Xbmc Skin Manager, Manage automatically your skins for XBMC Options

[xboxbox451]

Just tried your updated Skin Manager and it works great. Transfered 4 skins perfectly. Thanks for the hard work.

In case your wondering, heres some of my config stats: WinXP Pro SP3/XBMC rev. 12263/Comodo Firewall 2.4 (windows firewall off)/Xbox mod - Chipped/Network - ethernet

@JoeUser38, I think your problem lies within your firewall. When I block Xbmc Skin Manager's access to my box with my firewall, the same behavior happens, where the "Download/Update" option becomes grayed out.

Try completely uninstalling your Norton firewall, and ensure Microsoft's built-in firewall is off. I personally use Comodo's free firewall version 2.4. I've tried their latest version, but its a bit obtrusive and bloated, so for now I'm sticking with their 2.4 version. If you want to try it, you can download it here --> LINK

Scroll to the bottom and click the continue button to reveal the link for version 2.4

[JoeUser38]

Just tried your updated Skin Manager and it works great. Transfered 4 skins perfectly. Thanks for the hard work.

In case your wondering, heres some of my config stats: WinXP Pro SP3/XBMC rev. 12263/Comodo Firewall 2.4 (windows firewall off)/Xbox mod - Chipped/Network - ethernet

@JoeUser38, I think your problem lies within your firewall. When I block Xbmc Skin Manager's access to my box with my firewall, the same behavior happens, where the "Download/Update" option becomes grayed out.

Try completely uninstalling your Norton firewall, and ensure Microsoft's built-in firewall is off. I personally use Comodo's free firewall version 2.4. I've tried their latest version, but its a bit obtrusive and bloated, so for now I'm sticking with their 2.4 version. If you want to try it, you can download it here --> LINK

Scroll to the bottom and click the continue button to reveal the link for version 2.4

I'll try uninstalling the firewall later (transferring some torrents right now). I did verify that the Windows Firewall is off, so disabling the Norton firewall SHOULD have let it right through (and like I said, it picked up that new skins existed, so it obviously had access to the internet).

Another possibility I was thinking of is that I am using Windows Vista (Ultimate 64-bit edition, SP1, all updates). Wonder if the new version has problems with Vista? My laptop is using Windows XP Media Center 2005 (SP3, all updates), so I can try it on that when my wife is not using it.

Can anyone verify this working on Vista, to rule that out?

[juju2]

Well I don't know for Vista (I use XP SP3). But if you say that SVN versions are synchronysed, then Internet access works (it's tested by pinging google.com, yahoo.com or microsoft.com). Try to run xbmcsm with "d" (debug) option : execute this

CODE

"disk:\path to xbmcsm\xbmcsm.exe" d

If an error occur, you'll have a "traceback" in log at starting which explain what is wrong.

[JoeUser38]

Well I don't know for Vista (I use XP SP3). But if you say that SVN versions are synchronysed, then Internet access works (it's tested by pinging google.com, yahoo.com or microsoft.com). Try to run xbmcsm with "d" (debug) option : execute this

CODE

"disk:\path to xbmcsm\xbmcsm.exe" d

If an error occur, you'll have a "traceback" in log at starting which explain what is wrong.

Hmm, where does it save the log to, under what name? I can't find it.
I noticed it picked up that there is a new version of one of the skins today, btw, but still have the Download/Update grayed out. Still lets me transfer to the Xbox fine, also (had XBMC running, and it gave the standard warning that XBMC was the dash).

[juju2]

Hmm, where does it save the log to, under what name? I can't find it.
I noticed it picked up that there is a new version of one of the skins today, btw, but still have the Download/Update grayed out. Still lets me transfer to the Xbox fine, also (had XBMC running, and it gave the standard warning that XBMC was the dash).

In this mode, the log is in standard XBMCSM window in "Operations" tab into text zone. It's something like that

CODE

----   EXCEPTION TRACEBACK   ----
error traceback...
----      END TRACEBACK      ----

If you want the log in a file (xbmcsm.log in intallation directory), add "l" option :

CODE

"disk:\path to xbmcsm\xbmcsm.exe" dl

But I see what's the problem now : on prevois versions, Internet connection was tested with a dummy HTTP request on google.com (provided by a Python standard function) : it's a very heavy method, so I replaced it by a simple ping request which fails for some reason and "Download" checkbox is grayed when ping doesn't work.

BUT this doesn't affect SVN synchro (a little bug, normally it's skipped) that works : so you can see SVN updates but you can't download them....

For your problem, you can download this (replace your library.zip file into your xbmcsm 0.6 installation directory) : this a updated version which doesn't gray download checkbox any more, so you should be able to download SVN skin (I'm not sure about HTTP ones) and tell me if you obtain a traceback, because I don't see why the ping fails

This post has been edited by juju2: May 23 2008, 05:20 PM

[juju2]

I thought about something else : the ping timeout is a bit short (1 second) try to execute

CODE

ping google.com

And see if response time is > 1000ms

[JoeUser38]

In this mode, the log is in standard XBMCSM window in "Operations" tab into text zone. It's something like that

CODE

----   EXCEPTION TRACEBACK   ----
error traceback...
----      END TRACEBACK      ----

If you want the log in a file (xbmcsm.log in intallation directory), add "l" option :

CODE

"disk:\path to xbmcsm\xbmcsm.exe" dl

But I see what's the problem now : on prevois versions, Internet connection was tested with a dummy HTTP request on google.com (provided by a Python standard function) : it's a very heavy method, so I replaced it by a simple ping request which fails for some reason and "Download" checkbox is grayed when ping doesn't work.

BUT this doesn't affect SVN synchro (a little bug, normally it's skipped) that works : so you can see SVN updates but you can't download them....

For your problem, you can download this (replace your library.zip file into your xbmcsm 0.6 installation directory) : this a updated version which doesn't gray download checkbox any more, so you should be able to download SVN skin (I'm not sure about HTTP ones) and tell me if you obtain a traceback, because I don't see why the ping fails

I'll try it out tonight (at work now). On the failed ping, I wonder if my router is blocking it (Linksys running DD-WRT v24 firmware).

[JoeUser38]

In this mode, the log is in standard XBMCSM window in "Operations" tab into text zone. It's something like that

CODE

----   EXCEPTION TRACEBACK   ----
error traceback...
----      END TRACEBACK      ----

If you want the log in a file (xbmcsm.log in intallation directory), add "l" option :

CODE

"disk:\path to xbmcsm\xbmcsm.exe" dl

But I see what's the problem now : on prevois versions, Internet connection was tested with a dummy HTTP request on google.com (provided by a Python standard function) : it's a very heavy method, so I replaced it by a simple ping request which fails for some reason and "Download" checkbox is grayed when ping doesn't work.

BUT this doesn't affect SVN synchro (a little bug, normally it's skipped) that works : so you can see SVN updates but you can't download them....

For your problem, you can download this (replace your library.zip file into your xbmcsm 0.6 installation directory) : this a updated version which doesn't gray download checkbox any more, so you should be able to download SVN skin (I'm not sure about HTTP ones) and tell me if you obtain a traceback, because I don't see why the ping fails

Well, the new library.zip let me download the SVN skins, but not the HTTP skins, as suspected. Also, I tried it out on the laptop running XP, and it works fine there (original library.zip), so we can rule out the router blocking the ping. It must be related to Vista, or the firewall (unlikely, as it was disabled, but I suppose it's possible it doesn't quite disable itself all the way... I've seen that before).

There must be someone else out there that has tried this with Vista... anyone?
Or, anyone using it with Norton Internet Security (successful or not, we need to rule one of them out).

I thought about something else : the ping timeout is a bit short (1 second) try to execute

CODE

ping google.com

And see if response time is > 1000ms

Ping ranged from 40ms to 44ms, and that was with Second Life running on another computer, and Azureus running on this one. Doesn't look like that's the problem.

Oh, I got NOTHING in the log other than the standard messages, btw. Could you verify that the command-line is "xbmcsm.exe d"?

This post has been edited by JoeUser38: May 25 2008, 06:10 AM

[djdafreund]

It would be nice if you could add 'Back-Row' skin to the list. 90% of the time the only one i use myself and my friends

This post has been edited by djdafreund: May 25 2008, 11:27 PM

[xboxbox451]

so we can rule out the router blocking the ping. It must be related to Vista, or the firewall (unlikely, as it was disabled, but I suppose it's possible it doesn't quite disable itself all the way... I've seen that before).

Did you just disable your firewall or uninstall it? I've had problems with firewalls where by disabling it, the firewall still blocked apps. I've had to completely uninstall them to regain full functionality. You might want to uninstall norton firewall, reboot and try the skin manager to confirm.

[JoeUser38]

Did you just disable your firewall or uninstall it? I've had problems with firewalls where by disabling it, the firewall still blocked apps. I've had to completely uninstall them to regain full functionality. You might want to uninstall norton firewall, reboot and try the skin manager to confirm.

So far, just disabled; I've been seeding a couple of files non-stop the last few days, don't want to bring it down just yet, so I can't test by uninstalling the firewall just yet. This is why I was asking if anyone has had either success or failure using Vista and/or Norton Internet Security.

[juju2]

It would be nice if you could add 'Back-Row' skin to the list. 90% of the time the only one i use myself and my friends

Well, actually, Back-Row is already present in list since it's in XBMC skins' SVN. It's even most downloaded skin !

There is the stats since 0.6 was released :

CODE

skin         hits
Back-Row     35
Fusion     33
xTV     33
Basics-Vision     32
Vision     31
X     29
Insidious     28
MC360     27
Clearity     27
XMBOX     27
Xbox-Classic     26
Vinci     25
Basics-101     25
PDM     22
CEOMR     22
amped     22
Mint     21
Containment     21
ProjectMayhemII     1
Fusion(stable)     1

I will do a stats page on XBMCSM's website as soon as I can.

This post has been edited by juju2: May 27 2008, 12:22 PM

[djdafreund]

Nice!!! I was just asking based on the picture in the post. Didn't realize it worked off of svn automatically. This is a nice project.

[JoeUser38]

Well, I can confirm now that my problem is not related to the firewall. I completely uninstalled my firewall, and got the same issue. For the test, I made sure the Windows firewall was disabled, also.

It must be related to Vista.

This post has been edited by JoeUser38: Jun 10 2008, 08:52 AM

[juju2]

Well, I can confirm now that my problem is not related to the firewall. I completely uninstalled my firewall, and got the same issue. For the test, I made sure the Windows firewall was disabled, also.

It must be related to Vista.

Ok, I'll try to find a computer on Vista for test it. It's very strange because I've looked on ping test request with a packet sniffer and it's a normal ICMP ping request....
XBMCSM is still on Python 2.5.1 (may it's buggy on vista), I'll try to update it to 2.5.2