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I’m planning to run Ubuntu on my mac mini instead of macOS. Has anyone made this transition? Is it is a straightforward process? Is it as easy as moving the database home directory to the Linux user? Will it be easy to map the new root directory given the entire file tree for all my movies, TV, and pictures are exactly the same? Anything else I should know before making the transition? Like are there any subtle differences in functionality of the server itself?

Due to Plex drastic changes to the UI on Roku devices on 12/6/2018 a lot of long term Plex users are moving to Emby. - I am one of those users. I started the migration the same day and have one big question. Is there anyway to move the existing meta data from Plex into Emby? 1. Movie & TV show matching that have already been corrected in PLEX. 2. Custom/Not default Art Work already selected in Plex. Thanks in advance to anyone that can save me and others hours and hours of getting our servers back in order.

Hi everyone, I have tried to find anything linked to what I'm seeing now, but couldn't. The issue is as follows: my TV Library was previously split into 2 seperate folders. Even some shows had episodes in each folder, but for the most part I have only one file per episode. So now I moved everything into one folder. I ran a library update in the backend of emby, then I removed the now empty folder from the library folders. Some shows now have multiple video versions, but both files point to the same file on the server and the exact same path. The folder only has one file for this episode. I'm at a loss as to how I could remedy this issue and could not find anything online that made sense. Any ideas how to fix this? Thanks

Bonjour, Pour info, la migration s'est bien déroulée. Aucune perte en suivant la procédure Juste une correction dans la ligne de code pour moi : cp -r /volume1/emby/* /volume1/@appdata/EmbyServer à la place de cp -r /volume1/Emby/* /volume1/@appdata/EmbyServer Sinon, un peu long de redonner les droits à Emby sur les répertoires mais ça va. Vous pouvez y aller ! Ne pas oublier de donner les droits au répertoire de backup de la configuration aussi

For anyone like me who started off creating their library of media and and deciding at a later date that maybe they want to move the those movies into their own folders, but don't want to manually create thousands of folders, and then manually move the files, you can automate that process with PowerShell (on WIndows). Open up a PowerShell prompt and navigate to the directory with your movies being stored, in my case on a network share. cd \\unraid\media\movies Make sure this command will create a folder for every file in the directory you just navigated to. WARNING, I was lazy when I made this. This will technically create a folder for any object in the folder that has a period in the name. So, if for whatever reason, you already have folders with a period in the name, it will try to create a folder for it as well. If you already have a folder structure with periods, either don't use this or revise the command. Get-ChildItem | Where-Object {$_.Name -Like "*.*"} | Select BaseName | ForEach-Object {New-Item -Name $_.BaseName -ItemType "Directory"} This next command will actually move every item with a period in the name, into a folder of the same name, minus the file extension. So, if you have multiple copies of a movie, with multiple resolutions, or if you keep your metadata in NFO files, ALL of those files will be moved into the same folder. Get-ChildItem | Where-Object {$_.Name -Like "*.*"} | ForEach-Object {Move-Item $_.Name $_.BaseName}

My Ubuntu 18.04.5 broke with Emby-server 4.4.0.40. All media files are on other discs. New Ubuntu has 20.04.1 and I have downloaded Emby-server 4.5.3.0. I have access to a backup copy of the original /var/lib/emby from 4.4.0.40. If I install the new Emby-server 4.5.3.0 can I simply restore the /var/lib/emby from 4.4.0.40 to get up and running or are the contents of the /var/lib/emby folder incompatible? Thanks, NCBillP

**Mods: I posted this in general section, can you please remove this post?** So I bought a Synology DS1019+ and I want selectively copy portions of my existing NAS/Emby server over to it, what setting do I need to apply to have this new instance scrape/pickup the NFO info, backdrops, covers, actors from the folders I copy over without re-scraping/grabbing new info, art from the internet? On my other server I have save artwork and NFOs to the media folder for all TV & Movies titles. @cayars

Read a question just asked about copying user data to a new server with plugin. Is there any sort of documentation on things like where config data is stored, and how to back it up with and without the plugin? I like knowing a bit about systems I'm running so I can tweak a bit. It would be nice to know what I can expect moving my server from Windows to Linux, and how much my users will have to redo. As a first attempt moving my Windows server to CentOS, after I got the server up and running, I copied the contents of my Windows "User/AppData/Roaming/Emby-Server/programdata" into the Unix's "/var/lib/emby" directory (all the subdirectories were the same, so I thought it might work), which resulted in an evil core dump...lucky I backed up the original emby directory before I did that, so no permanent harm. Still, it should just be a matter of finding the right files and copying them over, not copying over the system/OS specific ones, and then making a few tweaks for the new environment, right? If only I knew which files to move and which to tweak... Thanks very much,

I have a EMBY server installed on my Windows10 PC, with "save metadata as nfo" and "Saving artwork into media folders" activated in the library settings. Now I want to build a NAS based on Unraid, surely I backup the files in the list below manually and transfer to new directory as the supporting article indicates. /ProgramData/config /ProgramData/plugins /ProgramData/data/collections /ProgramData/data/playlists /ProgramData/data/displaypreferences.db /ProgramData/data/users.db /ProgramData/data/library.db /ProgramData/metadata But I've noticed the people information in the .nfo files for my media indicating a directory that will be different with those on NAS. Then, the question would be this: Would those links transform properly “After the scan”, directing to the new directory? I am concerned about the people images won't be displayed unless a "Metadata Refresh" is operated. @@cayars

Hi there , i think about to move from my mac mini to a Intel NUC with Linux. Now i have a few Questions : is there a clean way to backup restore all settings without rebuilding the Library? I think about a 10th Generation i5 NUC will this be a good choice even for transcoding? (Max 2 streams) besides emby is FHEM,iobroker and a TVheadend Server running. Server only - no tv attached which OS would you prefer ? Ubuntu? Debian? Thanks for tipps

Hi to everyone. I moved my media to a new server and i followed the migration guide linked on github. On my old server was running emby 4.3.1.0, the same that i installed on the new one. I made a manual backup and it was all ok until i tried to restore the usaerdatas table from the old library db to the new one. The problem is that the old db has more columns that the new one in the userdatas table (14 vs 12) There is a way to fix this problem? Thanks in advance for your answers. @@Happy2Play @@arrbee99 @@chef

hey all, I am a bit confused... As far as I know I should be able to just run the backup tool in Windows and then run it in the arch installation and then it should "magically" work, right? this have not been the case with my installation, I can literally not see the libraries even tho the paths are correct. I need to know how to get emby working again. Right now i cannot see media files in any of the libraries when looking through them, not even the metadata tool shows anything. I have tried several browser (opera and firefox, tried both in private mode as well) so it got nothing to do with cache/cookies. example picture from opera: I am on the latest build of emby available for my distro which is 4.3.0.30. I ran sudo pacman -Ssy emby Result I got from that: :: Synchronizing package databases... core is up to date extra is up to date community is up to date multilib is up to date community/emby-server 4.3.0.30-1 [installed] Bring together your videos, music, photos, and live television I am attaching embyserver.txt if you require any other log from emby server I shall conjure it into existence for you helping folks. I tried to create new libraries, and it works, it is just that the already existing ones does not work, and I really would like try to avoid to recreate them, thank you It is 2am when typing this, I am sorry for any spelling mistakes, if you need any clarification, ask away! Thank you for taking your time reading through this and trying to help me with my trouble. have a nice day! embyserver.txt Edit: Added embyserver.txt logfile

Hello, I want to migrate my local windows emby server into a docker image. I know, that I can use the backup/import plugin, but my library has about 2000 entries and many of them are manual, manual pictures, manual names etc. Is there a way to migrate the whole database and everything to my new server and change the library path to the new linux path without rescanning/manually editing all my files?

Let's talk about a real full migration and the separation of metadata and mediafiles. I know i know, you system architects of emby have had discussions and thoughts about this topic enough i guess...But i want to ask you to maybe rethink one or two things about the structure of emby. But hold on, before you think: great, another non-programming average Joe who thinks he knows things better than we do... just let me explain. The fact that i am here right now, writing this post about emby is because: i love it As a long time kodi-user i instantly fell in love with emby the moment i installed it and started using it. I mean, kodi gives me some more options and fine-control on how I want to structure my library where emby is limiting me, and emby has some little flaws here and there. But the overall feeling about emby is just awesome! So, i ditched Kodi for emby and never looked back...until now. I'm in a similar position as @@Kirk137 in his post https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/61721-best-migration-strategy/ or like @@flort in this post https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/47767-manual-backuprestore-userdata-and-changed-paths/ Due to some hardware and software-changes, i'm in the process of having to migrate from a emby macOS installation to a Ubuntu-based Linux installation. Even though my case is about macOS/Linux-migration, my problem is related with the general migration-process and metadata-management, and therefore belongs in the "general"-forum. So, as besides of the root-path from my mediafiles, nothing has changed and i thought: this won't be a big deal...just copying the database, correcting the rootpath for the mediafiles and boom it's done. Should only take one hour at best. But this was thought too short. I followed the instructions from https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Backup and was a little shocked when i read this in the documentation: How can it be that a software like emby, so powerful and well written/supported, has no proper 100% backup/migration-process? I followed the instructions for a manual backup anyway and now i have a "partially" migrated/backed up new database. After the re-indexing scan of 1-2 hours, the files are there and users and everything else - but the manually edited, handcrafted movie-entries are ALL gone. And this is a huge bummer as i putted in A LOT OF TIME identifying the movies/videos/shows by hand while remaining their original filenames!(sometimes this is possible sometimes not) So, the whole migration-process took 4-5 hours by now and still isn't complete/finished and satisfying. And right now i don't know where to go or what to do to get this done. I for myself and i don't think i'm alone in this - need a proper way to backup and migrate a whole installation. And with whole installation i mean whole. This should not only include: Server configuration Users User data (playstates, favorites, etc). Installed plugins Plugin settings Playlists but also: library/index metadata views full cache(people,pictures,movieinfos,artistinfos) Manually edited, handcrafted movie-entries. When nothing besides the rootpath of my mediafiles and the paths to the config files have changed, i don't really understand nor can't i find good reasons why i should have to put my hardware, and my nerves to so much stress(io-workloads) re-indexing, re-downloading, re-editing and re-configuring the whole library when the data are already available somewhere(old machine). I mean, i can understand that from a programmers perspective a migration/backup-process is no simple task. But from a users-perspective it should not be extremely more than: Ok, ok, i know. It's not just a single button-press and everything is magically done in 2 minutes. And i am fine with copying config files by hand, and running well documented pre-written SQL-queries etc etc. But in the end a migration/backup-process should be 100%, and not just 50-60%-ish. And now comes the part about emby, that i completely dislike and reject: The structure of handling data and media. The idea about saving metadata with the mediafiles might seem appealing and easy first of all...but when you think about it its not that great at all. Here's why. I don't want any tool than my file-manager and my brain to get in the way of my structure and naming-conventions. Therefore i only mount my media-folders read-only for emby, kodi and other tools. I do this because i don't want any bug, user or coincidence to threatening me with the possibility of messing, deleting, renaming or restructuring my media-files/folders. I need to preserve the structure and names of my files and folders to some degree for archiving-and a lot of other reasons. So i don't want emby or other tools to write nfo-files all over the place or rename anything. Yes i know about the possibility of recognizing files by hash even when the filenames have changed, but this is no option as i need to preserve the original filenames. When you think about it, why would you want mix up two categories of datatypes(data and media)? For me personally it feels way more natural when i have the two separated. I have one place for data and one for media. The other really big problem i have is when this idea of "saving local metadata to media folders" is the only possible way of a given migration-process. Without another given option it feels like getting told: You ether swallow our nfo-mess in your file-structure or you have to redo the whole indexing and editing-process with every crash or system-migration! Ouch! Most of other media-libraries like itunes, kodi, subsonic etc. separate the two datatypes while maintaining full migration-ability. Sometimes emby is also forcing me to rename files/folders just to get indexed correctly. For example when episodes of a show are named E01 instead of EP01...or when a show/anime hasn't episode-numbers splitted by seasons etc. While you are reading this, you might be thinking: What do you want from me?! Let me tell you: First of all, i need help. Medic please! I need to get this migration-process done without the need of having to re-edit all the rare movies and videos i edited by hand(took me weeks to months!) I need a way(detailed instructed how-to) on how to migrate 100% of my library from one machine to another. Give us the ability to just change the root-path of already indexed files after a migration. This should avoid the need of reindexing. Maybe implement a routine that searches for filenames in case of files are restructured(but saves the metadata until the user deletes the metadata). I please you to rethink/rewrite/expand you backup/migration-process. So it becomes easier, complete and hassle/io-stress-free. I please you to overthink your thoughts on the handling of data (metadata,user,movie etc) and mediafiles. A clear separation is needed imho. A separation would also make a full true migration-process easier i guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Please give us the ability to index custom naming-conventions without the need of renaming files and or folders. Kodi is great starting point as it has given me this possibility. I'm pretty sure that i missed a lot of thought's i had but this is already long enough. I hope i described everything clearly, if not don't hesitate to ask me questions. I also hope that other users voice their opinion about this issues. Thank you for emby and for your attention. Cheers kaizo

So, in the next few months, my wife and I have decided to purchase a new PC to base our media server out of, but I do have a few questions about server migration, backup, and a few other things. 1.) Will my Emby Premiere Key work on this new server, on a new machine, or do I have to purchase a new subscription? 2.) What does the backup plugin backup? Metadata? <--Working on doing everything manually through .nfo files and individual image files to make it easier for maintenance. 3.) How complex will this migration be? (i.e. Will I have to re-configure all User-based information such as Collections, log ins, profile pictures? Or will all of this be erased?) 4.) Where should I route this back up to? How much storage would it take up (on average, if anyone knows)? Just curious as to if a simple 16gb USB will be enough (probably.) Anyways, if anyone can answer these questions, this would be awesome! Thanks.

Hi All Installed the portable version of emby server on my existing server - I'm virtualising Emby and moved the install to the new VPC. Read the instructions on how to do this and upon running the initial library scan it fails immediately. The portable install was deployed to the D drive of my old server but has been moved to C on the new box.. however the log file shows that Emby is still looking for a D: drive during some part of the scan. Anyway to fix this? (Log attached) Many thanks for your time Log.txt

Hi guys, I am in the process of migrating an emby server from a cubietruck (armhf) to a TV box running Armbian for AMLOGIC devices (aarch64). I was planning on following the instructions for manual migration in the wiki. However, I was wondering whether given I have the exact same path for my media files as before, can I not just copy the library.db as well? What I am doing is, I am mounting two folders from my NAS (one for movies, the other for TV shows) using NFS to the exact same location they were on before and that is then also my media path. Cheers, chessplayer

Hello All. I currently have a Emby Server on Windows 10. I have it pretty much how I want. I use Storage Spaces with a handful of drives. I want to dual boot my PC with Fedora or Linux Mint and also set up my Server on it as well. This server will have its own drive but it will have the same data as the other. The perfect situation is that no matter which system I boot into, Emby is running fine in the background. I have just downloaded an add-on app to save my server settings. I have a copy of those settings on my new drive. So, I am needing some help on how to migrate these settings from a Windows 10 install to either a fedora/Linux Mint install. Is there a guide, link, or walk through that will show me what to do? The hardest part about setting up a new server is getting everything just right. I would like to make that not as difficult, especially adding the users again. Thanks!

Hello all, I am about to transfer all my media to a dedicated QNAP NAS and run Emby Server on that as well. I currently run my EMBY Server on my windows machine. I am just wondering how I would go about ensuring that all the watched, partially watched episodes etc are copied and displayed correctly in the QNAP NAS? Is it as simple as copying my entire Television folder onto the NAS, and therefore all the watched etc flags are there? Or do I have to do something special? Basically I am wanting to transfer or Migrate all my media and the server functionality to the NAS, but want all history retained. Is that possible? Cheers Mark Sorry guys I just found this, I am guessing it is still relevant? https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Backup

I'm new to Emby and wondering about the best way to migrate an existing video library from Apple's iTunes. I have around a TB of movies and tv series, painstakingly labeled, with cover art. Just to see, I copied a couple of movies from the iTunes library into an Emby movies library folder and let it scan them. It confidently identified them with detailed metadata and cover art, for totally incorrect movies: The Little Mermaid (1989) -> Blonde Ringlet (2010) Wallace and Gromit in A Close Shave -> A Personal Journey with Martin Scorcese Through American Movies Obviously I can go in and re-identify hundreds of files by hand, but there must be a better way, I hope. Is there a way to migrate my iTunes library to Emby?

I'm trying to make the step from Kodi to Emby as my media database. In Kodi I've exported all data to nfo-files and put those together with the video-files on my emby-server. For the most part the import worked great, but emby didn't pick up the watched-state. All my movies and episodes are shown as unwatched. In the nfo-files there is a playcount-value, so I think Kodi did export everything correctly. Is there anything else (some setting etc.) I've to change to get a fresh emby-installation to import the watched-status?

I'm a premium supporter and have the Server Configuration backup. Due to some previous issues with Emby, and also for some other reasons, I decided to stop fighting with all the legacy crap on my media server, and did a fresh reinstall. I reinstalled onto a new drive, so I still have full access to the old system. However, restoring my backup via Server Config backup plugin didn't work. Steps taken: Clean install of Windows 7 Clean install of latest Emby Server (3.1.2.0) Fresh backup made on old Emby (3.0.6050.0) Install the backup plugin on new Emby Browse the backup - all users are seen, migration options are to create same-named users, options for plugin restore etc are all checked Press the restore button, accept the warnings Page refreshes and puts me on the Dashboard Check the Users and Plugins sections, nada I've done this with Chrome but also tried in Firefox (after reading a similar thread). I also followed the migration guide for manual migration, but I was getting Syntax error at or near INSERT from DB Browser for SQLite, so I could get my plugins restored manually, but still no user accounts or media browsing data. The only thing I can think is that there's some issue with paths (the old install is at Mediabrowser-Server unser %appdata%, while the new one is at Emby-Server) but it doesn't seem likely. Or then some weird permissions issue. Or the previously linked thread where user plasmon mentions that: I'll look into this a little further but it's doubtful. I'm out of ideas otherwise. Any help would be much appreciated. Log.txt

Currently running Emby on a HP N36L Microserver with Ubuntu 16.04. Server has a 5 drives, with 1 for boot, and 4 in a sw RAID in which all my media is on. For various reasons, the server is running out of oomph, so its finally time to upgrade. Going to move the lot to a ML10 V2 which on paper at least meets all my requirements. Will likely remain using Ubuntu 16.04, and definitely the same sw RAID drives so my media paths will all remain intact ie: /media/RAIDdrive/TV/ for TV etc. What is the best/recommended way to ensure after i reinstall, i can keep my watched/unwatched and other data intact for the migration? Any suggestions/experience very much appreciated

Hi, I've been a user of MediaPortal for many many years now but looking to upgrade over to emby with Kodi for a few reasons but mainly because I like the idea of the centralised server and multi-platform viewing. I have extensive databases, with some personally enriched content, that I would much prefer to migrate over to emby rather than attempt to re-scrape it all and amend/enhance the content. Also, getting across my watched status would be very advantageous (sorry, I don't have trakt). I have searched the wiki/forums but surprisingly cannot find any information on importing/migrating a media database from other sources. Has anyone had any luck doing this? My DBs; MovingPictures: I use for movies MP-TVSeries : I use for TV shows MyFilms: I use for Doco's, Music Vids, Stand-Up, and other stuff that's uncategorizeable Also, from the research I have done it appears that the best architecture for storing the metadata information is with .nfo but can this along with the artwork be stored in a central location away from the media - I don't like the idea of this info sitting with the movie/series. Cheers, Dewey

Since MB now stores metadata centrally (yay!), I was thinking of ways to migrate away from the local metadata I have stored. I could delete all XML, jpg and png files from the tree, but this would still leave the hidden "metadata" folders in all TV Show seasons. Seems a bit clunky and risky. So I am making a feature request for a mechanism (plug-in or non) that will grab all local metadata and migrate it to the MB structure (that way you don't need to download every single file again) and then clean up the media folders. Alternatively just delete everything in the media folders without migrating the data (new download instead). An option to dump the migrated data somewhere would be nice too. Just in case you need something.