Kodi Not Working: 5 Most Common Reasons

Kodi is a robust streaming platform, but it’s not impervious to things going wrong. If you find Kodi isn’t working like it should, we’re here to help you out. Below, we troubleshoot the 5 most common problems with Kodi, and show you how to fix them in just a few minutes.

If you’re experiencing problems with your Kodi system, however, there are a few key things you can do to try to fix it. The first thing to do is to simply exit out of Kodi and start it up again. Sometimes you’ll see minor graphical glitches or experience network connection problems that can be fixed by simply restarting the program in this way. The second thing to try if this doesn’t fix your problem is to reboot the device on which Kodi is installed. If there is a problem with some conflicting piece of software on your device then a reboot of the device can fix it.

If these simple steps don’t help your frustration, then it’s time to move on to more advanced methods for fixing issues. If you are having problems with one add-on in particular, then you should try first updating the add-on, and then uninstalling and reinstalling the add-on to see if that helps. Occasionally, you might experience a problem as a result of a server going down – for example, you might not be able to update an add-on if its repository has been accessed too many times and has now gone down. Just waiting a few hours or a day or so should fix this, as when the server comes back up everything should work again as normal.

But if you’ve tried all of these obvious steps to fix an issue and it still isn’t working, then what should you do next? This is what we’re going to cover in today’s article, with our list of the 5 most common reasons why Kodi is not working, and steps for how to fix them.

You Should Use A VPN For Kodi Add-ons

Unofficial Kodi add-ons can let you do things like stream movies or TV shows for free, which is illegal in most countries. When you use an unsecured internet connection, your ISP can see every site that you visit and they can see if you are streaming or downloading any content. If they decide to check into your internet use and they find evidence of you streaming or downloading, they could kick you off their network or even pass your details on to law enforcement for prosecution.

In order to keep yourself safe when using add-ons, we recommend that you get a VPN. This can keep you safe by encrypting all of the data that your device sends over the internet, so that neither your ISP nor any other observer can see what sites you visit or whether you have been streaming or downloading. The encryption ensures that your internet use is kept private and protects you when using add-ons.

NordVPN – Best VPN for Kodi

Let’s just repeat it one more time: Don’t use Kodi without a VPN. Luckily, it’s an easy choice which provider to use–NordVPN. Widely considered to be top dog in the VPN industry, the nearly decade-old provider has never been content to sit still. They’ve taken on customer feedback and refined their service with new features, lower prices, rolled out apps for more and more devices, and designed perhaps the most intuitive VPN interface you’ll find anywhere.

It all comes together for an incredibly user-friendly experience, with snappy performance that maximizes your Kodi streams, rather than bogging them down. Gone are the days when skeptics could simply say “VPNs slow you down”–NordVPN’s cutting-edge NordLynx encryption has seen to that. Based on the WireGuard protocol and wielding the mighty 256-AES-GCM cipher, NordLynx utterly locks down your Kodi traffic against third-party surveillance in unbreakable code while minimizing latency. This stops ISP throttling cold–normally a major problem for Kodi users.

What’s more, NordVPN’s massive network of over 5,800 servers in 59 countries opens the door to limitless IP spoofing. By digitally relocating to a new country, you can bypass geoblocks and access previously restricted TV and movie streams. It works exceptionally well, even on stubborn websites like Netflix thanks to NordVPN’s SmartPlay feature. And NordVPN itself never limits your bandwidth or speed–nor do they keep records of your activity, allowing you to stream in total anonymity.

Read our full NordVPN review.

Top 5 Most Common Kodi Issues, And How To Fix Them

Now that we have covered the issue of security, let’s move on to details of the most common reasons that Kodi stops working and instructions on how to fix them.

1. Kodi Crashes Or Has Strange Bugs – Install The Latest Version Of The Software

If you’re having problems with Kodi crashing or you are starting to experience strange bugs like graphical glitches or features no longer functioning, the first thing you should check is what version of Kodi you are running. To check this, start off on your Kodi home screen and then go to settings by clicking the icon that looks like a cog. Then go to System information.

This brings up a panel of information about your Kodi system. Look in the bottom right of the screen and you’ll see Version info. Here you can see that we are running Kodi 17.4.

Now, the latest version of Kodi available is 17.6. So we should update this Kodi system to see if that fixes our issues.

Unfortunately, you can’t automatically update Kodi to the newest version, and you can’t update from within the software. But on the plus side, it’s very easy to update the software manually. Just go to the official Kodi downloads page at: https://kodi.tv/download and scroll down to the Choose your weapon section.

Click on whatever operating system you use – in this case, we’ll choose Windows. Now select Installer (32bit) from the popup.

This will download the latest version of the Kodi installer as a .exe file. Once the file has finished downloading, run it and go through the installation as per the instructions on screen. This will update your Kodi build without losing any of your media files, settings, or add-ons.

It’s so easy to update Kodi that it’s worth installing new updates each time they become available. These updates add new features and improve performance as well as patching any security issues as they arise. You can find out about new Kodi releases by keeping an eye on the News page at https://kodi.tv/blog.

2. Kodi Is Too Slow – Delete Unused Add-ons And Repositories

Another common problem with Kodi is that over time, it will start to become slow to respond and feel sluggish when you try to operate it. This can be because you have too many add-ons or repositories installed. Some add-ons and repositories automatically update themselves every time you start Kodi, so if you have hundreds of add-ons or repositories installed then hundreds of operations need to be run in the background when you try to use Kodi. Obviously this can slow down your system considerably.

To speed Kodi up, you can delete add-ons or repositories that you no longer use. It’s also a good idea to delete old add-ons and repositories which have stopped working, to be sure that unscrupulous companies can’t get access to your system by buying up the domain names of previously existing repositories. While you’re doing this, you can also delete old sources that you no longer use in order to keep everything neat.

Here’s how to delete add-ons:

1. Start on your Kodi home screen
2. Go to Add-ons
3. Click the icon that looks like an open box
4. Go to My add-ons
5. Go to All
   
   
6. This will show you a massive list of all of your add-ons. To delete one, right click on it or press the c key
7. Now click Information
   
   
8. Click on Uninstall from the menu at the bottom
   
9. Click Yes to confirm
10. This deletes the add-on from your system

Here’s how to delete repositories:

1. Start on your Kodi home screen
2. Go to Add-ons
3. Click the icon that looks like an open box
4. Go to My add-ons
   
   
5. Go to Add-on repository
   
   
6. This will show you a list of all of your repositories. To delete one, right click on it or press the c key
7. Now click Information
   
   
8. Click on Uninstall from the menu at the bottom
   
9. Click Yes to confirm
10. This deletes the repository from your system

Here’s how to delete sources:

1. Start on your Kodi home screen
2. Go to Settings by clicking the cog icon
3. Go to File Manager
   
   
4. Find the source you want to remove and right click on it or press the c key
5. This brings up the context menu. Click on Remove source
   
   
6. Choose Yes to confirm
7. Now the source is removed from your system

3. Kodi Takes Up Too Much Hard Drive Space – Try Clearing The Cache And Thumbnails

If you have Kodi installed on limited hardware, such as a Firestick or other small Android device, you might run into an issue with Kodi taking up too much hard drive space. Even if you don’t include the media files on your hard drive, just the Kodi software itself can run into several gigabytes of storage required. And on a small device, this can cause problems when you try to install new add-ons or to download new content.

One way you can fix this so that Kodi takes up less space is by clearing the cache and thumbnails from your system. Clearing the cache deletes the temporary files that are stored on your device as part of normal operation – and this can be a handy way to fix add-ons that are playing up too. The thumbnails are the image files that you see for the covers of movies, TV shows, and albums. These thumbnails are downloaded to your hard drive so that when you browse through Kodi, the cover art of media is displayed straight away and you don’t have to wait for it to download. This is nice, but if you browse through many add-ons or look at lots of media, your thumbnails can easily take up a gigabyte or more of space.

There isn’t an easy way to clear the cache from within Kodi, but luckily there is a tool that will help you with this. The Indigo toolkit add-on has a bunch of maintenance tools included in it that you can use to clear your cache and delete thumbnails, which will reduce the amount of hard drive space that Kodi takes up.

Here’s how to install Indigo and use it to clear your cache and delete your thumbnails:

1. Start on your Kodi home screen
2. Find the settings icon that looks like a cog, then go to File Manager
3. Click on Add source
4. Click on the box where it says <None>
5. Enter in this URL: https://fusion.tvaddons.co Make sure to include the https:// and type it just right or it won’t work
6. Give the source a name, like fusion
7. Click OK
8. Go back to your home screen
9. Click on Add-ons
10. Click on the icon that looks like an open box
11. Click on Install from zip file
12. Click on fusion, then on kodi-repos, then on english, then on repository.xmbchub-3.0.0.zip
    
    
13. Wait for a moment and you’ll see a notification once the source has been installed
    
14. Click on Install from repository
15. Click on TVADDONS.CO Add-on Repository
16. Click on Program add-ons
17. Go to Indigo and click on it
18. A screen will open describing the add-on. Select Install from the menu at the bottom
19. Wait for a moment and you’ll see a notification once the add-on has been installed
    
20. Now go back to your home screen
21. Go to Add-ons
22. Go to Program add-ons
23. Click on Indigo
24. Go to Maintenance Tools
    
    
25. Click on Clear Cache
    
    
26. You’ll see a confirmation warning asking if you want to clear the cache. Click on Clear
    
    
27. Once this is complete, you’ll see a confirmation and you press OK
    
    
28. While you’re here, you can delete thumbnails as well. To do this, click Delete Thumbnails and then press Yes to confirm
29. This will reset some add-ons and also free up some space on your hard drive

4. Build Stops Working – Delete The Build And Install Your Add-ons Manually

Builds are a popular way for new users to get started with Kodi. They are a bundles containing a pre-configured Kodi system, with new skins, changed settings, and lots of add-ons already installed. This means that it is quick and easy to set up a new Kodi system using a build. However, we’ve talked before about some of the problems with using a Kodi build. One of the biggest problems is that you rely on the creator of the build to keep everything updated, but most build creators don’t have the patience for performing updates and maintenance on their builds for more than a few months.

If you are using a build and it suddenly stops working, or a particular add-on no longer functions, this is probably caused by a lack of updates. You can try to manually update some add-ons and see if that helps, but often builds don’t include the required repositories for their add-ons so you can’t even update them. If your build stops working, the best thing to do is to delete the build entirely and to create your own Kodi setup from scratch. This might sound annoying, and it can be quite some work to get your add-ons, skins, and settings just as you want them, but it will be a great way for you to learn about Kodi and you’ll be much more confident in fixing problems with your system in future.

The easiest way to delete a build is to perform a factory reset, so see the next section for full instructions on how to do that.

5. If Nothing Else Works – Perform A Factory Restore

If you’ve tried every fix you can think of, from restarting Kodi to uninstalling and reinstalling all of your add-ons and returning your settings to their defaults, then the best way to fix a troublesome Kodi system is to perform a full factory restore. This will put everything in Kodi back to how it was when you first installed it – deleting all of your settings, add-ons, and data. Note that if you have media files on your hard drive such as a collection of movies, then performing a reset on Kodi will not delete these files. It will delete the links to the files from the Kodi library though, so you will have to add them back to your library once the reset is done.

A restore is obviously a big change and you will have to set up your Kodi system and reinstall all of your add-ons afterwards. But this is helpful when you are having problems with Kodi, as you can see which particular add-on or setting is causing the problem.

We’re going to use the Indigo toolkit to perform a full reset on Kodi. Here’s how to do that:

1. Start on your Kodi home screen
2. Find the settings icon that looks like a cog, then go to File Manager
3. Click on Add source
4. Click on the box where it says <None>
5. Enter in this URL: https://fusion.tvaddons.co Make sure to include the https:// and type it just right or it won’t work
6. Give the source a name, like fusion
7. Click OK
8. Go back to your home screen
9. Click on Add-ons
10. Click on the icon that looks like an open box
11. Click on Install from zip file
12. Click on fusion, then on kodi-repos, then on english, then on repository.xmbchub-3.0.0.zip
    
    
13. Wait for a moment and you’ll see a notification once the source has been installed
    
14. Click on Install from repository
15. Click on TVADDONS.CO Add-on Repository
16. Click on Program add-ons
17. Go to Indigo and click on it
18. A screen will open describing the add-on. Select Install from the menu at the bottom
19. Wait for a moment and you’ll see a notification once the add-on has been installed
    
20. Now go back to your home screen
21. Go to Add-ons
22. Go to Program add-ons
23. Click on Indigo
24. (Optional) You can save you current configuration using the Backup/Restore function. However, if your current Kodi system is not working then any backup you use will probably not work either. So you can skip this step if you want a fresh start
    
25. Now to start the restore process, click on Factory Restore
    
    
26. You’ll be asked for confirmation that you want to perform a factory restore. Click on Yes
    
    
27. The restore process will begin. Once it is complete, you’ll have a new and fresh version of Kodi to work from

Conclusion

We’ve shown you some of the most common problems on Kodi and how to fix them. It’s a good idea to do regular maintenance of your Kodi system to keep it all functioning as well as possible, so this should include performing regular updates, deleting old add-ons and repositories you no longer use, and taking backups if you need them. The Indigo toolkit is extremely useful for performing these maintenance functions and for other tools to fix issues like clearing the cache or performing a factory reset.

We hope that this guide has helped you if you are having problems with Kodi! If you are experiencing another problem with Kodi and you don’t know how to fix it, then just leave us a comment below and our community may be able to help.

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4 Comments

1. Haven’t tried Vanish but I have used ExpressVPN. Is there a big difference?

   • They both should get the job done with a 5-star rating, we think. However NordVPN seems to be more optimized for Kodi usage, which is why we recommend them first.

2. These are great tips! I’d also consider restoring settings to default if you mess around with video/audio/etc settings every now and then

   • Indeed a very good tip. Thank you Ryan!