iOS FAQ

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Emblem-important-yellow.png NOTICE:
v14.2 "Helix" will be the last version of Kodi to run on the Apple TV 2. For more information read the announcement here.

Other iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, etc) will still be supported.


Frequently Asked Questions for iOS, including iDevices and Apple TV.


General FAQ (all devices)

Installing and updating Kodi for iOS

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Requirements:

SSH

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  • Secure Shell (SSH) is used to send remote commands to iOS devices. You might need this for some Kodi related tasks detailed on this page. For SSH access you can use putty or Tunnelier on Windows, Terminal.app in Mac OS X, or any standard terminal/shell in Linux.
  • To SSH into an iOS device open your SSH application and type in:
ssh [email protected]
  • For most things you can and should use "mobile" as the user, as shown above. For some tasks, such as upgrading Kodi itself, you will need to replace "mobile" with "root".
  • The default password (for "mobile" or "root") will be alpine

Is Kodi for iOS different from normal Kodi?

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  • The current stable version of Kodi for iOS is Kodi v20.5 Nexus. This is the same code that all of the other platforms (Linux, Mac, Windows) are using.

How do I find out what version of Kodi am I running?

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  • Kodi -> Main menu -> System -> Lower submenu -> System info. Note the build date.

Formats and resolutions iOS devices can playback

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  • Kodi on iOS can playback most formats supported by Kodi in standard definition.
  • H.264 (up to High Profile) encoded videos that are not interlaced are supported for high definition (720P and up) using hardware video decoding.
    • The iPad 2 (and later) and iPhone 4S (and later) are the only exceptions to this and will play some other HD codecs due to the more powerful CPU inside using software video decoding.
  • Videos with 16 reference frames will not playback correctly (using 16 ref frames is out of spec for most codec standards anyways)
  • Videos at 60FPS may not playback correctly for reasons not yet known (possible hardware limitation).

Accessing media

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  • Most users just connect to media that's being shared from a computer, HTPC, or NAS device on your local network. iPad and other iDevices can store files locally, and the iPad specifically can also use the Apple Camera Kit to use USB drive and SD cards.

Add-ons and skins

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  • Kodi for iOS is a full version of Kodi and will be able to use all non-platform specific Add-ons and Skins. For iPad users, a "Re-Touched" skin is included in Kodi that makes the device easier to use. See Skins for more info about switching to other skins.

Backing up Kodi's settings

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  • Most users will just want to use the backup add-on from within Kodi. See Backup for more general backup information, including the add-on.
  • Users can also manually copy the Userdata (via iFile or other file manager app from Cydia) from the iOS device to another computer:
/private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/Kodi/ for all of your Kodi data, add-ons, skins, etc, or just
/private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/Kodi/userdata/ for just the settings files themselves (which takes up less space, but means you would have to re-download add-ons, etc).

Touch screen controls

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  • Context menu: Single-finger long tap or two-finger single tap the menu item.
  • Go Back: Two finger swipe left.
  • Zoom into/out of Image: Pinch.
  • Slide out menus: Hold the menu item to bring it up, then swipe right to access the sub content.
  • iDevices can use the multitasking player control bar and lockscreen controls for music.

Remotes for iDevices

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  • Direct touch screen input
  • Web interface, including add-on interfaces
  • Kodi smartphone and tablet remote apps.
  • Bluetooth keyboards can be used for navigation and playback, in addition to text entry.
  • Headphone remote control of Apple headphones or on bluetooth headphones can control play/pause and next/previous item (playlist or auto play next).

Resolutions iDevices can play and output

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  • iDevices can playback most videos as high as 1080p.
  • Retina and widescreen is fully supported on iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5c, 5S and iPod touch 4, 5.
  • Retina GUI is supported for iPad 3, 4, iPad Air, and iPad mini 2 (Retina) but video playback is still clamped to 720, pending some issues.
  • Native video out as of v12 (Frodo) is now supported for HDMI adapter, VGA adapter, and AirPlay mirroring (to ATV2/3 only for mirroring). See #iOS to TV.

How to use video output to a TV

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Native video out as of XBMC v12 (Frodo) is now supported for HDMI adapter, VGA adapter, and AirPlay mirroring (to ATV2/3 only for mirroring). Currently limited to 720P outout:

HDMI/VGA adapter (A4 processor or higher) AirPlay mirroring (requires A5 processor or higher)

1. Before opening XBMC, first plug in the video out adapter and connect it to the display

1. Before opening XBMC enable global AirPlay mirroring

On iOS 6: Double-tapping the home button, swiping from left to right to bring up the volume control and AirPlay icon, and selecting your Apple TV from the options.

On iOS 7/8: Bring up the Control Center by swiping from the bottom of the screen to the top, and then selecting AirPlay, and then select Apple TV from the options.

2. Go to Settings -> Appearance -> Skin and change the skin to something like Confluence (not required, but makes operating XBMC on a TV easier).
3. Go to Settings -> System -> Video output and change it to "Display #2"
4. Now you can use the iDevice screen for directional navigation by swiping. Tap to select things, two finger tap to go back.

Note: AirPlay mirroring only works from an iDevice with an A5 or higher SoC (iPhone 4S, iPad 2/3), and will only stream to the native AirPlay feature of Apple TV 2 and 3 (in other words, it won't work with XBMC's AirPlay server as a target).

iPad camera connector for USB and SD cards

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  • Kodi for iOS can read videos and files via the iPad Camera Connector Kit though the SD card reader or the USB port adapter (drives must be self powered or hub powered). Files should show up under /var/mnt/mount1/.
  • As of iOS 8.1.x, it seems that mounting only Apple HFS(+) formatted SD cards is supported.
  • There are limited reports of success mounting FAT32 or exFAT formatted SD cards, even those less than 4 GB in size. Previous versions of iOS (7.x) appear to have supported more file systems.
  • As of iOS 8.1.4, a known good workflow to use an HFS+ formatted SD card as a video source is:
  1. Double-press the Home button to launch the App Switcher and swipe up to close Photos and Kodi, if open already.
  2. Insert the Camera Connection Kit with SD card installed.
  3. Wait several seconds until the message appears: "Cannot Use Device - USB Storage: The connected device is not supported." This may not appear if using a powered USB hub and separate card reader.
  4. Launch the Photos app. It may appear unresponsive and even terminate and re-launch automatically. It should take less than 30 seconds in total for the activity to subside.
  5. Launch Kodi.
  6. If the screen is black for 5-10 seconds after launching Kodi, then double-press the Home button twice, launch the App Switcher, swipe up to close Kodi, and then re-launch Kodi.
  7. Once in Kodi, add a Video source with the path /var/mnt/mount1 to view videos stored on the SD card.

Troubleshooting

Have you tried switching it off then on again?

Getting more help with Kodi for iOS

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Userdata folder and logs

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  • Userdata: /var/mobile/Library/Preferences/Kodi/userdata/
  • Log_file: /var/mobile/Library/Preferences/kodi.log
  • Syslog: /var/log/syslog
  • CrashReporter: /var/mobile/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/*.plist

Errors while installing

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  • Check out this guide for help with SSH/install errors.

Repair settings

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  • Settings or sources not stored and updates are failing? This can happen when the setting xml files are manipulated outside Kodi. Connect to your iPad/ATV2 as root using an ssh client and repair file permissions.
  • Run the following SSH command on the iOS device:
chown -R mobile:mobile /private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/Kodi/

Stuck on a bad skin

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  • If you changed skins and now can't navigate back to change it back, delete the guisettings.xml file:

rm /private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/Kodi/userdata/guisettings.xml

No sound with DTS or AC3

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  • It's probably not the Kodi software on your ATV2, but has to do with your receiver. Try this solution.

AC3 files stutter or have static noise

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  • AC3 Audio (without using passthrough) can stutter and pause video.
  • Audio output could also be the culprit, go to Apple TV -> Settings -> Audio & Video -> Audio Output and set it to "16 bit".

Not enough space/memory

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  • Have you run out of space on your ATV2? Check with (via SSH) the df -k command. If any /dev/disk* filesystems are at 100%, use du -h / to see what's taking up space. or to show which files are, for example, bigger then 9 Mb do find / -size +9000b
  • First places to check are:

Note: you can clear out the files in these folders, but don't delete the folders themselves

    • /private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/Kodi/addons/packages <- As of v12, this folder should be limited to 200 MB by default, and shouldn't need to be manually cleaned out.
    • /private/var/mobile/Library/Caches/AppleTV/Video/LocalAndRental
    • /private/var/mobile/Library/Caches/AppleTV/Video/Other
    • /private/var/cache/apt/archives/

Thumbnails taking up too much space or are causing long loading times

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HOW-TO:Reduce disk space usage

Audio issues and/or slow video playback

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  • Make sure that your audio settings are correct. Wrong audio settings will have severely negative effects on video playback.
  • Check to see if your speaker setup is really correct
  • If passthrough: make sure you only enable the audio codecs your receiver supports.
  • Select the correct audio output device for analog and passthrough.
  • Not actually an issue with Kodi: Apple does not provide support for HD-audio passthrough in their audio API, CoreAudio.

Performance: video buffering, stuttering, choppiness

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General
  • Switch to a different network protocol (especially if you are using SMB), i.e. NFS, FTP, WebDAV, etc.
  • Try sharing the media on another device to rule out a device-specific (or network) issue.
  • Turn off thumbnail generation (does not affect thumbnails from a library scan), Kodi -> Settings -> Video -> File lists -> and deselect 'Extract thumbnails and video information'.
  • Disable playback sync completely, Kodi -> Settings -> Video -> Playback -> turn off "Sync playback to display"
  • If you are having buffering issues using a Time Capsule on WiFi, try this.
    • See also Thumbnails for speeding up the GUI when it's loading large/lots of thumbnails.
  • Make sure the video isn't interlaced.
  • If the video is in HD, make sure it is using the h.264 codec (up to High Profile. Hi10P will not work, MediaInfo can help).
ATV2
  • Use a wired network connection (if possible, even if just for testing to rule out wireless network issues).
  • Configure Audio Output in Kodi -> Settings -> System -> Audio output -> Select "Optical/Coax", even if you are using HDMI (it will still work).
  • Set to 16-bit audio, Apple TV > Settings > Audio & Video > Audio Output and set it to "16 bit".
  • Try using an ATV iOS version before 4.4.4 to minimize system resource consumption.
  • Reboot to clear out the ATV2's RAM. Sometimes other "apps" like Netflix don't always release RAM when they are done.

Other crash reasons/fixes

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General
  • Check your logs for clues.
  • Have you tried to repair permissions on Kodi's settings?
  • Are you using a feature rich skin? Check to see if you're running out of memory.
  • Does your kodi.log have any SQL errors ("database disk image is malformed")? Remove your databases and reboot: (via SSH) rm -f /private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/Kodi/userdata/Database/*db . Warning: This will reset your video and music libraries.
  • Try turning off thumbnail generation (does not affect thumbnails from a library scan), Kodi > Settings > Video > File and deselect 'generate thumbnails'.
  • Are you using AFP file sharing? If you're seeing LIBAFPCLIENT errors in your logs you may want to switch to a different protocol. AFP is generally stable but development is orphaned at the moment.
  • If your Windows 7 SMB share stops streaming, try this fix
ATV2
  • Do you have Firecore Media Player installed? Try removing it and testing again.
  • Recent versions of Plex on ATV2 can cause Kodi to crash. [1]
  • Is an Apple software update crashing Kodi? Try blocking them.
  • Be sure to disable the native ATV2 AirPlay server in the ATV2's settings. Using the native AirPlay server will crash Kodi, so use Kodi's built in AirPlay server instead. See here.

v16 missing from Cydia

Due do a server issue, the Team Kodi Cydia repo is having problems. Jailbroken iOS users can still manually install Kodi v16. See HOW-TO:Install Kodi for iOS for more info.