander]

@pkscout Is there a property that could advise if ArtistSlideshow has fanart for the current artist available to show. My new problem is with the transparent background enabled and ArtistSlideshow is presenting an image that is not 16:9 the skin fallback image is showing up underneath, some users don't like this. Therefore would be nice to only allow skin background if ArtistSlideshow has transparent setting + Window(Visualisation).Property(ArtistSlideshow) is empty or not ready.

[R-max]

Hi
I just installed xbmc 13.1 on my new fire tv and use the refocus skin.
The artist slideshow is installed and running but nothing appear, the add-on doesn't work
any idea ?
Thank you

[pkscout]

@pkscout Is there a property that could advise if ArtistSlideshow has fanart for the current artist available to show. My new problem is with the transparent background enabled and ArtistSlideshow is presenting an image that is not 16:9 the skin fallback image is showing up underneath, some users don't like this. Therefore would be nice to only allow skin background if ArtistSlideshow has transparent setting + Window(Visualisation).Property(ArtistSlideshow) is empty or not ready.

There isn't one specifically. I need to look through the code and see if you can safely assume that Window(Visualisation).Property(ArtistSlideshow) will be empty if there is no art. I'll look at either making sure Window(Visualisation).Property(ArtistSlideshow) is empty until there is art OR add another window property. I should be able to look at it this weekend.

[pkscout]

Hi
I just installed xbmc 13.1 on my new fire tv and use the refocus skin.
The artist slideshow is installed and running but nothing appear, the add-on doesn't work
any idea ?
Thank you

I'll need a debug log to help any. First, go the the settings for Artist Slideshow and enable debug logging in the advanced pane. Then see the link in my sig on how to enable debug logging in XBMC and how to post the log.

[pkscout]

NEW BETA AVAILABLE

v.1.6.8~beta2
- cleaned up startup process to better deal with script being started twice
- added new window property ArtistSlideshow.ArtworkReady (true if artwork available, empty otherwise)

I don't have any great way to test the new skin property, so I'm hoping one of the skin author's can see if it meets the needs.

This beta is available via my beta addon repo or at:

https://github.com/pkscout/repository.be...Ebeta2.zip

[Mudislander]

Thanks for that. Will try it out this week and get back to you.

---

Edit Not to derail this thread, if anyone wants to try out the new property on their music collection the code has been added to the fullscreen music playback of Hybrid Dev version 2.3.5.Avail from Hybrid Repo. Please remember this thread is for ArtistSlideshow and Hybrid problems need to go under the Hybrid thread.