Well, I had begun work on a friend’s android box that had crapped out over the past weekend. I was getting ready to ‘sideload’ Kodi 
20.3 that had been released a week or so before. However, I noticed that 20.3 had been put in the Google Play store. This shall be the last stable bugfix release of the 20 Nexus series. If you remember, all the way through the 19.x Kodi release series, the Play Store wouldn’t put any updates to 19.0 in their playstore. This was all due to the fact that Kodi will work all the way back to Android OS 5, and Google didn’t wish to allow that. I think it had to require at least OS 9 or something. Glad to see that Google pulled their heads out of their asses, and just got over it. At any rate, it’s much easier to update now for the casual user. 😉
Category Archives: Kodi-XBMC
Kodi/XBMC Xenon 4.0
Xenon 4.0 was released a few days ago, and as always, I thoroughly test the new version for problems or issues. Here is what I found.
I performed a test upgrade on the following four android boxes:
T95 Max (Android OS 12), X88 Pro 10 (Android OS 11), T95 (Android OS 10), and Transpeed 6K Ultra HD (Android OS 9). All four upgrades eventually installed fine, but there were a couple upgrades that had a minor hiccup.
Two of the upgrade processes appeared to hose the Xenon build, ending up after the ‘force close’ as the image on
the left. However, not to worry. The build is still there, and you only need to rerun the wizard manually and download the build again. The second time, the upgrade process proceeded normally as expected. Just go to Add Ons, etc in order to rerun the wizard and continue normally. It appears that this behaviour was tied to the Android OS on the box, as all four had Kodi 20.2 installed. This issue was only encountered on the boxes with Android OS 11 or 12 installed, and not with 9 or 10.
All in all, this upgrade appears rather stable, and improves a bit on the live TV experience. I notice that The TV App addon has returned, but the Live TV Widgets and IVue TV Guide seem to be still based on Daddy Live USA. Speaking of the IVue TV Guide, how many days of the guide get downloaded is now 7, so if you had it set to anything else, you will need to go in and change that, unless 7 works for you. This update, as expected, has a Christmas theme, as is the usual case for his December updates. Once you get any add ons that you use that aren’t installed, this update should work just fine for you. Merry Christmas.
Fix XBMC/Kodi cache issues
First off, let me mention a correction from the last post (posted on 16 Mar 2023): Kodi 20.1 had been released, not Kodi 21. (I think 21 is still in beta)
Now, let’s address issues that may be plaguing users. This is primarily surrounding watching tv shows and movies rather than live tv. Couple issues….. sometimes you have to wait several days for the sources to actually allow you to watch it. When you do, even though you tweaked the advancesettings.xml, the cache doesn’t seem like it fills up and you end up with buffer over runs and videos freezing. Well, here is the solution:
Head on over to https://real-debrid.com/ (click the link on the left) and set up a free account. But, that’s not all, as with a free account the source links are only active for a small window of time, like midnite to 6 in the morning. So, you need to subscribe. It won’t break the bank though, as it’s only $16.88 for 6 months. (That comes out to less than $3/month).
After that, you need to head back to your XBMC/Kodi build and input your real debrid account info. So, look for Debrid Logins and input your login info to the Real Debrid settings. Then, restart your android box. After that is done, you should be getting results like these:
This is the initial scrapers progress window in the pic just below: At the very end of the progress, you will notice a Real Debrid info message that it’s reading the cache.
This is the found sources in the pic just below: (Of course, sometimes, you might get torrent sources 20 or 30GB or more. I prefer so select ones that are .5, 1, or 2GB or so. That way, there’s enough room in the cache.) I also prefer to select the ones that say CACHED TORRENT.
And, this is the cache, in the pic just below: (Notice how fast it filled up just in the time that I paused it and took the picture.)
Once you get this all set up, you could get good links for shows that air on the same day that you want to watch them. This should explain things well enough to get it going, and once you do, that will fairly end any buffer over runs and freezing issues on tv shows and movies. 😀
(Oh, one thing to keep in mind: Real Debrid links sometimes don’t work, and you have to restart your android box. I have found, at least here, that things work a bit better all around if I restart my android box daily.)
Kodi 21 Released and Android 11/12 issues
The good news is that Kodi/XBMC 21 has been released. The bad news is two fold. The first is that only 20 is still in the playstore. The second is that if you have Android 11 or 12, the installation will undoubtedly fail due to permissions on Android OS greater than 10.
The first is easy to remedy. Just ‘side load’ Kodi 21. The link for the .apk file is HERE. Just install it using the file manager. If you are on Android 10 or earlier, you will be all set. However, if you are using Android 11 or 12, continue reading for the fix.
After you install it, and even though you grant permissions to it, it will likely fail. It will grant some permissions properly, but not all. To check on what permissions got set, go to Settings, then Apps, then App Permissions. Make sure Kodi got permissions in Files and Media as well as Microphone. For now, make them both “Allow only while using the app“. Kodi actually needs the “Allow all the time” to be set, but if you set it here, it MAY reset when you power it off. If it does reset when you power it off, you may need to manually set it under “See All Apps“. Not sure why it doesn’t properly set, or why it resets, but it may have something to do with additional security in Android 11 or greater.
Now, back out to Settings>Apps, and click on “See All Apps“. Then, find Kodi and click on it and select “Permissions”. Now, click on “Files and Media” and select “Allow all the time“.
Now, if you power your device off and back on, you should see the settings stick to “Allow all the time” under Files and Media. If you upgrade your Kodi 19.5 to either 20 or 21, it should successfully migrate your build and addons, but you will want to make sure to use the proper wizard if you want to update your build to a Nexus build from Matrix.
This has been tested on Android 11 and 12, and I strongly suggest that you install Kodi 21 over 20 as it contains bug fixes that I referred to in the last post. The play store never posted 19.4 or 19.5, so I strongly suggest that they may not update past 20. Time will tell.