Scrobble from VLC to Trakt (in Windows) using TraktForVLC

UPDATE (May 2018): A newer version of TraktForVLC has been released – here
It makes everything MUCH easier. Use this new version. Simply install from the command prompt (use an administrator cmd prompt – search for cmd in the Windows menu, right click and select run as administrator).


I usually use Plex for viewing Movies & TV  but have recently started using VLC since it is much more configurable and I can watch things at x1.2 speed which I prefer for some slower titles. Plex still runs as a service on the HTPC beside the TV so it keeps my Trakt collection up to date through the Trakt plugin but when using VLC to view video I don’t want to lose my ability to keep Trakt updated with what I watch.

I found this github project by XaF which you can install as a VLC plugin and it’ll scrobble your viewing to Trakt and keep your viewing stats up to date. Also, since Plex is synced with Trakt through the Trakt plugin, it will then update Plex with the watch status of my videos.

The plugin was targeted at linux systems and the installation guide is written with that in mind, here’s how I got it working with Windows…

 

  1. Make sure to install python for Windows from here.
  2. Download the git project as a zip file and extract all the contents to a local folder. e.g. C:/Program Files (x86)/TraktForVLC/
  3. Open ‘windows_batch’ subdirectory and copy config.bat.default file and paste/rename to ‘config.bat‘. Edit it and change the paths to point to your Python executable, your VLC installation directory and your TraktForVLC directory. Note, no quotes needed for any path names even if they have spaces in them.
  4. The Windows registry keys need updated to start VLC with the ‘rc’ interface and listening on whatever ip:port you want. Typically it’s ‘localhost:4222’ if you’re going along with the default installation. If you want to point at another host then you probably don’t need this guide to help you 😉
    To set the registry keys, the repo comes with a script called ‘set_registry_keys.bat‘. I couldn’t get this working no matter how much I tweaked it. So I wrote my own which you can get here. You’ll need to edit it in notepad (or even better, in notepad++) first but it’ll get the registry amended much faster than doing it manually.
  5. We still need to configure TraktForVLC settings. So copy/paste .../TraktForVLC/config.ini.default as config.ini, then open it.
    Go to https://trakt.tv/pin/2498 in your browser and create a key. Copy it and paste into the config file. Leave that browser tab open for now until you have run TraktForVLC for the first time. I tried this step a few times and couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t scrobble, leaving the tab open seemed to make it work – don’t know why but it did. That’s it for configuring TraktForVLC.
  6. TraktForVLC needs to run in the background so create a shortcut in your Startup folder linked to the ‘start_process.bat‘ file from the ‘windows_batch‘ folder. For now you can manually start it by double clicking it.
  7. If things don’t seem to be working for you, you can troubleshoot by running the ‘start_debug_process.bat‘ file and looking at the logs which appear in the data directory we defined in the config.bat file earlier.

4 Comments

  1. I'm using version 2.2.2 but I think it should work with any version. The VLC capabilities in use have been around for a while.

    It did take me some tweaking to get it working properly but I tried to capture all of that in this 'how-to'.

    Running the 'debug' script will output info into the log file which may be helpful in working out what is wrong.

    I would also suggest using 'Process Hacker' as an alternative to Windows Task Manager. Then you can look at the python process and the VLC process to make sure they are running with the correct command line options.

  2. Whenever I run the "start_process" batch file I get an error saying: "Windows cannot find '–datadir'. Any solution?

  3. First of all, thanks for simplify the process.
    I'm getting an error while opening the start_process.bat and start_debug_process.bat files. The error is this: http://imgur.com/a/Do8Ks . It says "Windows can't locate 'C:\Program'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.".
    Can you help me, please?
    Thank you

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