[jono0007]

Firstly, thank you for the excellent add-on!

I'm using the Arctic Zephyr: Reloaded skin, and I have an icon in the home menu bar for each video service I use (Jellyfin, Netflix, etc). Sometimes the kodi plugins are flaky or what have you, so I'm trying to have the home bar buttons open the associated UWP (Universal Windows Platform) app for each service via AKL. I've successfully managed to get the UWP apps launching through AKL using these instructions.

I'm just not sure what to enter into the skin settings to directly launch the app when the home bar icon is pressed...

Currently they open the video service's plugin page (eg ActivateWindow(plugin://etc)).

Is there a way to configure the home bar button's setting to directly launch a "rom"? I've looked through the list of Kodi's built-in functions and nothing quite seems to fit.

[chrisism]

Firstly, thank you for the excellent add-on!

I'm using the Arctic Zephyr: Reloaded skin, and I have an icon in the home menu bar for each video service I use (Jellyfin, Netflix, etc). Sometimes the kodi plugins are flaky or what have you, so I'm trying to have the home bar buttons open the associated UWP (Universal Windows Platform) app for each service via AKL. I've successfully managed to get the UWP apps launching through AKL using these instructions.

I'm just not sure what to enter into the skin settings to directly launch the app when the home bar icon is pressed...

Currently they open the video service's plugin page (eg ActivateWindow(plugin://etc)).

Is there a way to configure the home bar button's setting to directly launch a "rom"? I've looked through the list of Kodi's built-in functions and nothing quite seems to fit.

Excellent question and indeed a difficult one to do. The menu customizer does let you go to the addon and go through the categories and collections you have created in AKL. However, we don't see any of the actual ROMs. I cannot fix that part since it is how the menu customization scripts simply work. 
HOWEVER, there is work around. Maybe a bit less fancy, but you can simply go to the ROMs in AKL and open up the context menu and use 'Add to Favourites' (kodi favs, not akl favs). If you go back to the menu customizer you can look up kodi favs and choose the ROM from there. That does work.
Good luck

[ehammer85]

Hi, I'm setting up a new kodi instance running version 20 (Nexus). In the past I have used advanced emulator launcher for games and browsers but being that there isn't a release for the latest version of Kodi I've decided to try AKL.

Today I have managed to setup all my games to run with the Arctic Zephyr reloaded skin and the retroplayer emulator which I am happy to report all works well. However when trying to launch the firefox browser to a specific website I am at a bit of a loss.

How does one setup a launcher to acheive this? I am sure it is the Rom Collection (standalone option) but I can't work it out. Once upon a time I used to create a shortcut file to the browsers .exe file then include the url in the shortcuts target and then link AEL to that file.

Ok I was an idiot but I’ve worked it out now. To start firefox at a particular website I had to

1. Add new ROM (Standalone)
   
2. Select the appropriate category
   
3. Answer “No” to is it a file based ROM/executable
   
4. Write the name for the launcher “Firefox”
   
5. Go into the context menu of the newly created launcher
   
6. Edit ROM
   
7. Add new launcher to ROM
   
8. Select Application launcher
   
9. Find and select the firefox.exe
   
10. In the Application arguments enter the website I wanted firefox to open to “www.example.com”
    
11. Edit metadata/assets as appropriate
    

I must say I really love AKL it seems to work better than AEL just had to get used to the few differences.

I do have a couple more questions though that I can’t seem to find a solution too.

Firstly, whenever I run a game or application several notifications for Advanced Kodi Launcher popup in the right hand side of the screen e.g Rendering virtual collection, most played ROMS views reached, most played ROMS view rendered, etc. Is there a way to hide these notifications?

Secondly, when I go to AKL settings > Display > Special Categories/Launchers > and toggle the hide option for any of the Favorites, ROM Collections, Browse by, etc. an error appears after I rebuild the views and AKL immediately crashes. WhenI try to open it again it displays an error everytime I try, the error displayed is “Failed to execute route or command”. The only way I can fix this error is to uninstall the addon and reinstall it again.

Was hoping I might get some assistance with creating a stand-alone ROM.  I was following the instructions above (even following along with the FireFox test).  But after I enter in the launcher and arguments, I get an error stating:  "Failed to store launcher settings".  I've duplicated that same error with several attempts of setting up standalone ROMS.  See log here:  https://paste.kodi.tv/uwazizahev.kodi

[chrisism]

Hi, I'm setting up a new kodi instance running version 20 (Nexus). In the past I have used advanced emulator launcher for games and browsers but being that there isn't a release for the latest version of Kodi I've decided to try AKL.

Today I have managed to setup all my games to run with the Arctic Zephyr reloaded skin and the retroplayer emulator which I am happy to report all works well. However when trying to launch the firefox browser to a specific website I am at a bit of a loss.

How does one setup a launcher to acheive this? I am sure it is the Rom Collection (standalone option) but I can't work it out. Once upon a time I used to create a shortcut file to the browsers .exe file then include the url in the shortcuts target and then link AEL to that file.

Ok I was an idiot but I’ve worked it out now. To start firefox at a particular website I had to

1. Add new ROM (Standalone)
   
2. Select the appropriate category
   
3. Answer “No” to is it a file based ROM/executable
   
4. Write the name for the launcher “Firefox”
   
5. Go into the context menu of the newly created launcher
   
6. Edit ROM
   
7. Add new launcher to ROM
   
8. Select Application launcher
   
9. Find and select the firefox.exe
   
10. In the Application arguments enter the website I wanted firefox to open to “www.example.com”
    
11. Edit metadata/assets as appropriate
    

I must say I really love AKL it seems to work better than AEL just had to get used to the few differences.

I do have a couple more questions though that I can’t seem to find a solution too.

Firstly, whenever I run a game or application several notifications for Advanced Kodi Launcher popup in the right hand side of the screen e.g Rendering virtual collection, most played ROMS views reached, most played ROMS view rendered, etc. Is there a way to hide these notifications?

Secondly, when I go to AKL settings > Display > Special Categories/Launchers > and toggle the hide option for any of the Favorites, ROM Collections, Browse by, etc. an error appears after I rebuild the views and AKL immediately crashes. WhenI try to open it again it displays an error everytime I try, the error displayed is “Failed to execute route or command”. The only way I can fix this error is to uninstall the addon and reinstall it again.

Was hoping I might get some assistance with creating a stand-alone ROM.  I was following the instructions above (even following along with the FireFox test).  But after I enter in the launcher and arguments, I get an error stating:  "Failed to store launcher settings".  I've duplicated that same error with several attempts of setting up standalone ROMS.  See log here:  https://paste.kodi.tv/uwazizahev.kodi

This little line in the logs is what it is all about:

Code:

[WinError 10013] An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden by its access permissions

AKL consists of two applications, a front-end with all the views and actions and a backend which is a long-running service in the background. To communicate between these two, the front and the back, it uses a small simple webserver. However, in your case when the background service tries to startup that little webserver it is denied by your OS.
So perhaps some kind of firewall, anti-virus or some kind is preventing it. Or if on windows, try to start Kodi in admin mode (run as administrator).

[ehammer85]

Ok I was an idiot but I’ve worked it out now. To start firefox at a particular website I had to

1. Add new ROM (Standalone)
   
2. Select the appropriate category
   
3. Answer “No” to is it a file based ROM/executable
   
4. Write the name for the launcher “Firefox”
   
5. Go into the context menu of the newly created launcher
   
6. Edit ROM
   
7. Add new launcher to ROM
   
8. Select Application launcher
   
9. Find and select the firefox.exe
   
10. In the Application arguments enter the website I wanted firefox to open to “www.example.com”
    
11. Edit metadata/assets as appropriate
    

I must say I really love AKL it seems to work better than AEL just had to get used to the few differences.

I do have a couple more questions though that I can’t seem to find a solution too.

Firstly, whenever I run a game or application several notifications for Advanced Kodi Launcher popup in the right hand side of the screen e.g Rendering virtual collection, most played ROMS views reached, most played ROMS view rendered, etc. Is there a way to hide these notifications?

Secondly, when I go to AKL settings > Display > Special Categories/Launchers > and toggle the hide option for any of the Favorites, ROM Collections, Browse by, etc. an error appears after I rebuild the views and AKL immediately crashes. WhenI try to open it again it displays an error everytime I try, the error displayed is “Failed to execute route or command”. The only way I can fix this error is to uninstall the addon and reinstall it again.

Was hoping I might get some assistance with creating a stand-alone ROM.  I was following the instructions above (even following along with the FireFox test).  But after I enter in the launcher and arguments, I get an error stating:  "Failed to store launcher settings".  I've duplicated that same error with several attempts of setting up standalone ROMS.  See log here:  https://paste.kodi.tv/uwazizahev.kodi

This little line in the logs is what it is all about:

Code:

[WinError 10013] An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden by its access permissions

AKL consists of two applications, a front-end with all the views and actions and a backend which is a long-running service in the background. To communicate between these two, the front and the back, it uses a small simple webserver. However, in your case when the background service tries to startup that little webserver it is denied by your OS.
So perhaps some kind of firewall, anti-virus or some kind is preventing it. Or if on windows, try to start Kodi in admin mode (run as administrator).

Strange.  I'm in a Windows environment and ran Kodi as an admin, but it persists.  Turned off all anti-virus and firewall (domain, private, public) and still persists.  Is there a specific port or protocol I should be looking to whitelist?  And would this "webserver" be local or over the network - ie, should I be looking in my local firewall settings or public?

[haseo89]

What platforms and Kodi version combinations have been validated to work with AKL and its launchers? I've been completely unable to import my steam games list via the steam scraper, and also unable to launch roms via the retroarch launcher in other collections after they're imported via the file scraper. The only combination that works at all on my setup is the file scraper and "retroplayer", which doesn't have all the features/emulators I'm looking for plus a couple of the emulators crash.

I'm on Windows 11 (OS build 22621.2861) using Kodi 20.3. I started by trying the AKL stable build, but switched to the dev repo v1.5.0rc2 and tried running it as admin with no AV and firewall turned off. Also tried AKL stable on all Kodi Windows versions all the way back to 19.5 without luck. Happy to provide logs, but if other users who have this working can share their setup details (kodi version, AKL plugin/script versions, OS version) that would be a helpful start.

[garbear]

@haseo89 Could you post the RetroPlayer emulators you come across that crash? Can you also mention which features RP is missing? If we can reach feature-parity and stability, then for a lot of games we might not even have to leave Kodi.

[chrisism]

Was hoping I might get some assistance with creating a stand-alone ROM.  I was following the instructions above (even following along with the FireFox test).  But after I enter in the launcher and arguments, I get an error stating:  "Failed to store launcher settings".  I've duplicated that same error with several attempts of setting up standalone ROMS.  See log here:  https://paste.kodi.tv/uwazizahev.kodi

This little line in the logs is what it is all about:

Code:

[WinError 10013] An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden by its access permissions

AKL consists of two applications, a front-end with all the views and actions and a backend which is a long-running service in the background. To communicate between these two, the front and the back, it uses a small simple webserver. However, in your case when the background service tries to startup that little webserver it is denied by your OS.
So perhaps some kind of firewall, anti-virus or some kind is preventing it. Or if on windows, try to start Kodi in admin mode (run as administrator).

Strange.  I'm in a Windows environment and ran Kodi as an admin, but it persists.  Turned off all anti-virus and firewall (domain, private, public) and still persists.  Is there a specific port or protocol I should be looking to whitelist?  And would this "webserver" be local or over the network - ie, should I be looking in my local firewall settings or public?

I had to startup AKL on my windows laptop again to check this out. I have been developing on a Chromebook for a while and could not get the same situation there. 
But good news: I had the exact same error message!

Even better news, I also know how to fix it. It is probably due to the port number used by the webserver that is now suddenly blocked by windows. I am going to create a hotfix with a different port number and the option to edit it through plugin settings.

Manual temporary fix:

1. Go to your addons directory and the AKL directory (%appdata%\kodi\addons\plugin.program.akl\).
   
2. Go in to the folder resources/lib.
   
3. Open up webserver.py in notepad or similar all the way at the bottom (line 117 or something) you can see the WEBSERVER_PORT = xxxx
   
4. Change the number into a different one, try 5738. Save and close the file.
   
5. Remove any pycache or .pyo files in that folder so changes in the source code can be recognized.
   
6. Restart kodi and good luck
   

[chrisism]

What platforms and Kodi version combinations have been validated to work with AKL and its launchers? I've been completely unable to import my steam games list via the steam scraper, and also unable to launch roms via the retroarch launcher in other collections after they're imported via the file scraper. The only combination that works at all on my setup is the file scraper and "retroplayer", which doesn't have all the features/emulators I'm looking for plus a couple of the emulators crash.

I'm on Windows 11 (OS build 22621.2861) using Kodi 20.3. I started by trying the AKL stable build, but switched to the dev repo v1.5.0rc2 and tried running it as admin with no AV and firewall turned off. Also tried AKL stable on all Kodi Windows versions all the way back to 19.5 without luck. Happy to provide logs, but if other users who have this working can share their setup details (kodi version, AKL plugin/script versions, OS version) that would be a helpful start.

Lets have a look. Garbear can help on the retroplayer part though.
So for the Steam games, did you get an API key from Steam? If you can give some details on which steps work and where it doesn't, along with a copy of the kodi logs (use paste.kodi.tv / log export addon in kodi, for more details see threadstart).
Same for the retroarch launcher. Make sure you setup your Retroach application on your machine before using it through AKL. So in Retroarch you first download all the needed systems etc.

[haseo89]

@haseo89 Could you post the RetroPlayer emulators you come across that crash? Can you also mention which features RP is missing? If we can reach feature-parity and stability, then for a lot of games we might not even have to leave Kodi.

I originally didn't expect to comment more on retroplayer, but I've been going through some of the docs and retesting my experience since your reply to try to reduce ignorance to a (hopefully) tolerable amount. Here's where my understanding and experiences have left me....

Problematic retroplayer cores:
Mupen64plus - The emulator "Nintendo - Nintendo 64  (Mupen64plus)" had an internal error.
ParaLLEI N64 - (crashes Kodi completely and immediately without an on-screen error)

Missing retroplayer system cores:
-ps2
-gamecube
-psp

Missing retroplayer features:
-(easily?) mappable "hotkey enable" binding (i.e. a modifier key)
-slowmotion
-hotkey toggle-able ff/rw/slow-mo
-more than one save/load state (I can only see "autosave"), with additional hotkeys for "change state slot" and save/load for the active slot
-auto-pause when kodi is not the active window
-play roms from .zip (just a convenience, and comparably small compared to the rest here), .zip files don't show/allow me to select relevant cores
-...retroarch can be coerced to "cloud-sync" saves/save-states using owncloud, and while a portable install of Kodi could probably do the same, I already use retroarch in places I hadn't planned to use Kodi so battery/save/state directory interoperability would make using both more practical for me. (I get this is probably a non-trivial change for non-technical reasons)
-core association can't seem to be reset without removing/re-adding games (maybe this is an AKL feature issue though; I can't seem to tell)

Problematic retroplayer features:
-"select+x" menu won't open for me (tried other face buttons too), though ff/rw work fine. I use an 8bitdo pro2 if that matters

[haseo89]

So for the Steam games, did you get an API key from Steam? If you can give some details on which steps work and where it doesn't, along with a copy of the kodi logs (use paste.kodi.tv / log export addon in kodi, for more details see threadstart).

I have a "Steam Web API Key" from steamcommunity(dot)com/dev/apikey that I've been using. For the "steam ID" I've tried both my steam username, as well as my "user ID" (the one for profile/friends) so it would be good to know which one to use, but using one or the other doesn't atually change the error I get: "failure retrieving web data" which shows immediately in the Kodi UI after running a scan. Then after the scan the ROMs collection remains completely empty.

Logs during a scan for steam games: https://paste.kodi.tv/ifehanuxal.kodi

Same for the retroarch launcher. Make sure you setup your Retroach application on your machine before using it through AKL. So in Retroarch you first download all the needed systems etc.

Retroarch has cores installed and works when launched independently of Kodi/AKL (I hope that's what you mean by "setup your retroarch" and "download all the needed systems", let me know if I misunderstood or possibly missed something in the setup guide). When configuring the launcher for a ROMs collection, I'm able to get through the wizard just fine, selecting the retroarch config seems to work and I can see the installed cores during setup. But when actually launching a rom, "nothing happens" except some notification messages about AKL updating views.

Another log snippet, this one while trying to launch a ROM through retroarch in AKL: https://paste.kodi.tv/hibasejaru.kodi

[chrisism]

So for the Steam games, did you get an API key from Steam? If you can give some details on which steps work and where it doesn't, along with a copy of the kodi logs (use paste.kodi.tv / log export addon in kodi, for more details see threadstart).

I have a "Steam Web API Key" from steamcommunity(dot)com/dev/apikey that I've been using. For the "steam ID" I've tried both my steam username, as well as my "user ID" (the one for profile/friends) so it would be good to know which one to use, but using one or the other doesn't atually change the error I get: "failure retrieving web data" which shows immediately in the Kodi UI after running a scan. Then after the scan the ROMs collection remains completely empty.

Logs during a scan for steam games: https://paste.kodi.tv/ifehanuxal.kodi

Same for the retroarch launcher. Make sure you setup your Retroach application on your machine before using it through AKL. So in Retroarch you first download all the needed systems etc.

Retroarch has cores installed and works when launched independently of Kodi/AKL (I hope that's what you mean by "setup your retroarch" and "download all the needed systems", let me know if I misunderstood or possibly missed something in the setup guide). When configuring the launcher for a ROMs collection, I'm able to get through the wizard just fine, selecting the retroarch config seems to work and I can see the installed cores during setup. But when actually launching a rom, "nothing happens" except some notification messages about AKL updating views.

Another log snippet, this one while trying to launch a ROM through retroarch in AKL: https://paste.kodi.tv/hibasejaru.kodi

For the steam part, it looks like it is going wrong when retrieving the list of owned games from the steam API. That could be because of the steam id. So the API key you have to set through the steam plugin addon settings. Then when you connect the scanner to a collection it asks you for the Steam ID. One way of getting the correct ID is by going to the steam website, login, click on you picture to go to the profile page and then in the URL bar you will find your id. It will be that long number at the end. That is what you use there.

To check if your ID and API key are correct you can try to open up the following URL in your browser: http://api.steampowered.com/IPlayerServi..._appinfo=1.
See if that shows you a big text with all the games you own.
Let me know and also you might want to set the steam addon also to "debug" level through addon settings.

For the Retroarch part, can you set the retroarch plugin addon through addon settings to debug level? I need to see logging of the actual command it executes. There is no clear error except for the "akl.executors: Process retcode = 1".

[MohawkDaddy]

I'm pulling my hair out with this and I hope someone can help me...

I'm running Kodi Omega on Windows 11 using a profile with separate add-ons in case that makes a difference.

I have installed AKL, I have setup my ROM collections and I can see and launch my ROMs, but I'm having trouble adding scrapers.

I have installed ALL the plugins from the repository, but when I go in to Edit ROM Collection > Manage ROMs > Configure ROM Scanners >Add a new scanner the only option I have is the Folder Scanner.

I have gone into the settings for each of the plugins and added my API keys as needed, but still nothing shows up in AKL.

What am I doing wrong? The documentation has been no help on this.

[MohawkDaddy]

Of course I figure it out 10 minuted after posting for help... I just needed to go to the Scrape ROMs section and it asks which scraper to use...

[lifeofastro]

I am also have the issue with RetroArch where when clicking a ROM nothing happens. ROMs load perfectly in RetroArch itself, but in AKL nothing happens.