Migrate media to external drive - keep history and favs

[45876 0]

Greetings!

I am sorry if this question has been asked many times before, but existing posts and research haven’t been enough to solve my issue.

Existing setup: Mac mini with media stored on main system SSD.  Meta data is also stored under the default path (Users/<userID>/emby-server)

I need to move the media to an external USB drive, while maintaining metadata, watch history, favorites, etc.  

How do I complete this migration without losing the data listed above?

I began by copying all media to the new drive, editing the library to the new path (while removing the old), and scanning library.  Media imports, but doesn’t get remapped to the history, etc.

If I open the backed up library.db file, I see all media items reference the old path.

How do I do this? Should I just make a symbolic link to the old media path? This seems less than ideal, but I think would work.

I don’t have it in me to update a thousand media items manually in the database.

Thanks!

 

server version 4.7.13.0

mac OS 12.1

Edited July 11, 2023 by 45876

[Luke 37092]

HI, please take a look at our backup guide and let us know if it helps:

Configuration Backup

[45876 0]

I did review that.  I am not moving to a new server, so there wasn't a reason to copy over the old config and database files.  In addition, the note at the bottom of the link you sent "If your library was configured with identical paths as the old setup then user data will generally be preserved" is not applicable, since the media has to be at a different path to be on a different drive.  Any additional thoughts?

[Luke 37092]

Quote

 I am not moving to a new server

It's a generalization. New server could mean new machine, or it could mean a new installation on the same machine. @Carlo

[45876 0]

Do you have other thoughts on how I can solve this issue?

[Luke 37092]

Do you have nfo files with your videos?

[45876 0]

Yeah, the nfo files are in the same folders as the media. 

[Luke 37092]

4 hours ago, 45876 said:

Yeah, the nfo files are in the same folders as the media. 

So that's a good start to ensure everything is identified the same way after the move as it is now.

User data such as watch states and favorites are stored based on external ids (movie db, tvdb, etc). It's hard to guarantee that everything will be identical afterwards, but given the presence of nfo files I think you should be fine.

[45876 0]

I initially removed the old media path and added the new one (including the nfo files- literally a full copy of the media folders) to the existing library, rescanned, and none of that information was there. It was as if it was a fresh install. What am I missing here? There has to be a logical way to do this. 

[Ranger18 0]

Hello.  I am new to Emby.   I have an old 2010 Mac mini running on 10.13.6.  High seira.   Can I get old versions of emby and run it on their 

 

[Luke 37092]

On 7/13/2023 at 5:42 AM, 45876 said:

I initially removed the old media path and added the new one (including the nfo files- literally a full copy of the media folders) to the existing library, rescanned, and none of that information was there. It was as if it was a fresh install. What am I missing here? There has to be a logical way to do this. 

Hi, what information exactly was not there? Can you please provide an example? Thanks.

[45876 0]

The library looks like a fresh install of the server after pointing to the new drive and removing the path to the old. No history and favorites are the main thing I care about. 

[Luke 37092]

On 7/16/2023 at 9:25 PM, 45876 said:

The library looks like a fresh install of the server after pointing to the new drive and removing the path to the old. No history and favorites are the main thing I care about. 

Can you please provide a specific example? Thanks.

[Carlo 4330]

On 7/16/2023 at 9:25 PM, 45876 said:

The library looks like a fresh install of the server after pointing to the new drive and removing the path to the old. No history and favorites are the main thing I care about. 

It should work as Luke said the watched status uses an external ID, so as long as it was rematched again to the same provider setup it should be fine.

If it's not working run a full library scan again and post your server log for us to take a look at.

Carlo

[45876 0]

As a test, I did a new build on a different machine. Restored all backup files per your guide, but again the media was at a different path. I added the new path to the library that was restored via the backup config. Once the library scan was complete I removed the old media path. I scanned again, rebooted, etc and nothing. The history and favorites are somehow tied to the full media file path. 
 

Honestly, I find this all sort of ridiculous. 
 

I “solved” the issue by creating a symbolic link. It’s dirty, but tricks Emby into thinking the media is at its old path. 

[Luke 37092]

Apologies for the disruption. We are thinking about ways to improve on this.