Kodi 20.1 has officially been released by the Kodi development team and is now considered the stable version.

The following article shows updates, features, and changes to this software. These details have been pulled directly from the official Kodi website.

We also provide instructions on how to update Kodi on any device, including Firestick and Android TV Box.

The press release from the official Kodi website states the following about Kodi 20.1 Nexus:

As is always inevitable in software, we are back with a new release of Kodi 20.x “Nexus”.

An assortment of bug fixes, some backports, with no significant new features. The full changelog since 20.0 is available on Github, as usual.

IMPORTANT NOTE – TROYPOINT has tested Kodi 20.1 with various 3rd-party add-ons, and some of them may not function correctly.

Kodi 20 Working Addon List

If you are satisfied with your current Kodi version, we recommend continuing to use it until updates are available.

Below are the bug fixes and new features obtained from the official Kodi Website.

Kodi 20.1 – New Features, Fixes, & Updates

Stable Release Notes

Audio

• @fritsch has been working on Android-related audio issues, introducing an algorithm in collaboration with@thexai to address audio issues on Android devices. The algorithm observes activity for 30 seconds without making corrections, updating internal settings when sync errors are identified. After the learning period, the final setting is determined. This progress helps users on affected systems without requiring manual adjustments through an advancedsettings.xml file.

DVD

• The playback of DVD folder structures over network sources like SMB/NFS/HTTP has been resolved.

Filesystems

• A fix in Samba corrected a longstanding assumption and addressed discrepancies between documentation and the actual code implementation. Both old and new implementations are now supported.
• Further enhancements have been made to the new NFS4 implementation by@thexai, resolving stalls/errors and enhancing NFS performance.

Game/Retroplayer

• Fixes have been implemented in the Savestate Manager for improved usability. Thanks to@KOPRajs for reporting and providing the necessary fixes.
• OSD improvements by@garbear have addressed reported issues for enhanced user experience.
• Performance enhancements include memory optimizations and faster dialog/savestate operations.
• Input fixes now allow resetting multitap controller inputs and address issues with “ignored” input buttons.
• Sync improvements have been made for common controller types likegame.controller.default,game.controller.keyboard,game.controller.mouse,game.controller.snes.

General

• Various overflows when using the new chrono infrastructure have been fixed, resolving issues with “keep audio device alive” when using passthrough with an AVR.
• Fixes by@ksooo aimed at addressing regressions related to context menu items/behavior.
• A fix for 32-bit systems has been implemented to correct sorting issues. Thanks to@vpeter4.
• Fixes regarding the Favourites window rework have been made to restore behavior from v19, enabling actions likeup/down and key mapping foru,d, anddelete.
• A fix by@CrystalP has resolved crashes related to Unicode characters.

Platform Specific

• Android
  • A fix has been applied to address packaging issues impacting parts of the PythonPyCryptodome module.
• Windows
  • A fix has been implemented to resolve an issue where unusual dimension videos caused AMD systems to revert to software decoding instead of using DXVA.
  • Chorus was inaccessible due to packaging issues on Windows platforms, a fix by@CrystalP has rectified this problem.

PVR

• A fix has been made to correctly display PVR Channel Groups with channels ordered as provided by a backend.

Python

• cPython has been updated to 3.11.2 to fix an upstream issue with the ElementTree binary module, rectifying crashes on Android when using addons with the ElementTree Python module.

Subtitles

• A bug was fixed concerning Right to Left language subtitles placing punctuation incorrectly, aligning with an informal standard adopted by subtitle creators for better readability.
• Fixes for WebVTT subtitles have been implemented to prevent overlapping of segments.
• Line spacing adjustments have been made in our use oflibass to prevent text box overlap.

UPnP

• @enen92 has introduced enhancements and fixes for Kodi acting as a UPnP server, rectifying regressions related to listings and artwork.

Special thanks to all contributors who have assisted in identifying and fixing issues. We strive to minimize user experience problems, but with a project of this scale and volunteers contributing to Kodi, occasional bugs are inevitable. If you encounter any bugs or issues, feel free to reach out on the forums or create an issue on Github.

As this is a minor release, you can install Kodi 20.1 on top of existing Kodi 20.x versions without any major changes. Automatic updates will occur on many platforms.

For all software installations, remember to back up your data beforehand if you’re unsure or have essential information you can’t afford to lose. This is especially important if you’re planning a major version upgrade. You can find a list of all changes for this version on GitHub. Explore the complete history of v20 and previous versions in the corresponding blog posts for more detailed information. Application deployment on different platforms, such as the Microsoft Store, may vary due to external circumstances. Just remain patient, and the update will eventually reach you.Numerous areas. This makes the function of the context menu much more consistent over different windows. It enabled some new capabilities like the playback of albums directly from widgets, series resume, etc. to be added. Behind The Scenes: The majority of changes are “under the hood” and invisible to users but improve the stability, performance, and safety of Kodi. API changes have been made to evolve Python and Binary add-ons and bring new skinning features. There are updates to Kodi dependencies on most if not all Kodi platforms. Fixes from regular use of code static-analysis tools. Database migration fixes for a smoother update … and lots more. There are too many individual changes to detail everything. If you would like to know more, please look back through the Nexus Alpha to RC2 release announcements and review the GitHub changelog here. Time does not stand still.branches are forked and development on Kodi v21 (codename: “Omega”) is already underway. Thank you again for your continued support as we continue to make Kodi great! Kodi 20 RC 2 Release Notes On December 20, 2022, the official Kodi Website released an RC 2 version of Kodi 20. See the list of release notes below. Database: A couple of fixes have gone in to resolve database migration issues from v19. The first of these is the EPG database migration. This fixes the problem with the EPG loading and then disappearing. Thanks @ksooo for the prompt fix. A second DB migration issue that only occurred on the Microsoft UWP platform (Xbox and UWP desktop) has been fixed by @thexai. This was an odd one, as the code that dealt with the failure was old code (6+ years). It was traced to an odd race condition that only manifested on the UWP platforms, however the root cause potentially could happen on any other platform. General: A fix for playlist detection for both Audio and Video was made by @ksooo. Platform Specific Linux: @popcornmix has fixed an issue for DRMPrime on Linux. This allows hardware formats like Broadcom 8-bit (SAND128) and 10-bit (P030) can now be correctly rendered with the latest Mesa. macOS: A fix to allow Kodi to execute on macOS 10.13 has been made. We would still strongly suggest users use a newer version (10.14+), however this allows users still on 10.13 to run Kodi. A regression for macOS reading actual disks was resolved by @enen92. As part of this, the libcdio driver was also fixed to enable disk usage on Apple Silicon native builds. Windows: A fix to a crash that only occurred on Windows Debug builds has been resolved. This didn’t affect users of the actual RC1 release, but Windows devs who would attempt to execute Kodi as a Debug build were quickly halted. PVR: An issue around multiple resume dialogs has been fixed by @emveepee. Teletext: Another Teletext issue has been resolved by @repojohnray. @repojohnray has contributed a number of fixes for v20 to help increase the reliability and safety of Kodi. Kodi 20 RC 1 Release Notes On December 15th, 2022, the official Kodi website released an “RC 1” version of Kodi 20. See the list of release notes below. Addons: A BREAKING API change was introduced for the VideoStreamDetail and InfoTagVideo Python APIs. This affects set APIs that were introduced in the v20 development cycle. We would not normally do such a change when we enter Beta phase, but we believe fixing this now would cause fewer issues for all the addon devs out there for v21 (supporting 2 different APIs for v20/v21). Details around what is affected can be seen in the PR. In addition, further details can be seen and discussed on the forums. A number of bundled addons have been updated. This should reduce the number of addons that immediately do updates on installation of RC1. Scrapers: Due to the above breaking API change, the TVDB TV Show scraper was updated to prevent breaking. The result is that the updated scraper will be broken on any Kodi v20 release prior to this RC1 release. If you are using an older v20 install, then you need to update for continued functioning of the TMDB TV Show scraper. In addition, we took this opportunity to fix a long outstanding issue with the Python TV Show scrapers described here. The result is that if you are adding new episodes to existing TV shows in your library, you need to refresh the show to download the new episode guide. If you are using NFO files, the episode guide in those files needs updating also. TMDB TV Shows and TV Maze scrapers have been updated, with TVDB v4 to be updated in the near future. More details can be found here. Games: @lrusak fixed a crash that was introduced into Beta1. Some Linux users were finding Kodi was crashing on startup. @lrusak again fixed a black screen issue with standalone games. General: Add support for action “play” to many more items such as widgets/favourites on the homescreen. Fix a regression with duplicate/incorrect context menu entries. @ksooo fixed another regression for addons that caused the “continue watching” context menu not to show the resume time. @repojohnray has been providing a number of fixes/cleanups lately that are targeting memory leaks. Subtitles and a number of Linux specific areas have had improvements made to them. A new contributer @larrignon has fixed a logging message that occurred when an empty directory was searched by scrapers. Music: Fix crash when queuing multichannel audio files. This fixes a regression introduced in Beta 1. Fix default fallback image to be more relevant to a music item (CD Case instead of a Folder). Platform Specific: Android: @joseluismarti has contributed a number of cleanups/fixes for Android. @a1rwulf bumped our SDK target to 31. Along with a number of fixes @joseluismarti contributed over the past few months, this has allowed us to finally do a release to the Google Play Store. RC1 has been released to the Testing channel, and we’ll ramp up deployment over the next week or so to more users in the Testing channel. macOS: @enen92 has made a number of fixes to what is know as the macOS native windowing implementation. This won’t affect too many people right now, as the default release uses SDL windowing, however anyone building the native macOS ARM version (or using the test builds) should see a number of improvements around windowing. Add speech to text service implementation (usable from keyboard dialog). Windows and Xbox: Kodi RC 1 has been submitted to the Microsoft Store as an update. Users should start receiving this shortly. Be aware that you may have to uninstall and reinstall your Xbox version, because the OS is not updating cleanly. Skinning: Fix a crash if an includeThis was reported by @jurialmunkey and was an effect when a PARAM was used in the include condition that may have been empty. Fix a crash that could occur in the event of a textbox that was too small for a font used, and therefore the text would not fit. In Estuary Specifics, music context menu functionality has been extended, with the ability to play albums directly from the home screen. Video context menu functionality has also been extended, along with a new home screen widget for saved searches in PVR.Attempt to use hardware AV1 decode if forcing software decoding. This modification fixes AV1 thumbnail generation on devices that do not support AV1 hardware decoding.

Kodi 20 Alpha 3 Release Notes

On September 18th, 2022, the official Kodi website released an “Alpha 3” version of Kodi 20.

Explore the release notes list below.

Addons

• Some crashes in addon installation and repository checks have been corrected (ksooo, howie-f)
• AlwinEsch has implemented a large feature to allow multiple instances of the same binary addon. For example, this allows two instances of a PVR addon (e.g. PVR.HTS) to run using different backend provider instances. The usage of this will require updates from the various binary addons, starting to happen progressively.

Database

• ksooo has been optimizing various things in our db wrappers to enhance performance.

DVD

• Fix DVD Menu indicators for DRMPrime

Filesystem

• Fix NFS for Windows platforms after recent NFS updates.
• Bring several NFS improvements/cleanups.
• Introduce initial NFS4 implementation.

There is an incorrect mapping of mountpoints on Linux. Optical media is now mounted by default via udisks. There has been partial code cleanup and a platform split of disc drive handling along with some skin cosmetics and fixes for duplicate context menu items. Additionally, improvements have been made related to EDL mute sections and cuts in the media player. For the GUI, issues with wrap lists, hitrect on auto-sized buttons, and context menu options triggering respective actions have been fixed. Moreover, there is now an independent volume setting for GUI sounds and a password reveal button in the keyboard dialog. In terms of input, Steam Deck built-in controller support has been added. Skinning features include a new Color Picker window dialog, improved image control supporting dynamic $INFO data, enhancements to the Player Process Info window, new media flags for HDR videos, the ability to define modal dialogs based on Boolean conditions, and deprecation of old info labels in favor of new generic ones. Changes have also been made to the Estuary/Estouchy theme, games section, platform specifics (including updates for UNIX family platforms, iOS/TVOS, macOS, Android, Linux, and Windows), i8n support, PVR improvements, build system/dependencies updates, date/time handling enhancements, and additions to addons like Colour Picker and video HDR type info support.