Plex client for Zidoo devices - ZidooPlexMod

Is that under Plex or HT? Can’t comment on PLEX, no experience.

 

I purchased my Zidoo in 2021. Rarely used it, only when I needed to watch a DV Remux. Recently got into the VS10 engine outputting HDR to DV as my brightroom DV mode looks visually identical to my properly calibrated dark room mode. The HDR day mode looked like a massive red push so it's made me want to use the Zidoo for everything since that's the only way I get a HDR picture in daylight that's calibraed.

Anyway, withought this mod I'd still not use it much. Thanks for bringing Plex to the Zidoo! It really works well and I finally have 1 player for everything bar when I want to use earphones as Apple TV's spatial audio is remarkable for that.

 

For plex. I will try HT and see if it happens there as well. It's weird because plex would show no subtitles chosen, but when playing the vide, The VS10 player would chosen subtitles.

 

If you turn on the PlexToZidoo debug page what does the Subtitle Index indicate? If it's something other than 0 then the Plex Server picked the subtitle to play. If it's 0 then it's the zidoo player that is picking up the subtitle. If plex is picking the subtitle then you need to look at your PMS settings. If the zidoo player is picking them then it's the zidoo settings. And I was thinking that on the zidoo there were general subtitle settings outside of the video player and some inside the video player once you were playing a video. So make sure to check both places.

 

I think it works now without me doing anything except powering off and then on the zidoo. I think maybe after applying the settings in the zidoo general subtitle settings, I would need to restart the box. All I did was after applying the general subtitle settings, and seeing nothing happened when watching a tv show or movie. I powered it off when I went to bed, now next day I tried to see what you mentioned in the debug and was showing other numbers besides 0 and everything was good and playing properly.

 

Hi!
I installed ZidooPlexMod, PlexToZidoo, ZDMC 20.2 on a Z9X.
I can't get my files to play. Whenever I start playing in ZidooPlexMod I get a "Playback Failed! Can't play back media" notification.
The debug flag in PlexToZidoo is set to true, so I suppose I should see a window with the map info before everything else? I don't see it...
I collected a log from ZDMC...

 

Hello, can you play directly your files via the media center menu ?

 

The debug screen should show up. It has a bunch of information on it and then has a "play" button at the bottom. If you're not seeing that then something is wrong because that should always show up. If you want to direct message me I can give you a location to upload the ZDMC(kodi) log for me to look at. Otherwise @Suramen gave some good advice to make sure that you can access the media correctly from the media center first. That way you'll know if it's a config issue on the network/SMB side or an issue with the ZidooPlexMod/PlexToZidoo setup.

 

Thank you both for the replies
Yes I can access the media from the media center.
I'll dm you

 

In the meantime I tried to map directly in ZidooPlexMod . At least now in the log I get

2026-07-07 08:24:35.450 T:17861 info <general>: script.zidooplexmod: API: Constructed video item for playback: {'duration': 7216864, 'fullHD': True, 'streamQualities': ['SD'], 'frameRate': 24, 'subtitleConfig': {'TrackName': 'mkv/5'}, 'live': False, 'partIndex': 0, 'startOffset': 0, 'partDuration': 7216864, 'path': 'D:\\Movies3\\myfile.mkv', 'size': 18358980160, 'isRequestToServer': False, 'streamUrls': ['smb://192.168.1.8/Movies3/myfile.mkv'], 'isMapped': True, 'token': None, 'streamFormat': 'mkv', 'streamBitrates': [20351], 'isTranscoded': False, 'audioLanguageSelected': 'eng', 'prevObj': None, 'playStart': 2397}

(it was always isMapped: False before)

But it seems it's trying to transcode anyway? Tried with different files...

026-07-07 08:24:35.480 T:17861 info <general>: script.zidooplexmod: API: Starting request: GET https://192-168-1-8.610017885b12400...X-Plex-Session-Id=78dfdca1-3ec1-4827-90d7-a7b
...
2026-07-07 08:24:35.660 T:17861 info <general>: script.zidooplexmod: API: WARNING: MDE: Server failed to provide a decision
2026-07-07 08:24:35.661 T:17861 info <general>: script.zidooplexmod: Can't play this media.
2026-07-07 08:24:35.661 T:17861 info <general>: script.zidooplexmod: VideoPlayerWindow: Closing

 

Went a little further.

1) I removed the VPN. That was causing some issue it seems. I'm going to investigate that later.
2) I removed the mapping in ZidooPlexMod

Now I can see the debug screen when starting a video!!!

3) If I use "native player" in PlexToZidoo it seems to start, but then "can't play video" and "PlexToZidoo failed to start"
4) If I use "native player" = "Off" then I get to choose ZDMC or PlexToZidoo to play the file. If I choose ZDMC then the video plays, but I guess it's not the Zidoo native player?
If I choose PlexToZidoo then I get "error: no address found" in the debug window (red, on the top)

 

The screen shot you have shows you still have path mapping enabled in ZidooPlexMod. The first line should have some https stream but as you can see it has a direct smb path. So you need to disable path mapping in ZidooPlexMod and I would remove the mappings for each library first and then disable the toggle in the settings to make sure there isn't something left over. Also in PlexToZidoo you should clear the app storage and start over. You should only have to enter the correct substitutions.

 

I cleaned up data in PlexToZidoo; re-did the mapping there; removed all mappings in ZidooPlexMod.
If I select to use the native player ZDMC will crash and restart when I press play after the debug window.

If I set it to "off" then after the debug screen:

If I select to play with PlexToZidoo: ERROR: no address found
If I select to play with ZDMC: it plays correctly

images and logs sent to the same place (last log is "kodi_new.log")

Play.java at line 604 i see the error I'm getting .What is "inputString" in this context?

Tried also with Plex 9.13.0.37280 , same problem.
I see "New Zidoo Player: false" in the debug window, is this expected?
I'm on v6.4.55_O

thank you for the help

 

UPDATE! I got it working by using

file:///data/system/smb/192.168.1.8#Movies3

as substitution path (assuming 192.168.1.8/Movies3 was already mounted path in zidoo)

Why? Is this expected?

 

Don't turn off the native player, that's the whole point of this project. You want to use the native Zidoo player.
The "New Zidoo Player" is only on the Z9X Pro and newer models. You have a Z9X so false is correct.
file:///data/system/smb/192.168.1.8#Movies3 - Is that with using the native player or is ZDMC playing the video? If it's the native player that might work because all PlexToZidoo is doing is trying to map an https stream to an smb address and then it passes that smb address to the Zidoo video player. If it doesn't see an https stream it just passes the string to the Zidoo player and hopes it can figure out what to do. In this case it just accesses what it thinks is a local file. If you're using ZDMC as the player then that's not what you want because you're not using the native zidoo player.

The image IMG_20260713_110738.jpg, looks correct. Which run was that from?
What run was the kodi_new.log from? It would really be helpful if you would try just one thing, collect the kodi log and debug screen and have me look at it.

It's been so long since I've used the Z9X but I think if I remember correctly you need to enable developer options in Android and then increase the background process limit to 3. I don't remember if that's still required or not but it was at one time.

 

@bowlingbeeg or anyone smarter than me, can you help me figure out the correct path substitution? I'm really lost and don't know how to proceed.

Here are pictures of Media Center and the PlexToZidoo debug screen. Is this enough information to help figure it out?

 

LOL

Of course I figure it out in 10 minutes after I post that.

Part of the path to replace: \\server\drivepool
Replaced with: smb://192.168.50.222

 

Hey, I love this plextozidoo mod! It's been wonderful and has been working great for me.

However, I'd like to add a library that is directly connected via USB to the Zidoo itself. It's part of my Plex network and Plex has no trouble seeing it, so I know what to input for the "Part of the Path to Replace" section but the "Replaced with" section has me stumped. I can't seem to get it to work.

Ideally, I could just connect to a /storage/ or /mnt/ rather than an smb://, but I'm not sure if a) plextozidoo allows anything besides smb in the "Replaced with" section and b) what the path even is on the zidoo z9x pro since they've completely hidden paths (on my older zidoo it was much more obvious).

If I have to connect via smb://, is it still possible to find a drive that's directly connected to the Zidoo? Or must it be connected to my main plex server (a Mac Mini) along with my other libraries in order for plextozidoo to find it? Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

There is no logic to automatically put the "smb://" into the final path. It will blindly replace whatever you put in the "Replaced with" field with what was matched in the "Part of the Path to replace". If you look in the file manager within Kodi doesn't it display the mount location on the local file system?

 

A HUGE thanks for your response! Once you confirmed there was nothing in plextozidoo that rejected local, non-network paths, I tried a couple more options. In my searching, I only ever saw directions about inputting smb paths into that section, so your confirmation was much appreciated.

Rather than try and set up Kodi/ZDMC for finding the local path, I actually used Home Theater 5 instead, since I'd already set it up after pretty much giving up on the dream of being able to access that particular movie library through the Plex ModDuring set-up, I noticed it did list paths for each media file, but even there, it wasn't immediately obvious which--if any--was the correct path. Because if you select a movie and go to its launch page, it lists one path (in this case it was usb://New Media/Movies/Movie Name.mkv); if you select the "Info/More" button at the bottom, you get a different path (it was /storage/602E-D2FB/Movies/Movie Name.mkv). The same drive had two different names, one that was visible in Media Center (New Media) and one that was visible over Samba from my Mac Mini (602E-D2FB).

I tried both and to my surprise, the one that worked was the /storage/ path. I now have my entire movie library running through the plextozidoo pipeline and everything plays great on the Plex Mod. It also didn't conflict with my SMB username and password either. That was another thing I was worried about.

TLDR: If anyone else finds themselves in this situation (wishing to connect plextozidoo to a folder on an external drive directly connected to the zidoo), navigate to any media file from that folder in HT5 and click on the More button to find the correct path. Plug that into the "Replaced With" field and you should be good to go.