Author Topic: General help setting up (Read 10090 times)

hawsey · « **on:** October 05, 2010, 06:18:17 PM »

Hi all,
first of all many thanks to jitterjames for such an amazing piece of software , very excited about this ..(you tube vids are awesome)
I need help , i have xbmc (download off main site) on my laptop running W7
Also the latest Vox Commando , i think i have VC seeing XBMC as when i click generate xml it sees albums/ artists / movies (displays how many i have )
I dont know what i am doing to be honest

How do i get xbmc to launch when i say " Launch xbmc "
Then when i say " Music " open my music in xbmc up.
I am sure if i am shown how to do it i will pick it up fast ,
Thanks in advance

jitterjames · « **Reply #1 on:** October 05, 2010, 06:29:43 PM »

Welcome hawsey. Yes, I think it's pretty easy once you get pointed in the right direction. That's the idea anyway!

Before I try to help you, have you looked at the XBMC for Dummies thread in the forum? You can find it here:
http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=91.0

You should use the version of VC that is zipped and attached to that post as "VoxCommandoXBMC 0_825 EN.zip"

If you have already done that and are still having problems post back here and we'll try to figure it out.

jitterjames · « **Reply #2 on:** October 05, 2010, 07:17:12 PM »

also, if you are new to XBMC I suggest you start with XBMC Dharma beta2 rather than the older 9.1 version.

http://mirrors.xbmc.org/releases/win32/

hawsey · « **Reply #3 on:** October 07, 2010, 09:35:45 AM »

Hi
well yes i am the Dummy in question

downloaded the right version now and i can now " Launch XBMC "
my wife has now neen VoxCommando widowed

saw a post on her face book " my husband is sitting at the computer saying " play Bob chuffing Dylan " he he he very funny but true
Been obsessed with xbmc for about 4 years now , this is some very nice icing ont top of the xbmc cake for me
Thanks so much for the speedy reply James
I have xbmc on my main pc with a1tb hd attached via usb , wirelessed to the router across the room which has an old xbox attached hooked up to amp / tv etc which i use as my HTPC , i am going to mess around tonight to see if VC can control that via my pc ...............................

jitterjames · « **Reply #4 on:** October 07, 2010, 10:13:56 AM »

most of the commands should work, but the scroll commands would need to be modifed because they use keyboard emulation.

jitterjames · « **Reply #5 on:** October 07, 2010, 11:13:09 AM »

I think we are all in the same boat. So far VoxCommando has a pretty low WAF. My wife was also complaining to our friends that I don't talk to her anymore, only to my computer. Oh and the dog of course...

nime5ter · « **Reply #6 on:** October 09, 2010, 08:53:46 PM »

OK, I'll take the bait, jittermeister, if only to say that vox isn't generally the one suffering from low WAF; it's husbands who end up low on WAF when they engage 24/7 in the aurally grating ritual of repeating the same phrase over and over and over and over to the vox box.

(Just kidding, baby. You know I love you and your many faces of genius.)

jitterjames · « **Reply #7 on:** October 09, 2010, 09:09:04 PM »

I never should have validated your account...

Badgertronic · « **Reply #8 on:** October 26, 2010, 05:45:25 PM »

Hi,

I'm having the same problem as hawsey. I have the latest version of XBMC and have downloaded vox commando from the download page. I have followed the setup guide and read the XBMC for dummies guide. The two programmes seem to communicate as the vox commando recognises movies etc when generating xml. All ports are setup properly but that's as far as it goes. I cannot get vox commando to actually affect xbmc. Having read the reply to hawsey the only thing I can see is that it's a slightly different version of vc as "VoxCommandoXBMC 0_825 EN.zip" no longer appears to be on the xbmc for dummies post.

Can someone please help. I have no doubt that it's something i'm doing but I cannot figure out what.

Any help would be gratefully accepted.

jitterjames · « **Reply #9 on:** October 26, 2010, 05:57:52 PM »

What is the "latest" version of xbmc? that terminology is generally not very helpful, since you might just *think* you've got the latest version, and there are a lot of different versions out there.

I recommend Dharma beta 2. Dharma beta 3 is probably fine too, but I haven't tested it yet.

Did you set the username, password, and port to match between xbmc and VoxCommando?

Is it possible you have a firewall blocking you?

Are you running xbmc and Voxcommando on the same computer or on two separate machines?

I just checked and the "VoxCommandoXBMC 0_825 EN.zip" is in fact still there on the first post of the XBMC for dummies thread, so I recommend you start by downloading that.

Badgertronic · « **Reply #10 on:** October 26, 2010, 06:52:50 PM »

Hey jitterjames,

Thanks for the speedy reply and apologies for any vagueness. I am using xbmc 9.11 - Dharma Beta 3.

Passwords / ports set ok etc

no firewall isssues

same pc

"VoxCommandoXBMC 0_825 EN.zip".......whoops, oh yeah.

- I've downloaded am and currently in the process of setting this up but looks promising. I have already established that it works with some rudimentary commands.

Everything seemds to be fine until i restart after generating xml. "unhandled exception has occured in your application.....'one-of must contain at least on item'

What am I doing wrong now?

jitterjames · « **Reply #11 on:** October 26, 2010, 07:13:58 PM »

OK. that one is not your fault.

VC should catch that error and continue. Are you able to continue? I think I fixed that in subsequent versions.

I think was it happening is that one of your xmls that is generated is empty. When you run GenXML you will probably find that one of them returns 0.

You could add a dummy value to that xml file by hand if you want, or remove the command that is using the xml.

If you run GenXML and verify that none of them are returning 0 then please get back to me and I'll have to look into it further.

The next version that I post will be able to handle this error more gracefully.

If you want you could also zip up your whole folder and email it to james@voxcommando.com and I will take a look. Note that you need to change the file extension from .zip to .jpg to get past my email server.

Badgertronic · « **Reply #12 on:** October 26, 2010, 07:53:45 PM »

Right on the money.

I have no music videos. I can continue past this point but vox doesn't get past loading.. so i need to either create a music video folder and put something in it or somehow remove it entirely?
"generate xml" is picking up artists / albums / tv and it seems to recognise the correct number of movies but upon inspection xmbcMovies xml is empty?

Again, many thanks.

jitterjames · « **Reply #13 on:** October 26, 2010, 08:05:12 PM »

okay the quick fix is to delete the xml files for musicvideos and movies.

you'll get errors about the xml files being missing, but VC should load and everything else will work.

I think maybe the problem is actually the movies. GenXML says it is finding > 0 but the xml file generated is empty? The only explanation I can think of for that, is that you have a movie with a character in it that VC is not handling well. If you don't mind, take a look and let me know of any movies you have that have unusual (in a north american ascii sense) characters. (& $ @ etc. or something with accents on it.)

sorry for the hassle.

Badgertronic · « **Reply #14 on:** October 26, 2010, 08:26:31 PM »

Please don't apologise, I feel bad about pestering you with questions.

If I delete xbmcmusicvideos and xbmcmovies it throws up an error message but continues fine.

None of my movies have unusual characters. Here is an example of naming conventions..C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back 2001

Gen xml states that it finds 14 movies but xml file only says ..
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<PayloadsRoot />

then blank. I appreciate that I could probably manually enter the information but as my movie library grows I can imagine it becoming slightly tedious.

jitterjames · « **Reply #15 on:** October 26, 2010, 09:06:52 PM »

hmmm. there has got to be something in your movie collection that is tripping it up. I would very much like to know what it is, so that I can make VC smart enough to handle it.

If you don't mind jumping through a few more hoops for me I'm sure we can figure it out.

hoop #1: set up xbmc so that it does not require a password on the web server.
hoop #2: open a web browser and paste the following into the address bar:

http://127.0.0.1:8080/xbmcCmds/xbmcHttp?command=queryvideodatabase(select%20strPath,strFilename,C00%20from%20movieview)

the only thing you would need to change is the :8080, if you are not using port 8080

then do a "view page source" and post what you get. mine looks like this:

Code: [Select]

<html> 
<field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Alice in Wonderland (2010).mkv</field><field>Alice in Wonderland</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Angels & Demons (2009).mkv</field><field>Angels & Demons</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Blazing Saddles 1974.mkv</field><field>Blazing Saddles</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Braveheart (1995).mkv</field><field>Braveheart</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>City Island (2009).mkv</field><field>City Island</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Eddie Izzard Live From Wembley 2009.avi</field><field>Eddie Izzard: Live from Wembley</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009).mkv</field><field>Fantastic Mr. Fox</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986).mkv</field><field>Ferris Bueller's Day Off</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Frozen River (2008).mkv</field><field>Frozen River</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Greenberg 2010.mkv</field><field>Greenberg</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Home (2009).mkv</field><field>Home</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Hot Tub Time Machine (2010).mkv</field><field>Hot Tub Time Machine</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Inglourious Basterds (2009).mkv</field><field>Inglourious Basterds</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Iron Man 2 2010.mkv</field><field>Iron Man 2</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Iron man.mkv</field><field>Iron Man</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Its a wonderful life (1946).avi</field><field>It's a Wonderful Life</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Ive Loved You So Long (2008).mkv</field><field>I've Loved You So Long</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Mongol (2007).mkv</field><field>Mongol</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Monsters Vs Aliens (2009).mkv</field><field>Monsters vs. Aliens</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Reservoir Dogs.mkv</field><field>Reservoir Dogs</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Se7en 1995.mkv</field><field>Se7en</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Sherlock Holmes (2009).mkv</field><field>Sherlock Holmes</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Shutter Island 2010.mkv</field><field>Shutter Island</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Star Trek (2009).mkv</field><field>Star Trek</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Star Trek First Contact (1996).mkv</field><field>Star Trek: First Contact</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Street Kings (2008).mkv</field><field>Street Kings</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.mkv</field><field>Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>The Brothers Bloom (2008).mkv</field><field>The Brothers Bloom</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>The Cove (2009).avi</field><field>The Cove</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>The Joneses 2009.mkv</field><field>The Joneses</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>The Lovely Bones 2009.mkv</field><field>The Lovely Bones</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>The Time Travelers Wife (2009).mkv</field><field>The Time Traveler's Wife</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>the wolfman 2010.mkv</field><field>The Wolfman</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).mp4</field><field>To Kill a Mockingbird</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Up in the Air (2009).mkv</field><field>Up in the Air</field><field>D:\Movies\</field><field>Walk Hard The Dewey Cox Story (2007).mkv</field><field>Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story</field><field>D:\Movies\Avatar.720p.Bluray.AC3.x264-PrisM\</field><field>Avatar 2009.mkv</field><field>Avatar</field><field>D:\Movies\sita sings the blues\</field><field>Sita Sings the Blues.mp4</field><field>Sita Sings the Blues</field><field>F:\video\Movies\</field><field>Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007).mkv</field><field>Before the Devil Knows You're Dead</field><field>F:\video\Movies\</field><field>Monsters Inc.mkv</field><field>Monsters, Inc.</field><field>F:\video\Movies\</field><field>Partly Cloudy (2009).mkv</field><field>Partly Cloudy</field><field>F:\video\Movies\</field><field>Sleeping Beauty (1959).avi</field><field>Sleeping Beauty</field><field>F:\video\Movies\</field><field>Tarzan (1999).avi</field><field>Tarzan</field><field>F:\video\Movies\</field><field>The Emperor's New Groove (2000).avi</field><field>The Emperor's New Groove</field><field>F:\video\Movies\</field><field>The Incredibles (2004).avi</field><field>The Incredibles</field><field>F:\video\Movies\</field><field>The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).mkv</field><field>The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring</field><field>F:\video\Movies\</field><field>Up (2009).mkv</field><field>Up</field><field>F:\video\Movies\</field><field>Where the Wild Things Are (2009).mkv</field><field>Where the Wild Things Are</field><field>F:\video\Movies\You.Don't.Mess.with.the.Zohan\</field><field>You.Don't.Mess.with.the.Zohan.mkv</field><field>You Don't Mess With the Zohan</field><field>F:\video\Movies\</field><field>Monsters Vs Aliens (2009).mkv</field><field>Monsters vs. Aliens</field> 
</html>

Badgertronic · « **Reply #16 on:** October 26, 2010, 09:18:16 PM »

No problem, glad of the help..

<html>
<field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\Fanboys 2008\</field><field>Fanboys.mkv</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\Get Him To The Greek 2010\</field><field>Get Him To The Greek.avi</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\How To Train Your Dragon 2010\</field><field>How To Train your Dragon.avi</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back 2001\</field><field>Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back.avi</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\Prince Of Persia - The Sands Of Time 2010\</field><field>Prince Of Persia The Sands Of Time.mp4</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\Superman Batman- Apocalypse 2010\</field><field>Superman Batman - Apocalypse.avi</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\Taken 2008\</field><field>Taken.avi</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\The Karate Kid 2010\</field><field>The Karate Kid 2010.avi</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\The Last Airbender 2010\</field><field>The Last Airbender.avi</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\The Losers 2010\</field><field>The Losers.avi</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\The Twilight Saga - Eclipse 2010\</field><field>The Twilight Saga - Eclipse.avi</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\Transformers 2 Revenge Of The Fallen 2009\</field><field>Transformers 2 Revenge Of The Fallen.avi</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\Iron Man 2 2010\</field><field>Iron Man 2.avi</field><field></field><field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\Clash Of The Titans 2010\</field><field>Clash Of The Titans.avi</field><field></field></html>

not sure how you paste it in a snazzy box, sorry.

jitterjames · « **Reply #17 on:** October 26, 2010, 09:20:02 PM »

hey you are fast. The box is from the buttons above the emoticons. I used the one that looks like this

#

but it doesn't matter, let me take a look.

jitterjames · « **Reply #18 on:** October 26, 2010, 09:26:36 PM »

ok, xbmc is returning your path and filename, but it looks like all your "Title" fields are blank. Did you just get started using xbmc recently?

I think you need to scan your movies into the library and let it scrape your meta data etc. When you go to videos in xbmc, you should be able to browse the "library" instead of just your files, and get video covers with descriptions etc. if you have already done all this, then I am very confused as to why xbmc is returning blank titles...

let me know.

btw here is the entry for the first movie, broken up and put into a pretty box:

Code: [Select]

<field>C:\Users\Emma\Videos\Movies\Fanboys 2008\</field>
<field>Fanboys.mkv</field>
<field></field>

Badgertronic · « **Reply #19 on:** October 26, 2010, 10:01:14 PM »

All files were in library view and scraped to within an inch of their lives with pictures, cast etc (One of my favourite features in XBMC)

After your comment i checked the properties of one of my movie files and the Title box is empty which I would imagine is causing this error. I have done a bit of googling and i'm attempting to edit this information (although it's not as easy as an ID3 tag edit)

Will let you know how it goes.

jitterjames · « **Reply #20 on:** October 26, 2010, 10:12:33 PM »

Quote from: Badgertronic on October 26, 2010, 10:01:14 PM

All files were in library view and scraped to within an inch of their lives

Now I need to find more uproarious laughter emoticons...

That's weird though because XBMC was returning blank titles for all of your movies. Maybe one blank caused a hiccup in XMBC and fixing the one will solve the problem... I am secretly pleased to see that this one is almost all on XBMC... although I will have to get VC to bypass the empty xml files in the future, with a warning of course...

unless this is a dharma beta 3 problem, but I'm sure Wanilton would have noticed by now...

Badgertronic · « **Reply #21 on:** October 26, 2010, 10:24:22 PM »

Hey James,

I meant that I had only checked one and found an error. After another look they have all got this error. From my reading I may be able to fix it with WMP, if not I shall have to go trawling for a meta data editor somewhere.

Other than the movie problem Vox is working great! I've had adjust the confidence levels slightly but thats probably just my accent..

jitterjames · « **Reply #22 on:** October 26, 2010, 10:37:03 PM »

ah. that makes more sense. Weird. I had heard about XBMC having scraping errors, but I haven't had that problem myself. keep me posted. If there is anything I can do to help, let me know.

I don't think WMP will help, because it should all be happening within xbmc's internal database. I don't think movies get tagged the same way as music files. If you are able to browse videos in library mode, with titles, covers, descriptions etc. then it should be working... If you want to VNC I would be happy to take a look at your machine with you and try to figure it out.

As for you accent, if you have one, then I recommend doing a little windows Speech training session. It can help a lot, and only takes about 5 minutes. I happen to have a very "vanilla" north american accent, and although I have been told that I sound Canadian, the voice recognition engines don't seem to mind it, and I get good results without training it. Even so, if I want to do open recognition where I can say anything, as for web searches or to do dictation, then training helps.

Badgertronic · « **Reply #23 on:** October 26, 2010, 11:46:38 PM »

I'll have a tinker with it first and see what I can come up with.
My accent isn't bad, just british

Thanks for all your help. I'll keep you posted.

Badgertronic · « **Reply #24 on:** October 27, 2010, 06:45:55 AM »

I'm back!

So this is interesting. After tinkering around a bit I have managed to somehow stop vox from generating any xml, no worries i will reinstall both vc and xbmc. The interesting thing is that when attempting to gen xml they all return as 0 except the movies one which throws up an error- "The 'li' start tag on line 2 does not match the end tag of 'html'. Line 2, Position 36"

jitterjames · « **Reply #25 on:** October 27, 2010, 10:55:36 AM »

Quote from: Badgertronic on October 26, 2010, 11:46:38 PM

My accent isn't bad, just british

there is no such thing as a "bad" accent, although there are some that I find "entertaining"

Badgertronic · « **Reply #26 on:** October 27, 2010, 07:50:20 PM »

Update!

The issue is with the imdb scraper in xbmc not returning titles.

Thanks for all the help.

jitterjames · « **Reply #27 on:** October 28, 2010, 11:44:19 AM »

is there a solution mentioned on the xbmc forums?

maybe you could delete your xbmc video database and re-scrape?

I don't have this problem with xbmc but I have not added any new movies recently

Badgertronic · « **Reply #28 on:** October 30, 2010, 05:51:04 AM »

Problem was that I had downloaded both Dharma and Camelot but without realising had installed Camelot (Doh!) which has issues with the imdb scraper - fix in xbmc forum. Dharma installed now and everything working a treat

Another quick question though, can vc connect to xbmc on the same machine without going through a network? I ask because it's proving so reliable that it would work nicely as an in-car system.

jitterjames · « **Reply #29 on:** October 30, 2010, 08:23:04 AM »

I think you just need a network card in the computer. I don't think you need to actually be connected to a network. In this case you could not have an ip address but it should work using 127.0.0.1

Someone else on the forum was using xbmc in a carputer, but they haven't posted recently.

Badgertronic · « **Reply #30 on:** October 30, 2010, 02:28:03 PM »

It's a bit odd. vc connects to xbmc fine when laptop connected to network. Turn network off and start the programs and it doesn't connect. The strange thing is that you can turn the network on, start programs then disconnect from the network and xbmc continues to recieve commands? I've queried it on the xbmc forum so we'll see.

oh well.

On a different note the commands "fast forward" and "rewind" don't seem to do anything?

Once again great program!

jitterjames · « **Reply #31 on:** October 30, 2010, 05:56:32 PM »

what if the network is "on" but you are just not connected to any networks? If you haven't already tried this then do so, I think it will most likely work.

Yes there is a problem with those commands. I think there is a way to get it to work, either with a different http command or by using keyboard emulation, but I can't remember and I'm not going to be available too much for the next few days because I'm travelling.

Badgertronic · « **Reply #32 on:** October 30, 2010, 08:14:49 PM »

Ok solved. Windows 7 needs a loopback adaptor installing to allow connection to the local host.

jitterjames · « **Reply #33 on:** October 30, 2010, 09:37:40 PM »

That sounds reasonable. Please provide details for posterity. Is that a software solution or is this loop-back adapter a physical device?

jitterjames · « **Reply #34 on:** October 30, 2010, 11:13:27 PM »

OK it seems like a software solution. The following link seems to offer a decent guide for doing it on Windows 7:

http://www.windowsreference.com/windows-7/how-to-install-a-loopback-adapter-in-windows-7/

I don't know if Vista would require a different technique.

Badgertronic · « **Reply #35 on:** November 04, 2010, 09:18:39 AM »

Sorry, I hadn't visited for a few days and you beat me to it! Thanks again for the great software. I now have a basic rig for the car. Xbmc and vc running. Laptop hooked into auxiliary input on stereo. Mic on the laptop, and "sidemonitor" running on the iPhone connected via adhoc. Sidemonitor let's your iPhone/iPod function as an external monitor. Too laggy for video but works perfectly as a "now playing" for audio. Needs tidying up but the basic principles are sound.