Kodi 19 may break some add-ons

Martin Brinkmann
Nov 19, 2019
Music and Video
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13

The development team behind the media player software Kodi have released the first Nightly build of Kodi 19, codename Matrix, recently. The new version of the application comes with a change that may break add-ons that are available for the solution.

Current versions of Kodi provide add-ons with access to the Python 2 interpreter. Python 2 is about to reach end of life (on January 1, 2020) and the team has worked on migrating to the Python 3 interpreter.

Problem is: the migration may break certain add-ons that either rely on Python 2 functionality or are not compatible with Python 3 for other reasons.

Developers are encouraged to test their Kodi add-ons using the Nightly builds to make sure that they work properly. While active developers may update add-ons so that they may be run on Kodi 19 and future versions of the media player, add-ons that are not in active development anymore won't become compatible automatically.

The development team wants to involve the community in the process of getting inactive add-ons ready for Kodi 19. Users can report add-ons that don't work with Kodi 19 currently and developers with Python skills are encouraged to lend a hand in getting these add-ons ready for the new release.

Apart from that main issue, there are others to tackle by the team before the release of Kodi 19:

There are also issues that need core developer knowledge to fix. Since moving to Python 3 there are some difficulties on all Windows platforms in particular. The version of Kodi for UWP (Xbox) does not compile at all, and needs someone to champion it. There are also issues with certain libraries e.g. Pillow, PyCryptodome, cTypes etc., being missing or incompatible versions, so those add-ons that depend on them don't run and can't be tested on Windows.

Kodi 18.5 is the official stable version that has been released yesterday. The release uses Python 2 for add-ons and Kodi users can upgrade to it without breaking any installed add-ons.

Kodi users who want to try out Kodi 19 can do so by downloading the latest Nightly build using the official Download page on the Kodi website. Just click on download, select the operating system that you want to download Kodi for, and switch to the "Development Builds" section in the overlay that opens up.

How many add-ons won't be compatible with Kodi 19 when the new version comes out? It is unclear at this point in time but it seems likely that some add-ons won't be compatible with the new version when it first comes out.

Now You: do you use Kodi and add-ons? What's your take on the development?

Summary
Kodi 19 may break some add-ons
Article Name
Kodi 19 may break some add-ons
Description
The development team behind the media player software Kodi have released the first Nightly build of Kodi 19, codename Matrix, recently.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Anonymous said on August 1, 2010 at 12:43 pm
    Reply

    Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?

  2. Mike J said on August 1, 2010 at 2:58 pm
    Reply

    Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.

    1. Martin said on August 1, 2010 at 3:39 pm
      Reply

      Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.

      1. Mike J said on August 2, 2010 at 2:30 pm
        Reply

        huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
        Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.

  3. myo said on August 1, 2010 at 5:52 pm
    Reply

    yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.

  4. Kishore said on August 13, 2010 at 2:55 pm
    Reply

    Error:
    Buidling font Cache pop-up

    Solution:

    Open VLC player.

    On Menu Bar:

    Tools
    Preferences

    (at bottom – left side)
    Show settings — ALL

    Open: Video
    Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
    Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”

    Save
    Exit

    Re-open – done.
    Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts

    Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc

    1. Martin said on August 13, 2010 at 3:10 pm
      Reply

      Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.

  5. javier said on August 14, 2010 at 1:50 pm
    Reply

    @Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
    I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.

    Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?

    I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…

    /thanks
    /j

  6. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:38 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,

  7. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:39 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.

    No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure

  8. Ted said on October 22, 2010 at 3:57 am
    Reply

    Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me

  9. Evan said on December 8, 2013 at 1:48 am
    Reply

    I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).

  10. Mike Williams said on September 6, 2023 at 1:26 pm
    Reply

    Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?

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