[TheLastMillennial]

Hello, I'm making a digital picture frame that will just perpetually display videos in a loop.

Info + Log: https://paste.kodi.tv/yawaxivena.kodi
Raspberry Pi model: 3A+
Kodi (18.9 (18.9.0) Git:newclock5_18.9-Leia). Platform: Linux ARM 32-bit
Using Release Kodi x32 build (version for Raspberry Pi)
Kodi compiled 2021-07-06 by GCC 8.3.0 for Linux ARM 32-bit version 4.19.127 (267135)
Running on LibreELEC (official): 9.2.8, kernel: Linux ARM 32-bit version 4.19.127
FFmpeg version/source: 4.0.4-Kodi
Host CPU: ARMv7 Processor rev 4 (v7l), 4 cores available

Problem:
When Kodi boots, I select 'Pictures' then select the external flash drive (called New_Volume) that my [email protected] videos are stored on. I open the left side menu and select 'Recursive Slideshow'. Kodi will display the loading circle but will never start playing the video. I cannot exit the loading screen no matter what buttons I press. Only powercycling the pi lets me get control back.

(Apologies I do not know how to resize images on this site).


Video metadata:


What I've noticed and tried:

1. I am aware this Kodi version is not the latest. However, newer versions are not compatible with the Raspberry Pi 3A+ due to the lack of RAM.
   
2. I noticed it's always the first video (in this case AplMov-29.mov) that causes this infinite loading bug.
   
3. I have tried deleting the first video (AplMov-29.mov) and using different videos as the first video. The bug still applies to the first video, no matter what video it is.
   
4. If I enable 'randomise', then the other 2 videos will play as expected but when the first video (AplMov-29.mov) is reached, this bug will occur.
   
5. If I select 'View Slideshow' instead of 'Recursive Slideshow' the first video (AplMov-29.mov) is loaded without any problem.
   
6. If I just select the first video (AplMov-29.mov), it plays without issue.
   
7. I have increased the GPU memory to 256mb (and disabled the automatic allocation that would override this setting).
   
8. I have tried disabling hardware acceleration.
   

I am unsure what to do now and need guidance. Is this a known bug and can I work around it? Is there a previous version compatible with the Raspberry Pi 3A+ that does not contain this bug? Thank you.

[TheLastMillennial]

I realized the link to the log is broken. You can't click on it, you need to copy and paste: https://paste.kodi.tv/yawaxivena.kodi
I do not see an edit button or I would fix the original post.

[CrystalP]

Looks like a bug that's also present in v19 and was fixed in v20. There is no chance of an official backport of the fix to v18 or v19.

[TheLastMillennial]

Thank you very much for your reply!

I can make my own fork and may be able to patch it myself. I see the function OnSlideShowRecursive(m_vecItems->GetPath()); in GUIWindowPictures.cpp is this a good starting place to diagnose the bug? (I'm currently looking at the latest code, not v18)

[CrystalP]

yes, good place to start.

[TheLastMillennial]

I did get a Kodi Dev environment set up but I quickly realized I was doing this the hard way. I don't need any of Kodi's Metadata scraping tools so I don't think it's the right tool for my application.

Instead I've switched to using Raspian Lite + VLC. VLC can recursively and randomly play all videos in a directory with just a single line 'vlc --loop --random /PathTo/Videos'. As a bonus I've made this command run on startup so no manual input is required!

I still really appreciate your help! It's not often that a developer of a large project helps out with an obscure issue.

[CrystalP]

yeah KISS. you're welcome!