Set up Direct Paths

Your Media needs to be accessible!

Your movies and TV shows need to be directly accessible to Kodi to use direct paths.

1. Setup directories shared over SMB (typically, but any network protocol supported by Kodi should work, like NFS) on the server where your media lies (this might not be where your Plex Media Server is):

   • See here for Windows,
   • here for Mac
     • Beware that you cannot use characters like \:*?"<>| in path or file names when SMB is used
   • and here for Linux
     • Beware that you cannot use characters like \:*?"<>| in path or file names when SMB is used

2. Your path(s) additionally needs to be explicitly listed in sources.xml as well as its username and password in passwords.xml! PKC automatically does this for you: navigate to the PKC settings Advanced section, then Set network credentials for Direct Paths and direct play

• Example xml entry for server in sources.xml. See the Kodi wiki for more info

<sources>
    <files>
        <default pathversion="1"></default>
        <source>
            <name>PKC example entry for server</name>
            <path pathversion="1">smb://server/</path>
            <allowsharing>true</allowsharing>
        </source>
    </files>
</sources>

• Example xml entry for server in passwords.xml. Be aware that both username and password are URL-escaped! (thus a space becomes %20)

<passwords>
    <path>
        <from pathversion="1">smb://server/</from>
        <to pathversion="1">smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@server/</to>
    </path>
</passwords>

3. Check that your media is indeed accessible to Kodi:
   • In Kodi, start adding a Video source following this guide from step 1 to 6 only - NOT to the end!
   • If you manage to navigate to your media, it is indeed accessible to Kodi
   • Hit Cancel in step 6

If this doesn't work for you, then direct paths won't work for you!

If you managed to access your media on the LAN with Kodi, you now have two possible ways to setup direct paths:

• Option 1: let PKC substitute paths (works 90% of the time)
• Option 2: substitute paths on the PMS (works 100% of the time)