Port to python3 / Kodi 19

[wberrier]

I updated to fedora 32, which ships kodi version 18.6 that uses python3 by default.

Launching the advanced emulator launcher gives the following output:

2020-05-07 23:39:32.394 T:140193827325696   ERROR: EXCEPTION Thrown (PythonToCppException) : -->Python callback/script returned the following error<--
                                             - NOTE: IGNORING THIS CAN LEAD TO MEMORY LEAKS!
                                            Error Type: <class 'ModuleNotFoundError'>
                                            Error Contents: No module named 'urllib2'
                                            Traceback (most recent call last):
                                              File "/home/wberrier/.kodi/addons/plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher/addon.py", line 21, in <module>
                                                import resources.main as main
                                              File "/home/wberrier/.kodi/addons/plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher/resources/main.py", line 20, in <module>
                                                import re, urllib, urllib2, urlparse, socket, exceptions, hashlib, shlex
                                            ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'urllib2'
                                            -->End of Python script error report<--
2020-05-07 23:39:32.419 T:140193802147584   ERROR: GetDirectory - Error getting plugin://plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher/?content_type=game
2020-05-07 23:39:32.419 T:140194322973120   ERROR: CGUIMediaWindow::GetDirectory(plugin://plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher/?content_type=game) failed

For reference:

https://rpmfusion.org/CommonBugs

Apparently most plugins are expected to be compatible with python 2 and 3?

[Wintermute0110]

Kodi Leia 18.6 uses Python 2, not Python 3, at least officially. I know some distributions, for example Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa do not ship Python 2 at all, so that means only Kodi Matrix 19 can be used. Maybe there are some workarounds to use Kodi 18.x with Python 3 but I can assure it is not officially supported and may cause trouble.

AEL and AML are quite Python 3 ready, I expect the conversion to take a few hours. Once Kodi Matrix reaches version RC1 (I have no idea when that may happen, honestly, it can take one month, it can take 6 months) I will release AEL/AML versions specifically for Python 3.

True, there are tools and packages to make Python code compatible with Python 2 and 3. Also, Kodi core developers have encouraged to make addons 2/3 compatible. However, both AEL/AML are special cases because they are huge, about 20k lines of code each, and I don't want to use such libraries that may decrease performance. Note that AEL/AML may have many things to improve codewise but I spent a great deal of time making sure the code is optimized for speed where it is needed.

[wberrier]

Thanks for the response. I will follow up with rpmfusion (who packages Kodi for fedora). I may have to downgrade fedora or build kodi myself with python2 support.

It looks like only add-ons in the official repository must support python 2/3 for 18.x:

After the release of Kodi 18 (Leia) only add-ons that are compatible with both Python 2 and 3 will be accepted to the official add-on repository. Also, Python 3-only add-ons will be accepted to the repositories for Kodi 19 (M*) and above. [1]

And as a sidenote, thanks for the excellent addon, my family and I have enjoyed it for years :)

1. https://kodi.tv/article/kodi-v18-leia-rc1-new-hope

[barolo]

just to chime in, distros are quite fast to jump onto kodi 19, even though it's alpha1, due to the python2 dependency, mine own surprised me with such update

[Wintermute0110]

@barolo Kodi started using Python 3 a little bit late, in my opinion it should have been used in Leia. I understand that core developers wanted to delay the transition because it is a major PITA, however necessary. Linux distributions want to get rid of Python 2 ASAP and Kodi currently is one of the major blockers.

Now I am porting AML to Python 3. I started with AML because the code is simpler than AEL. Actually, the transition 2 -> 3 is easy, what is taking more time is the changes in the Kodi Python API. After I finish with AML I will start with AEL. It is going to take some time, although I have more free time due to Covid I want to be honest with you... it is difficult to concentrate and code sometimes.

[mechevarria]

Just bumping this since Kodi 19 came out.

[Wintermute0110]

Noted. I'm deciding what to do with AEL right now. Probably I will post and update soon in the Kodi forum.

[Wintermute0110]

Done. Closing issue.