Search and indexers¶

When you play a title, NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi searches every enabled provider, merges the results, removes duplicates, and hands the combined list to the filtering and ranking stage.

Provider types¶

You can enable any combination of three provider types. If none is enabled, TMDBHelper playback tells you so instead of searching. NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi's own search menu and plugin:// play URLs always query NZBHydra2, even when Enable NZBHydra2 is off.

Recommended: use NZBHydra2

Rather than adding every indexer's Newznab API key on NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi's Indexers tab, run NZBHydra2 and point NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi at it. Hydra gives you a much better interface for managing indexers and searches, and it's highly configurable: per-indexer limits, categories, and priorities, all in one place. You don't lose anything by going through it. NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi still shows which indexer each result came from, in the results list's Indexer column. On NZBHydra2, fallback streams can also find same-release uploads that Hydra merged into a single result.

NZBHydra2¶

NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi queries NZBHydra2's Newznab XML API and shapes each query to the search capabilities (caps) Hydra advertises. It fetches those caps on first search and caches them. After changing Hydra's URL or its indexers, refresh them from Manage Indexers → Refresh NZBHydra2 Caps on the Indexers tab. That button stays greyed out until Enable direct Newznab indexers is on. Until you refresh, NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi searches a changed URL with a default query shape.

For episodes, NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi prefers a TVDB id, then an IMDb id; for movies it uses the IMDb id. If the first query returns nothing, it retries with a plain title search, so a missing or mismatched id doesn't leave you with zero results.

Prowlarr¶

NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi queries Prowlarr's native search API, which returns JSON. Because Prowlarr's native search binds ids inside the query text rather than as separate parameters, NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi embeds them as tokens ({tvdbid:…}, {imdbid:…}, {season:…}, {episode:…}) alongside the cleaned title. For episodes it prefers the TVDB id over the IMDb id. If an id-keyed query returns nothing, NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi retries by title, keeping the season and episode tokens.

Prowlarr contributes Usenet results only

NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi keeps only releases whose protocol is usenet. Torrent results from Prowlarr are silently dropped. A torrent-only indexer in your Prowlarr indexer list contributes nothing.

Set Prowlarr Indexer IDs to a comma-separated list of the indexers to query. It's required: with an empty list, NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi skips Prowlarr entirely.

Direct Newznab indexers¶

If you don't run Hydra or Prowlarr, connect directly to individual Newznab indexers. NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi queries them in parallel (up to four at a time, 15 seconds per request, 20 seconds for the whole batch) and shapes each query to that indexer's caps when it has them. NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi skips an indexer that times out or fails, and the others still return results.

You can configure them in two ways, both on the Indexers tab:

Popular indexers: built-in rows for NZB.su/NZB.life, NZBGeek, NZBFinder, NZBPlanet, DrunkenSlug, and DOGnzb. Enable one, enter its API key, done.
Manage Indexers: a dialog for adding any Newznab indexer from a larger preset catalog (22 well-known indexers) or a fully custom URL, and for testing, editing, turning on or off, and deleting them.

The Manage Indexers dialog fetches caps before it saves a new indexer, validates each URL, re-fetches caps when you change a connection, and asks for confirmation before you delete your last enabled indexer. The first time you open it, it copies any complete rows from the Indexers tab into its list; from then on the managed entry wins over the tab row with the same ID. Test Direct Indexers checks caps for every enabled indexer.

Beta feature

Manage Indexers was added in 2.0.0-beta.1 and is available on the Beta channel.

TV and movie IDs¶

Id-keyed searches are far more accurate than title searches. TMDBHelper normally passes the ids NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi needs, and they are used directly. When one is missing and you've set TMDB API key (optional, movies and TV) on the Indexers tab:

Episodes: NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi looks up the show's TVDB id from its TMDB or IMDb id, because many indexers key TV on TVDB ids. All providers share the one lookup.
Movies: when only a TMDB id is available, NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi converts it to the movie's IMDb id.

NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi caches successful lookups on disk. If you have no key or a lookup fails, the search uses the IDs and title it already has.

Beta feature

TVDB lookup for episodes was added in 2.0.0-beta.1 and is available on the Beta channel.

How results are combined¶

flowchart LR
    H[NZBHydra2] --> M[Merge]
    P[Prowlarr] --> M
    D[Direct indexers] --> M
    M --> DD[De-duplicate by download link]
    DD --> R[Combined result list]

When more than one provider is enabled, NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi searches them at the same time. It logs and skips a provider that fails. You only see its error if every provider failed and nothing came back.
NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi asks each provider for up to Max results (on the Sorting tab) results.
Each provider normalizes its results into a common shape: title, download link, size, indexer name, post date, and age.
De-duplication is by download link. The first occurrence of a link wins. A release that two providers return with different download URLs appears twice. This is intentional because those are genuinely different downloads.
A result with no download link is dropped, because it can't be played.

Search caching¶

Searches are cached so that re-opening the same title is instant. The cache duration is the Cache duration setting on the Advanced tab (default 60 seconds; set to 0 to turn it off). Only successful, non-empty searches are cached. The cache stores the raw, pre-filter results, so changing your filter or sort settings takes effect immediately without a new search. Clear it any time from the add-on's main menu (Clear Cache).

The cache applies to NeNeTeePee-Stream-Kodi's own plugin search and play routes. The TMDBHelper player always runs a fresh search.

For the internal mechanics, including the query planner, caps handling, and the exact result fields, see How it works → Search pipeline.

Kodi Indexers screenshots¶

NZBHydra2 and Prowlarr settings in Kodi

Direct and custom indexers and the optional TMDB API key

These are current-source Kodi screens with example credentials. The Indexers tab guide includes the intervening scrolled screens and explains every provider switch, endpoint, key, indexer ID list, and action. For long values, use phone copy and paste. Follow TMDB API setup for the optional identity-lookup key.

StreamNZB manages its indexers on the server. If it uses NZBHydra2 as its only Newznab endpoint, follow the duplicate age threshold recommendation so Hydra does not hide same-release copies before StreamNZB receives them.