Radarr Keeps Overwriting My Nfo Files

[MSOBadger 12]

I've been having an ongoing issue where some movies will delete all of their tags.  I use Tags to create a bunch of custom collections (like "Academy Award Best Picture", "1980s Essentials", "Authors: Steven King", etc).   I add the tags to metadata, then lock the Tags field.  However I am repeatedly having movies unlocking themselves and losing all of their Tags.  I've also noticed sometimes the Tags have become unlocked but the tags I've set are still there (so this appears to have two stages to it - one that unlocks the lock and then later the tag deletion - the latter of which I'm assuming is happening on the next library scan).  I've also tried locking the full metadata with the checkbox at the very bottom of the movie's metadata screen (in addition to also locking the Tags themselves), but that hasn't solved my issue either.   

The Library is set to use Nfo files for both Metadata Readers and Metadata Savers.

While the issue is widespread (some Tags are losing 25-50% of their tagged titles), but it doesn't appear to be happening to all tagged movies and I've noticed that some movies seem to be impacted over and over.

(Note: I use the *arr suite to manage movies, however I have that set to not import extra files so that it doesn't over-write my artwork of nfo files, so I don't believe that is causing the issue.  And movies that are losing their Tags haven't been upgraded to a new version/file by Radarr, so that's not causing it.)

I'm sure I probably have a settings issue somewhere that's causing this.  Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

Edit: I'm running the official EmbyServer docker container on Unraid, using the most recent version (4.8.1.0, however I've been experiencing this issue for a long time, so I don't think it's version-related).

[Luke 37098]

Hi there, can you please provide a specific example:

How to Report a Problem

Without a specific example, I can give you my best guess as some possible causes:

• You have nfo file reading enabled, but not writing. Therefore your changes don't get saved back to the nfo files, and the next time the files are read your changes are lost. 
• Or some other software is changing the contents of your nfo and removing the data that was added.

And yes, that includes the field locks, because the locked field list gets written to the nfo.

Thanks.

[MSOBadger 12]

Thanks for the reply @Luke.   

Here's a specific example:

• Use either the Emby Metadata Manager or Edit Metadata from the three dot menu on a movie's own page I add one or more Tags to a movie (both methods produce same result).
• As soon as I enter the first Tag, the lock icon for Tags turns green indicating a lock. (Sometimes I also check the movie's global lock checkbox as a double-lock.)
• I save the changes with the Save button.
• I confirm the tags have been added - they appear in the Tags in the movie page's About section and the movie shows up on the relevant Tag's page.  I can go back into the movie's metadata and the tag appears and the lock icon is enabled for the Tags section.
• If I go to the NFO tag file itself in the movie's folder (I have emby set to store NFOs in the movie folder), the tags appear and a lockedfields entry also appears for Tags (so the NFO is writing).
• Some period of time later (sometimes later that same day, sometimes the next day), the tags will have disappeared and the metadata is unlocked.

Since my previous post, something I've noticed is that the Tags and LockedFields information is only being stored in one NFO file.  However some of my movies have multiple versions (e.g. 1080p, 2160p, director's cut, theatrical, etc) and each version has its own NFO file (corresponding the the respective movie file name).  In addition, I also see a general "movie.nfo" file in the movie's directory as well.

Here's an example using Halloween - which I have a 1080p version and a 2160p version:

• Halloween (1978) - Bluray-1080p Remux [h264] [8bit] [AC3] [5.1] [imdbid-tt0077651].mkv
  • has a corresponding "Halloween (1978) - Bluray-1080p Remux [h264] [8bit] [AC3] [5.1] [imdbid-tt0077651].nfo"
• Halloween (1978) - Bluray-2160p [x265] [10bit] [HDR10] [AAC] [7.1] [imdbid-tt0077651].mkv
  • has a corresponding "Halloween (1978) - Bluray-2160p [x265] [10bit] [HDR10] [AAC] [7.1] [imdbid-tt0077651].nfo"

Emby sees both movie versions without issue.  In addition to the above, there is a third NFO file named "movie.nfo" (is this generated by Emby?).   

This morning when I found my tags had disappeared again, I re-entered the tags, locked, and saved them.  I then checked the NFO files and saw that only one of them had an updated timestamp (the file for the 1080p version) and only that NFO file had the tags and lockedfields entries.   I have a lot of movies with multiple versions; I never made the connection that this might be the common thread for movies losing tags, but it might be.

Despite having Radarr set to not touch additional files (posters, nfo, etc), I now think it is still creating/modifying nfo files when it scans my movies, so now I'm not sure which of these NFO files should be there versus which are being erroneously created by Radarr.  I'm going to disable Radarr monitoring completely for some of these movies as a test to see if tags are still getting removed. 

Does Emby expect that each movie have a single NFO file in its directory, one for each movie version, or something else?  Is the generic "movie.nfo" a file that Emby creates or does it look to the one matching the media file name?    If Emby uses NFO files for each movie version, shouldn't all of the NFO files get updated with the Tags and Lock info?

[Luke 37098]

Hi, currently multi-version vides are still each their own distinct items, but they just get grouped together in the user interface. So yes that means each version has their own nfo. This could potentially be reworked in future updates, but that is the current design.

Please let us know how things go after disabling Radarr. Thanks.

[MSOBadger 12]

Thanks for confirming that each video in a multi-version movie should have its own NFO file.  

Tuesday morning I disabled monitoring on Radarr for three specific movies that I know have this issue repeatedly - Godfather I, Godfather II, and Halloween.  All three of these happen to be multi-version in my collection.  As of yesterday morning all three movies had maintained their tags.   Woke up this morning and one of the three (Godfather I) has lost its tags. 

I manually re-applied the tags for Godfather I, re-set Tags to Locked and re-saved.  Again it looks like only one of the three NFO files for that movie is getting updated with that saved Tag info.  (In this case it was the NFO for the 2160p version, but in other instances I've noticed that it's been the 1080p version NFO that is getting updated.)

Shouldn't all of the NFO files in a multi-version movie get updated with any custom metadata (including tags and lock settings)?   If it's not Radarr's monitoring that's triggering NFO over-writes, could it be the discrepancy in data that's contained in the multi-version NFOs?  

[Luke 37098]

Quote

 

Shouldn't all of the NFO files in a multi-version movie get updated with any custom metadata (including tags and lock settings)?

Maybe. I think it depends on what you're using multi-version for. I would say that the answer is in most cases probably, yes, but it's not something we've done up to this point.

[MSOBadger 12]

The other two movies that I had disabled Radarr monitoring on (Godfather II and Halloween) have now also lost their tags.  My next test will be to re-tag them and completely shut down Radarr for a few days and see if the tags get lost again.

[Q-Droid 652]

Have you checked the timestamps on those NFO files to see if they match a scheduled task running from Emby or other applications? The *arrs also have their own scheduled tasks as do many media tools and servers.

Nevermind - I re-read the thread and see that you have made some comparisons already.

 

Edited February 23 by Q-Droid

[jaycedk 384]

In Radarr do you have metadata enabled.

 

[MSOBadger 12]

On 2/23/2024 at 11:26 AM, jaycedk said:

In Radarr do you have metadata enabled.

 

 

THANK YOU!  I'm fairly certain this was the culprit.  I don't know how I missed that.  Somehow the Kodi / Emby box was enabled here.   I disabled it several days ago and have thus far not noticed any overwriting of metadata again since.  

[Luke 37098]

Thanks for following up.