Development builds

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Helix is the code name for the next version of Kodi, v14. These development builds, often called "pre-Helix" or "pre-release" builds, are what will eventually lead to the final Helix version. In contrast to the stable builds (v13 Gotham) you don't have to wait for the release in order to benefit from new features or fixes that made it into Kodi.

THESE BUILDS MAY BE LESS STABLE and are only for users that do not fear bugs or occasional crashes. They are mostly used for development. If you want a stable HTPC, this is not the place for you! They do help us in testing for the upcoming releases.

Nightly build

Note: v14 Betas are now out, but you can still use nightly builds as they are also "beta" builds. Normal betas are just snapshots, like how monthlies were, while nightly builds are the latest improvements (fresh out of the oven). Since only bug fixes are going in, nightly builds are as stable as beta builds.

Nightly Builds are made on a daily basis and contain the most recent changes. They are also the most unstable of the development builds, until "feature freeze" where only bug fixes are made.

Make sure you always download and run the most recent builds.

ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR USERDATA FOLDER WHEN USING NIGHTLY BUILDS!

http://mirrors.xbmc.org/nightlies/


Monthly build

Monthly builds are semi-stable nightly snapshots of the current development version. They are a step between (often) unstable nightly builds and stable release builds, though they can sometimes still be very unstable depending on various factors.

Kodi developers have a merge cycle every month for new features and major changes. For ten days they add new features, then for the rest of the month they fix things. The monthly is then taken from a nightly just before they start adding features again. For this reason, they are often more stable than the average nightly build.

ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR USERDATA FOLDER WHEN USING MONTHLY BUILDS

http://mirrors.xbmc.org/snapshots/

Monthly builds are now over. Please see #Betas and release candidates.

Betas and release candidates

When Kodi gets close to a stable release, public betas will be released. These are similar to nightlies and monthlies in that they still contain bugs, but are more stable and are encouraged to be tried out. At the point where Kodi reaches beta, most known bugs have been fixed, and developers are now looking for bugs they might not know about.

When Kodi beta gets to a point where it seems ready for a final release a "Release Candidate", or "RC", is released to flesh out any final bugs. Depending on any issues found, there may be multiple release candidates.

After release candidates comes a final stable build that becomes Kodi v14, aka Helix.

ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR USERDATA FOLDER WHEN USING BETAS


Other test builds

Keep an eye out here for special tests that developers want users to try out.

Steam OS repo testing

Test the new XBMC/Kodi repo for easy install on Steam OS: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=197422

Special notes about development builds

Bugs
As development builds are bleeding edge code you might find a bug here and there. In order to get rid of this bugs, it's important that these will be reported: HOW-TO:Submit a proper bug report.
Feature requests
If you have a feature that you think should be added to appear in the next stable version of Kodi, you can make a feature request: HOW-TO:Submit an official feature request.

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 Particularly notable for MySQL compatibility, among other things. For reference, XBMC v12.2 "Frodo" is video DB version 75, music DB version 32. See Version table for more details.

See also