O.k. so I had one problem and got it fixed, and had a quick response from someone helping, and that was great, the problem I’m having now, is, this program seems to be really really non-user friendly, I mean I’ve been to the wiki, and looked it up and down. and really for someone that is totally new to this and everything that is involved with this, there is no real starting point, most of the terms are complicated and you have to google every few words just to understand what it’s asking you for, then it get confusing because all i really want is a recommended setup or at least a simple guide to set it up for noobs. (and then later I can get more into it, and learn more) the learning curve seems to be incredibly high, (like you need to be a coder or something to understand it) or maybe I’m just super dumb. but the one thing I have notice it that there is really no help with how to get it going and started. and it has downloaded some shows for me, and I have no idea how I got it to do it, or when it did it, or how to see progress, and if it’s still doing it, or anything. (it’s basically magic at this point). My frustration is the lack of basic talk for people who don’t know anything about the program. I can see the potential and would love to get into it, but I’m so confused, and mentally drained from all the reading and testing and trying to figure it out. I’m determined to figure it out because that’s my personality but I think the average person would no and quit very quickly. also another huge problem I have is with the episodes I have downloaded is that they will play for 10seconds and then it restarts, even though it shows the full episode is there. and I’ve tried different players, and tried streaming it directly to my ps3. it’s a web dl 720p of vampire diaries, so the files that have been downloaded are just a 30gb folder of 10sec clips that just keep repeating, and won’t work correctly. anyway I want this to work so badly, and I’m trying any help would be appreciated, and if it was easy enough to setup and get working to where my brain wasn’t fried after using it, I’d make a guide to making it work as well. Oh yeah another problem with the wiki and people figuring out things is that I have never used wiki so I don’t even know how to edit it or say anything if I figured it out anyway. So if people don’t know how to tell how they have fixed things then noobs will never know. Thanks for any support
You heard of the Enter Key?
I think the application is super user friendly and easy to use. I setup and within a couple of hours had a good understanding of how it works.
For me I set it up and played around, most of the buttons etc are very descriptive of what they will do and there are even tool tips for some of them. What exactly are you confused about?
If you outline the exact problems you are having then I’m sure people can help.
Sorry about the enter key.
and like i said it might be user friendly if you already understand programs like this and how they work, but I’ve never used a program like this just torrents such. so for me the lack of direction and how to get it going is annoying to say the least.
I described one problem up above, about the files that did come out only playing a few seconds and then restarting.
another problem I had is there really is just lack of how to set it up and get it running. I played with the settings for hours as well and at the end I didn’t have a better understanding of what it took to get the program to run. even after I set it up and got it to download show, I don’t know how it did it, or what I needed to do to get it to do it again so I could test some more and try and learn the program better.
I also have a huge problem finding any guides to just help get through the process. or any documentation that let me know if I’m even on the right track of getting it to work properly.
Basically I don’t know if I’m doing it right at all or not, (actually I’m pretty sure I’m not.
Also I see a lot of talk about nas, and I’m not sure if this is a program that is really meant for nas, and not for use on a computer that you actually use or not.
My biggest problem is setup, I guess, if there were a setup guide, or pics of what a good setup is suppose to look like, or anything along that and what you might get with a normal program it would be so helpful.
yeah i think it may be a good idea to create a simple step by step guide with screenshots for people who know what they are doing sometimes it is hard to water down answers for those less familiar
also you find that if you know how to do most things you don’t have to think about it and just do it so when someone asks something you figure they should know how to simply do what you tell them
If i get some time soon i may come up with a Basic step by step guide on just installing and configuring and adding shows i won’t go into too much detail not only to confuse people but also because i am far from an expert there are definitely more knowledgeable people on this forum that myself but i know enough to get myself up and running
let me see what i can do i might make a rough draft which users can make suggestions on terminology if needed and then perhaps if it gets good enough we can make a wiki page or something
I will try and at least start it over the weekend as i have noticed a few people mentioning this issue
That’s all I’m saying s usually when you go to try something new and you have not idea what you’re doing it’s helpful to a simple guide that’s easy to get to. I did happen to find the terminology page after some searching, and that helped a little bit, but it’s all still very confusing, because some things seem to be written in a way to confuse you until you try it every which way, (even with the annotations)
One of the more confusing things that I think is written a bit weird is the directories, there are about 3 or 4 different places where I found a directories, and they all seem to want you to place them in different spots, but it doesn’t really explain which is say your main directory, and then which one is the one for where your completed files will go, ect.
It seems like you say there seems to be a disconnect between the people that know how to do something and people that don’t. If you ask me how to tattoo, I can tell you in plain english and as basic as possible, and to me it will be simple and clear, but to someone that doesn’t know a thing about the business, and who doesn’t understand art or tattoos the terms would mean nothing to you,
I think a simple guide would be awesome, and pictures like they say, are worth a million words (or whatever it is.) I can say I don’t know anything so basic would be awesome, and then after I learn the basics I could play and work with it, and try and get deeper, and learn more about how to work with the program. One thing I will say is that at least the forums are responsive and that’s great.
One thing I would say is if you would like I’m pretty noob, and if you want to make a rough draft and then send it to me I could try it out, and see if it works and give you feedback from a beginner opinion So far I like the program and what I see, but sadly it’s just got me beaten and wanting to give up at the moment.
oh yeah the funny thing is that I got here, because I was trying to use plex which is nice and easy, but still flawed in a few ways. anyway I was trying to solve a few problems with plex and one idea I had as far as a problem I was having naming, so I started googling to solve the problem,
well I came across some site forum and a person there was talking about all they use was nzbdrone for naming their tv files, and couch potato for movies, so without know what the program was or how it works I came here to try it, and it seems like if I can get it to work to auto download shows, and name them properly (which the naming part I think I did figure out with little hassle) but I would love the auto download part. to work. So I came here really by accident, and without any knowledge at all of how this program works, or what it was gonna be.
o.k. so I’ve never used rss feeds in my life. ( I know I’m falling behind the times I guess) but I was curious after reading somewhere about it, a few minutes ago, and found a video on youtube instantly , and explained it and how to use it with utorrent, and that’s what we need to try and do. for this site is make it easy to use, I’ve now never setup a rss feed at all, but I think I could actually do it now if i wanted to for utorrent.
I guess my whole thing is simple instructions and pics, or maybe a video would make a world of difference. and thanks protocol I know your said your working on it, I just figured I’d share. the video is down below, if we could make something like that for this site that would be awesome.
no problem i have already started it so i will try and tweak it a little bit and post a link to the rough draft and you can see if it is ok
as for using plex i am sure it is great to be honest never used it but i think the fair majority here including myself prefer XBMC over plex not saying you have to switch use whatever you like but i think here and the xbmc forums you might find a bit more support for that over plex although i am sure there are other plex users here i am just not one of them
as for your experience with the forums glad you noticed that it has been helpful for you we are trying here to make it different to other forums for related products where you can ask just about anything and there is usually someone here that can help you try and answer or troubleshoot it you will find in most cases there won’t be any judgement either although as this community grows i am sure a few less patient advanced users dealing with beginners in a less helpful way may find their way in 
saying that you can always find good advice from @markus101, @shedrock, @mspec and a lot of others that i cannot remember off the top of my head that are always here to help
I also try to when i can
Edit: Regarding the post you made whilst i was typing above that includes a youtube video yes eventually it would be good to have a easy to follow video but for now i am just gonna focus on the guide perhaps i might leave the video to someone else or i may get to it eventually but that could be possible
Cool. thanks for all the help and response.
Well actually using plex I love the idea of it, but there are still plenty of flaws, and problems, and universal media server just was about a million times better. and I ended up trying that while looking to fix some problems I was having with plex. It seems like when I have a problem with some program Google always get me hooked on some other program lol. Plex has a very nice look to it though, just wish they worked on the function of the product and then the look second, it’s more like it look great, works so so. My problem with the whole xbmc over plex thing is for the moment I don’t have a computer connected to the tv it’s just my ps3 so I was really just looking for a way to stream my content to my tv with the same quality I could get if I connected a hdd directly to it, because I just got a synology but don’t have harddrives for it yet.
Wireless streaming for me was something I tried and then realized it was lacking so put it away and that was years ago, and now I’ve felt that the speed is there where I could stream and have the quality I want, so now I’m getting into it, and ending up here seems to be a good place to help push what I want (which is to replace cable, which netflix could do if it wasn’t being held back by Hollywood ect…)
Oh also believe e I’m not a fanboy of anything I’m basically on the search to make things work well, and for them to be easy, and actually while this program has been difficult for me, the forum and quick response from people has actually kept me here to stick it out because I really think this might be something that I either need, or at least will need in the near future (although I’m not quite sure yet as I’m still confused with it.)
Yeah the forum are helpful, and the best part so far for me, because I think I’ve only ever spoke on very few forums before because usually I see someone without knowledge ask a question and people go out of their way to make the person feel like they are horrible for not knowing how to do it, or what something does, or whatever the question is related to. and they will go on, and on and on trying to be superior to the person when the answer sometimes would have been like a sentence to just say to the person. and in the end the person never gets the answer they were looking for. Believe me, if one person want to know the answer to something there is most likely at least one other person who is probably having the same problem, possibly tons more people. But so far with people like you and markus (he helped me with another question) this forum has been the best. (well minus the guy earlier who really didn’t give me any help he just told me that he understands the program and got it up and running with no problem. Maybe if he would have posted pics of how he has it setup then that would have been helpful lol, but telling me he understand it and got it going fine, yeah that helped zero%. You have been helpful though so thank you I appreciate it,and I’m sure other people are really gonna appreciate it as well.
If you make a setup basic tutorial with pics and such, I’ll be happy to follow it, and make a video lol. although I’m not exactly the best at doing that either, I’m sure I could get it done.
Alright after a couple hours i have completed a guide hopefully it is easy enough to follow i tend to over explain myself but from your posts i can see you do the same
I tried to cover everything from the very beginning of installing it right up to adding shows
if there is anything you don’t understand or want me to change or simply any mistakes that are noticed please PM me and i will make the changes once we have polished it up a bit i will find somewhere to post it for more people to see
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oNctXXlMDFk_4FjOFcJMwu_f8Grjf9825PXVlPcNwwU/edit?usp=sharing
Thanks for the kinds words i am sure markus101 appreciates it too he was really helpful to me when i started and still continues to be helpful i started out with this when there was only a few people using it and barely anyone of the forums so i have had the pleasure of seeing it grow along with the amount of time the developers have put into it is quite incredible especially markus101 i am wondering if the dude is a vampire or something or just has intravenous line Red Bull hooked up as he never seems to sleep and is always here to help
I suppose the cool thing is him being in Canada and me being in Australia the time differences make either one of us usually on here most of the time we also have some Americans, Kiwis I think some English and Aussies like me but mostly Canadians for some reason LOL so if you have any more issues don’t hesitate to post you may occasionally get a rough response but just hold on and you might get a much better one
BTW I have PM’d @markus101 a copy of the link for him to check out and also conveyed your nice words you had for him and also referred a link to this post so he can have an input as well
I barely skimmed the guide. It looks good tho.
A suggetion: break it into parts, and link to the parts from an index/contents page. That way if you have one bit, but need help w/ another, you don’t have to scroll thru the whole thing.
yeah that is a good idea and when i started i though about doing that I have since added that table of contents i might try and create a downloadable .PDF or Web page with this for easy access for people
thanks for the suggestion
@protocol77 might be nice to have on the WIKI or a place it can be edited as things change. One trouble guides have is as things change over time they become stale and the user is left stuck somewhere.
yes i was thinking that and that is part of the reason i sent you a PM as i wanted to get your input as well as other users to polish it up a bit before i suggested putting it on the wiki i would like it somewhere that allows you to edit it or add things as they change knowing how quickly features are adding and tweaked with NzbDrone this would be a good idea
it also allows people to find it using a link on the nzbdrone.com website or maybe a sticky here in the forums
As i mentioned above i have just added a contents page so people can navigate directly to each section i also broke it down a bit more by making contents page links for each section of the settings
Yeah, we can definitely host it on the wiki, inline images look to be possible to and you can have a sidebar with the contents visible as well, like so: https://github.com/NzbDrone/NzbDrone/wiki/API
It would let anyone with the knowledge and a github account edit it and keeps all the information in one place, links from the forums can be added as well.
If it’s on the wiki, I would suggest a ‘features’(?) section that gets more frequent review as that seems to be the things that change the most.
I know you do a lot of back end work, but the basic settings don’t change much.
@protocol77 said:
Alright after a couple hours i have completed a guide hopefully it is easy enough to follow i tend to over explain myself but from your posts i can see you do the sameI tried to cover everything from the very beginning of installing it right up to adding shows
if there is anything you don’t understand or want me to change or simply any mistakes that are noticed please PM me and i will make the changes once we have polished it up a bit i will find somewhere to post it for more people to see
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oNctXXlMDFk_4FjOFcJMwu_f8Grjf9825PXVlPcNwwU/edit?usp=sharing
Thanks for the kinds words i am sure markus101 appreciates it too he was really helpful to me when i started and still continues to be helpful i started out with this when there was only a few people using it and barely anyone of the forums so i have had the pleasure of seeing it grow along with the amount of time the developers have put into it is quite incredible especially markus101 i am wondering if the dude is a vampire or something or just has intravenous line Red Bull hooked up as he never seems to sleep
and is always here to help
I suppose the cool thing is him being in Canada and me being in Australia the time differences make either one of us usually on here most of the time
BTW I have PM’d @markus101 a copy of the link for him to check out and also conveyed your nice words you had for him and also referred a link to this post so he can have an input as well
haha well that’s make perfect sense you and markus aren’t americans’ that’s why ya’ll are so nice. I have to say I bet it’s mostly americans that are impatient and leave harsh comments, or advice, not to sure why I grew up being nice, and was taught to be nice. Idk.
Man so good, job, and thank you for taking your time (especially on a weekend) to do this, I haven’t used it yet, but I’m gonna dive in and give it a go and see how it works out and report back any feedback I have. I’m sure this is gonna be something that ends up helping a lot of people.
Oh yeah haha sorry about over explaining things, I guess it’s something I do tend to do.
this is interesting, as I’m reading the steps it brings out some interesting things so I’ll ask them and maybe that will help the devs, explain better and such.
Ok. so on the first part, for windows where is says install as a service, I did, because it was already selected, but really I’m not sure if I should have or not, (it would be a real help if it said what the difference is there.) I like how it says on your guide if your are gonna be running it 24/7 then you would, I personally don’t want it running the whole time because I use this computer for heavy use, and I’m not sure if that is something that will impact performance or not. (sorry I’m trying to breakdown my thought process while I go through it hopefully it helps the devs.)
I like that you explained what command prompt was because I knew what it was, but that doesn’t mean everyone know what it is when it pops up, and I’m sure some people might really freak out and think it’s a virus or something when they see it pop up and start writing stuff.
oh the part with the open up the browser part, you can also say that people can double click on the nzbdrone exe, and it will take them to that part.
So far the idea to explain what each and every button is is perfect, it just really breaks down what everything does and in simple english, oh and also writing in what you prefer or do is also just so helpful so it’s amazing.
Ok. so I just got to the section about indexers, and that is one of the big problems I was having as well. I didn’t know anything about them, and I just took the api key that was already in another part of the nzbdrone and added it to indexers, so I had no idea that they were other sites that I would need to sign up for and probably pay for.
Haha, you would think people would know they needed a download client, but I didn’t I just assumed this program did it. so the part about that and how it works is very helpful.
for the xbmc part, do you put the ip address of your computer or your player (say ps3) or what?
O.k. I just read the whole thing, and yes, that is pretty much exactly what I think it needed, for noobs like me lol. I haven’t tried it out yet, because i didn’t know I need accounts to other sites and such first, and I like to research a bit, but I at least now feel like i understand the program and what it does, and how to set it up. thank you so much for you time and work.
Glad to hear it was helpful i will reply a little later on with some answers to your questions and some advice on things like choosing an indexer which i will PM you about as it is probably best not to mention these sites here as we don’t want to advertise their existence any more that we have to as it puts a target on their backs
I am a little busy at the moment so when i get some free time i will help you out so if you can just sit tight for a bit that is unless someone else wants to answer some of these questions for you in the meantime that would be cool also
BTW to anyone who would like to add or change anything on the guide that they might think would help I am cool with that it is for everyone anyways just pm me and give me an email and i will add you so you can edit the file on google docs if you have one a gmail account would be preferable as i am not sure if you need one to edit docs