emby updates *.nfo even when no changes detected (music library)

April 19, 2016

Hello,

My emby server updates the local *.nfo files in my MUSIC section.

This happens even when there are no changes made to my music collection.

THis is very annoying, because those changes are picked up by my PlexMediaServer (and other services and apps running on my server) and are starting other processes (plex scan, backup, etc...)

Can this behaviour be avoided?

Why is it only in the music library? I haven't found modified *.nfo files in my movie secion.

Bug?

April 19, 2016

please come up with an example of before and after so that we can see what the differences of the files are. thanks.

April 19, 2016

Do you have the refresh people task running + save image path to nfo (emby dashboard > metadata > nfo)? That was causing my many unwanted updates. I don't know if it can effect music nfos however...

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited April 19, 2016 by Angelblue05

April 20, 2016

@@Luke,

Here a test again.

Server WIN10 running only Plex for few days. Everything working as expected.

Started Emby server -> Emby server started scanning libraries

Immediatly, Plex Server started also

I picked just one *.nfo as example

BEFORE

==========

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<album>
  <review />
  <outline />
  <lockdata>false</lockdata>
  <dateadded>2016-04-13 09:56:45</dateadded>
  <title>Duke Ellington & John Coltrane</title>
  <originaltitle>Duke Ellington & John Coltrane</originaltitle>
  <year>2008</year>
  <enddate>2016-04-13</enddate>
  <genre>Jazz</genre>
  <art>
    <poster>\\mediaserver\MEDIA\MUZIEK\_new\John Coltrane - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane\folder.jpg</poster>
  </art>
  <artist>Duke Ellington & John Coltrane</artist>
  <albumartist>John Coltrane</albumartist>
  <track>
    <position>1</position>
    <title>In a Sentimental Mood</title>
    <duration>04:18</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>2</position>
    <title>Take the Coltrane</title>
    <duration>04:44</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>3</position>
    <title>Big Nick</title>
    <duration>04:29</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>4</position>
    <title>Stevie</title>
    <duration>04:26</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>5</position>
    <title>My Little Brown Book</title>
    <duration>05:24</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>6</position>
    <title>Angelica</title>
    <duration>06:04</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>7</position>
    <title>The Feeling of Jazz</title>
    <duration>05:34</duration>
  </track>
</album>

==========

AFTER

==========

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<album>
  <review />
  <outline />
  <lockdata>false</lockdata>
  <dateadded>2016-04-13 09:56:45</dateadded>
  <title>Duke Ellington & John Coltrane</title>
  <originaltitle>Duke Ellington & John Coltrane</originaltitle>
  <year>2008</year>
  <enddate>2016-04-13</enddate>
  <genre>Jazz</genre>
  <artist>Duke Ellington & John Coltrane</artist>
  <albumartist>John Coltrane</albumartist>
  <track>
    <position>1</position>
    <title>In a Sentimental Mood</title>
    <duration>04:18</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>2</position>
    <title>Take the Coltrane</title>
    <duration>04:44</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>3</position>
    <title>Big Nick</title>
    <duration>04:29</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>4</position>
    <title>Stevie</title>
    <duration>04:26</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>5</position>
    <title>My Little Brown Book</title>
    <duration>05:24</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>6</position>
    <title>Angelica</title>
    <duration>06:04</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>7</position>
    <title>The Feeling of Jazz</title>
    <duration>05:34</duration>
  </track>
</album>

==========

The weird thing is that the *.nfo AFTER is SMALLER than BEFORE:

After Emby scan was finished, Plex was still updating and consuming most of my CPU:

Edited April 20, 2016 by plessers@gmail.com

April 20, 2016

are there any differences?

April 20, 2016

@Luke: yep, see (modified) post...

The nfo after embyscan was smaller.

Seems that Plex and Emby are both trying to modify the file wich induces new scan on the other service...

April 20, 2016

@Luke: yep, see (modified) post...

The nfo after embyscan was smaller.

Seems that Plex and Emby are both trying to modify the file wich induces new scan on the other service...

If that's true then I would just pick one to manage your nfo's, because it's just going to be an endless cycle.

April 20, 2016

@@Luke,

well If I could turn this setting on/off on one of them, I would be happy. For music, I don't need *.nfo files, because all tags are embedded.

Plex doesn't generate/modifies *.nfo files, so I think only Emby is changing info.

In EMBY, these are my settings:

Is there any other config in EMBY where I can modify settings?

regards,

B

Edited April 20, 2016 by plessers@gmail.com

April 20, 2016

the only other thing is that if there are any changes to any files inside the album directory, then it's going to refresh the titles and this will cause metadata to be saved. You can disable the realtime monitor and this will reduce it to some degree but those changes are still going to be picked up on the next library scan. the other thing you can do is just find a way to prevent the other software from listening to changes on the nfo file.

April 20, 2016

I found something interesting here:

The file was modified by user PC\pless. This is NOT the user where PLEX nor EMBY are running on.

So maybe my problem is that I have also 2 EMBY servers:

KELDERSMURF

- running PLEX-server

- running EMBY-server

- service account: KELDERSMURF\mediacenter

- disk local attached

- libraries use SMB and UNC paths (\\KELDERSMURF\SHARE\Folder)

KASTSMURF

- running EMBY-server

- service account: KASTSMURF\pless

- libraries use SMB and UNC paths (\\KELDERSMURF\SHARE\Folder)

Could it be that

EMBY@KASTSMURF updates the *.nfo

WITH

<art>
<poster>\\mediaserver\MEDIA\MUZIEK\_new\John Coltrane - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane\folder.jpg</poster>
</art>

and that

EMBY@KELDERSMURF updates the *.nfo

WITHOUT

  <art>
  <poster>\\mediaserver\MEDIA\MUZIEK\_new\John Coltrane - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane\folder.jpg</poster>
  </art>

and all these changes are picked up by PLEX...

This would explain a lot.

Can you find out if there is a difference between an EMBY-server with nfo-indexing on a remote SMB-share and an EMBY-server with nfo-indexing on a "local" SMB-share?

I will check my settings on both EMBY servers to see if there is any difference.

B

April 20, 2016

HA!

Indeed.

On my KASTSMURF, I found some differences in settings:

Especially the setting to save image paths to the *.nfo -> probably cause of all my problems.

The two EMBY servers were both updating the *.nfo files with different info!!!

I will set config equal to both and see what happens....

thanx for listening :-)

grtz

b

April 20, 2016

If you have two servers pointing to the same media, I would be sure that one of them does NOT save metadata with the media. This will avoid this kind of fighting between them.

April 20, 2016

that's what I found out. The hard way :-)

April 25, 2016

Hello, @@Luke, @@ebr,

I want to come back on this.

I noticed again that my PLEXSERVER was scanning my music library and indeed.... album.nfo was changed again in my directory structure.

PLEXSERVER does not touch these files, so it seems that EMBY is responsable for this.

Because I made backups of all my *.nfo files, I compared one with the version of yesterday, but content of the *.nfo file was the same. Only the datemodified was changed.

It seems to me that EMBY updates ALWAYS the *.nfo files of a music library.

This again triggers other processes (like PLEXSERVER and backup) and is unwanted behavior

Can you please take a look at this again?

- why is emby changing files

- why is it only at music libraries

If I can do anything to help debug, please let me know.

kind regards,

B

April 25, 2016

PS:

Here is my current setup:

HOMESERVER

- WIN10

- local attached disk, but shared

KASTSMURF

- WIN10

- EMBY running

- libraries configured with UNC paths to share

HOMESERVER and KASTSMURF are configured the same

If I fire the EMBY-timer job "scan media library" on KASTSMURF, then I can see in the logs of PLEX (on HOMESERVER):

Apr 25, 2016 14:38:58:829 [6940] INFO - Library section 33 (Muziek) will be updated because of a change in \\mediaserver\media\muziek\collectie\Eels - Royal Albert Hall

Apr 25, 2016 14:38:58:876 [5440] INFO - Library section 33 (Muziek) will be updated because of a change in \\mediaserver\media\muziek\collectie\Duke Ellington - Money Jungle

Apr 25, 2016 14:38:58:911 [5336] INFO - Library section 33 (Muziek) will be updated because of a change in \\mediaserver\media\muziek\collectie\Kings of Leon - Only By The Night

Apr 25, 2016 14:38:58:945 [5440] INFO - Library section 33 (Muziek) will be updated because of a change in \\mediaserver\media\muziek\collectie\Various Artists - Leesknuffel 2010-2011

Apr 25, 2016 14:38:58:985 [5336] INFO - Library section 33 (Muziek) will be updated because of a change in \\mediaserver\media\muziek\collectie\Miles Davis - Porgy and Bess

My settings on both EMBY servers are the same.

April 25, 2016

FYI,

I compared all the changed *.nfo files since last backup (2 days ago)

I have 1795 folders where the nfo-file was updated:

Newer 1749 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\_new\Ben Harper - Call It What It Is\album.nfo

Newer 1307 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\_new\John Coltrane - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane\album.nfo

Newer 6903 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\_new\Various Artists - Bruiloft & Partijen\album.nfo

Newer 688 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\collectie\00Test - TestCompilation\album.nfo

Newer 4588 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\collectie\10cc - Greatest Hits & More\album.nfo

Newer 1332 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\collectie\16 Horsepower - 16 Horsepower\album.nfo

Newer 2551 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\collectie\16 Horsepower - Low Estate\album.nfo

Newer 915 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\collectie\4 Non Blondes - What's Up [uK CD Single]\album.nfo

Newer 2191 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\collectie\A Brand - Judas\album.nfo

Newer 709 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\collectie\A3 - Exile On Coldharbour Lane\album.nfo

Newer 1562 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\collectie\A3 - Power in the Blood\album.nfo

Newer 2311 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\collectie\Aaron - Artificial Animals Riding On Neverland\album.nfo

...

This means "almost" every album, but what intrigues me is that there are "some" albums (if have 2168 folders containing an album)

Another thing, if I check

Newer 1749 N:\MEDIA\MUZIEK\_new\Ben Harper - Call It What It Is\album.nfo

it was modified by the service account running on KASTSMURF.

So the local PLEXSERVER and EMBYSERVER on HOMESERVER are not interfering, it is KASTSMURF that updates the *.nfo files remotely

April 26, 2016

Same issue today: KASTSMURF was updating *.nfo files on fileshare, whilst nothing changed on my fileshare.

Can it be that EMBY has it's own database that should be in sync with the *.nfo files?

This would explain some things:

STEP 1: HOMESERVER:

*.nfo generated by HOMESERVER

local database in sync with *.nfo

STEP 2: KASTSMURF

detects differences between same *.nfo files and its own local database

changes are made to *.nfo (and maybe local database also) after scan

STEP 3: HOMESERVER:

changes to *.nfo, made by KASTSMURF are detected at scan and process repeats.

Can this be confirmed?

@Luke, @ebr,

If this is the case, how can I avoid this behaviour?

In my opinion, the *.nfo should only be changed if there is an effective change in content (i.e. added/deleted music tracks)

Big question: why is this only with music libraries? *.nfo's in my movie libraries are NOT updated with every scan.

seems to me like a bug?

regards,

B

April 26, 2016

I am pretty positive there's no bug here. Make sure no files inside the album directory are changing. When that happens, the album will be re-scanned and re-saved.

April 26, 2016

Hi Luke, this thread reminded me that my nfo's appear to change (all, not just music) when they don't and Emby is the only software using them. I ran 2 library scans tonight and my backup software reported that hundreds of files needed to be synced after I just synced an hour before, all that's changed is the Date Modified time-stamp, not the contents. So when Emby scans, it changes the Date Modified, is that by design?

Not a huge problem but when I manually back things up I'm expecting to see new files added only but I have to skim though pages of nfos to see the actual files I'm looking for. XMLs didn't do this but like I said not a big deal as they are tiny and sync quickly, just curious if it should be changing modified dates when nothing has actually changed?

Cheers

April 27, 2016

Some file in the directory must have changed, even just a timestamp change would cause the season to be rescanned and then save it's metadata.

April 27, 2016

>Some file in the directory must have changed

This is definitely NOT the case!

In fact, it is the opposite: it's the scan of EMBY that modifies the *.nfo files…!

It is easy reproducible: every time I start a scan at EMBY@KASTSMURF, the *.nfo-files are modified. Or at least, the date/time stamp is modified. If I compare the *.nfo's there is no difference in content…

I'm also 100% sure that EMBY@KASTSMURF changes/creates the *.nfo: I dedicated a specific service account to EMBY@KASTSMURF and this becomes the owner of the file on my NAS

Here I did some other tests.

In an album folder, I:

removed *.nfo

- media library scan at EMBY@KASTSMURF

- nfo was NOT recreated