Delete as you watch shows excluded from Continue Watching

[roaku 795]

I've been having an issue with shows I'm watching failing to persist in Continue Watching for a while, but could never figure out what might be causing it.

These shows would appear in CW while a particular episode was being watched/resumable, but the next episode would never stay in the list like other shows.

I finally noticed that the thing these shows have in common is that they're my 'DVR' shows, that is, shows I'm recording and deleting episodes as I watch.

I've found that if I keep at least one watched episode around for a given 'DVR' show, then the next unwatched episode will persist in CW as expected.

I've been on the 4.8 beta for a very long time, so I'm not sure how long this behavior has been going on.

I consider this a defect, that Emby should be able to distinguish between shows that have no watched episodes because I've deleted the watched episodes and shows that have no watched episodes because I haven't watched any episodes yet...but maybe it will turn out to be a feature request.

Either way, I'd like the shows that I've started watching to be in continue watching, regardless of whether I've deleted the watched episodes preceding the next unwatched episode.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

That is the correct Emby behavior. If you delete a show after watching it the Emby has no idea that a show from that series has been watched.

If I am watching a series that I intend to delete I watch all episodes without deleting and then, after the last one is watched, I delete the entire series. 
However I think you might accomplish what you want by always leaving one watched episode in your library.

There are a number of places where Emby does not behave exactly as I want but, so far, I have always found a work around that was "good enough."

While what you want could be done in Emby I can see a LOT of complications in the implementation process. 

[roaku 795]

12 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

That is the correct Emby behavior. If you delete a show after watching it the Emby has no idea that a show from that series has been watched.

If I am watching a series that I intend to delete I watch all episodes without deleting and then, after the last one is watched, I delete the entire series. 
However I think you might accomplish what you want by always leaving one watched episode in your library.

There are a number of places where Emby does not behave exactly as I want but, so far, I have always found a work around that was "good enough."

While what you want could be done in Emby I can see a LOT of complications in the implementation process. 

That's certainly what is happening. I disagree that it's correct or expected behavior, especially knowing that Emby's database has all the relevant data to distinguish between the two.

Edited November 17, 2023 by roaku

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

7 minutes ago, roaku said:

That's certainly what is happening. I disagree that it's correct or expected behavior, especially knowing that Emby's database has all the relevant data to distinguish between the two.

But Emby has decided it is correct. There have been huge debates on these boards and Emby has clearly indicated that the behavior you see is the one they want.
We all have to remember that we are just the users of the software while Emby is the owner of the software. They can do as they please and the only options we have are to inform Emby we want it done differently and then either use it as it is or stop using it altogether.

Personally I like the way it behaves now except, I use Next Up Legacy, I would like a partially played item from Next Up to NOT jump to the first position until it is fully played and then the next episode should move to the first position. That is how it used to work but Emby changed it back and it is simply not worth the effort to fight with Emby over a little issue like that again.

[roaku 795]

Thanks for covering everything you have to say on the matter.

I look forward to what the devs have to say about the topic.

[TMCsw 122]

Alternative?

I don’t delete show as I watch them I let emby clean-up behind me by adjusting:

I generally use 3 for weekly shows, 5 for daily and 1 for News. That gives me (and others) plenty of time to watch/catch up if needed.

[roaku 795]

2 minutes ago, TMCsw said:

Alternative?

I don’t delete show as I watch them I let emby clean-up behind me by adjusting:

I generally use 3 for weekly shows, 5 for daily and 1 for News. That gives me (and others) plenty of time to watch/catch up if needed.

Thanks, but I would definitely end up with Emby langoliering episodes before I got around to watching them.

[Q-Droid 644]

13 hours ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

That is the correct Emby behavior. If you delete a show after watching it the Emby has no idea that a show from that series has been watched.

If I am watching a series that I intend to delete I watch all episodes without deleting and then, after the last one is watched, I delete the entire series. 
However I think you might accomplish what you want by always leaving one watched episode in your library.

There are a number of places where Emby does not behave exactly as I want but, so far, I have always found a work around that was "good enough."

While what you want could be done in Emby I can see a LOT of complications in the implementation process. 

While it's been this way for a long time it's not quite true that Emby doesn't know whether a deleted episode has been watched. If you restore the episode it comes back with the same watch status. Maybe the devs decided to not track things in a way that could be used to preserve series continuity.

As it is, I do the same thing as you and keep the season until all episodes are watched and if there is a following season I keep the previous one until I watch at least the first episode of the next.

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by Q-Droid

[ebr 14913]

This is operating as designed right now.  Changing it has been discussed but there are complexity and performance implications involved in that and most of our users don't delete most of their content as they watch it so we haven't taken any action on it at this point.

 

[roaku 795]

7 minutes ago, ebr said:

This is operating as designed right now.  Changing it has been discussed but there are complexity and performance implications involved in that and most of our users don't delete most of their content as they watch it so we haven't taken any action on it at this point.

 

Is there an explicit feature request to remove this CW limitation? I searched but couldn't find one to add my support to.

If not, please move this post to Feature Requests.

[ebr 14913]

I searched as well but couldn't find it.  I know its been discussed before - a number of times - over the years as this is original design.

[roaku 795]

20 minutes ago, ebr said:

I searched as well but couldn't find it.  I know its been discussed before - a number of times - over the years as this is original design.

I found another thread about it (thanks Q-Droid), but also not in Feature Requests:
 

 

Edit:

I've also finally tracked down the MEGA THREAD from when the CW/Next Up were combined. I'm interested to see if it was brought up in there.
 

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by roaku

[Luke 37068]

Hi, yes there's room for improvement here. Thanks.