kodi appimage can't install addons

[henrythemouse]

I recently installed the kodi appimage: Kodi-18.8.git20200728.1313.glibc2.17-x86_64.AppImage.
This image runs very fast on myT430 thinkpad runing debian buster. Far better than the debian provided kodi deb or the flathub provided flatpak. Looks like it is reading my home .kodi directory and using the past configuration. However, I am unable to update or install kodi anddons via the user interface. The log looks like this:

ERROR: Requested path http://mirrors.kodi.tv/addons/krypton/service.xbmc.versioncheck/service.xbmc.versioncheck-0.5.12.zip not found in known repository directories
ERROR: CAddonInstallJob[service.xbmc.versioncheck]: failed to resolve addon install source path
ERROR: Requested path http://mirrors.kodi.tv/addons/krypton/metadata.common.themoviedb.org/metadata.common.themoviedb.org-3.2.12.zip not found in known repository directories
ERROR: Requested path http://mirrors.kodi.tv/addons/krypton/metadata.themoviedb.org/metadata.themoviedb.org-5.2.5.zip not found in known repository directories
ERROR: CAddonInstallJob[metadata.common.themoviedb.org]: failed to resolve addon install source path
ERROR: CAddonInstallJob[metadata.themoviedb.org]: failed to resolve addon install source path

I can download the individual zip files (https) and install/update them using the "install from zip file" menu item, but the UI only states "install/update failed" if I try to install/update any addons directly. Does anyone know if there is anything that I can do that will allow the appimage to be able to install addons directly?

TIA