Movie extras for one movie are not being found

[billyjr82 1]

I've done this dozens of times where I have a movie that has both a theatrical version and a special edition and then there are special features for the movie.  I have the folders set up as such:

\Movies\Alien 4 - Resurrection\Alien Resurrection - Theatrical Release.mkv

\Movies\Alien 4 - Resurrection\Alien Resurrection - Special Edition.mkv

\Movies\Alien 4 - Resurrection\Extras\ [Extras go here]

 

When I first put those two movie versions together, Emby sees both files, but it can only identify the special edition version and it has no idea what the theatrical release is and it thinks they are two separate movies.  No problem, I've done this before.  One other annoyance is when I group them together, it never keeps any of the meta data from the movie.  It always has no idea what it is until I re-identify it after combining them.  Again, minor annoyance, but I can deal with that.  But still, once they are combined into a single entity and correctly identified, it never sees any of the special features.  I've tried all sorts of combinations of maybe only adding one version of the movie at a time, add in the extras folder before or after adding the second version, rescanning the movies folder in between each step, etc.  I can't seem to get the special features to show up when the versions are combined and identified.  I've done this dozens of times with other movies, so I don't know what I'm missing here.  I was on 4.8.3.0 and I updated to 4.8.6.0, but the issue is still there.

 

[Happy2Play 8356]

16 minutes ago, billyjr82 said:

\Movies\Alien 4 - Resurrection\Alien Resurrection - Theatrical Release.mkv

\Movies\Alien 4 - Resurrection\Alien Resurrection - Special Edition.mkv

\Movies\Alien 4 - Resurrection\Extras\ [Extras go here]

Naming scheme as Emby does not know what version to apply them to correctly and you are presenting Emby with two independent items.

If you want Emby to automatically merge them you need to follow the only rule.  As you have a folder/filename mismatch.

Quote

Each version must begin with the folder name, followed by " - ".

Movie Naming | Emby Documentation

Pretty sure there are other topics on this also.

You also have the auto grouping plugin but believe you will have the same issue with extras in a multiversion environment.

[billyjr82 1]

Yeah that fixed it.  I don't mind fixing the auto stuff to be the way I want it to be, but I don't understand why the extras folder just didn't show up at all.  This may be a minor problem in the future since I prefer to have the folder name have things like "the" at the end so that my folder structure makes sense for sorting, but I like having the video file itself be the actual title.  Something like:

\Three Amigos, The\The Three Amigos.mkv

That would be a problem if there were multiple versions of that movie.  Again, I don't mind fixing the auto-identify and auto-grouping part of it manually, but I don't understand why the extras just won't show up at all when this happens.

[Happy2Play 8356]

1 minute ago, billyjr82 said:

I don't understand why the extras folder just didn't show up at all.

Confusing Emby as you have a folder mismatched to multiple items so who does the extras belong to?  Dev would have to give a technical answer.

And yes you will run into the same issue with that naming above at least when it comes to Multi-versioning but not from a single item standpoint.

[billyjr82 1]

That still seems odd to me, and maybe Luke will have to chime in as to the why, but that seems odd to me that even if it is confused as to which item the extras belong to, they don't show up under either version when they are separate.  I would imagine that if it doesn't know which one they should be attached to, it should either pick one, or show up on both.  And even then, when they are combined, there should be no question where the extras go.

[Happy2Play 8356]

3 minutes ago, billyjr82 said:

That still seems odd to me, and maybe Luke will have to chime in as to the why, but that seems odd to me that even if it is confused as to which item the extras belong to, they don't show up under either version when they are separate

As neither item is "Alien 4 - Resurrection" so I would see a linking issue primarily from a multi-version standpoint though as single items are not as restrictive..

[billyjr82 1]

I think I understand the mechanics as to what is going on.  What I'm saying is I don't understand 'why' the behavior was programmed that way.  If Emby is confused about where to put the extras, in what context would the user actively want the extras to just never show up?  I'd rather it guess and pick one and be wrong, or just assume that it is attached to both.  But again, if the two versions are grouped together, when would you actively want Emby to just not show the Extras at all?

[Happy2Play 8356]

All comes back to context Emby understand as the variable are endless of how users organize things so rules have to be established for everything to work correctly.

Multi-versioning will have to follow specific variables.  As I don't believe the plug will work with original structure/naming.

But in the end only the Devs can give a technical answer as it will come back to what is already documented.

folder is know but item linking is not.

2024-05-06 16:18:57.418 Debug LibraryMonitor: New file refresher created for E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection
2024-05-06 16:18:57.419 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection\Alien Resurrection - Special Edition.strm
2024-05-06 16:18:57.419 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection\Alien Resurrection - Special Edition.strm
2024-05-06 16:18:57.420 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection\Alien Resurrection - Special Edition.strm
2024-05-06 16:18:57.420 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection
2024-05-06 16:18:57.422 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection\Alien Resurrection - Theatrical Release.strm
2024-05-06 16:18:57.422 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection\Alien Resurrection - Theatrical Release.strm
2024-05-06 16:18:57.422 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection\Alien Resurrection - Theatrical Release.strm
2024-05-06 16:18:57.422 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection
2024-05-06 16:18:57.423 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection\extras
2024-05-06 16:18:57.424 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection\extras\Deleted Scenes.strm
2024-05-06 16:18:57.424 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection\extras\Deleted Scenes.strm
2024-05-06 16:18:57.424 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection\extras\Deleted Scenes.strm
2024-05-06 16:18:57.425 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection\extras
2024-05-06 16:18:57.454 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection\extras
2024-05-06 16:18:57.455 Debug LibraryMonitor: Change detected to E:\Media\Movies - DB\Alien 4 - Resurrection

 

Edited May 6 by Happy2Play

[Happy2Play 8356]

Now as for identification since folder and file do not match here the actual queries area the issue with Special edition returning result from api while Theatrical does not.

&query=Alien Resurrection - Special Edition&language=en-US

query=Alien Resurrection - Theatrical Release&language=en-US

[billyjr82 1]

1 hour ago, Happy2Play said:

as the variable are endless of how users organize things so rules have to be established for everything to work correctly.

I guess that's the part I don't quite understand.  I don't see why that matters.  You should be able to have a thousand subfolders and Emby shouldn't care.

Is there a video file at this level?  No?  Then keep going down.  Oh, there is a video file here.  This must be a movie.  And I see there are two files at this level that have basically the same name but there are multiple versions of it.  And look, there is also an Extras folder at this level.  These two video files are probably the same item and these extras belong to that.

So you could have:

\movies\1997\A-M\A\Alien 4\Alien Resurrection - Theatrical Release.mkv

\movies\1997\A-M\A\Alien 4\Alien Resurrection - Special Edition.mkv

\movies\1997\A-M\A\Alien 4\Extras

\movies\1997\A-M\A\Alien 4\Extras\Deleted Scenes.mkv

And Emby should be able to parse that.  I'm being a bit hyperbolic there with the sorting, but my point still stands.  Now if there is a video file in any of those upper sub-folders, then sure, they're doing something stupid.  But Emby shouldn't care how many subfolders there are or what they're labeled.  If they're in the movies folder and Emby knows these are movies, then as soon as it finds a video file where there is an Extras subfolder, it should show that.  If Emby is using the video file name to identify what it is, then why does it matter what the last subfolder name is at all?  Regardless of whether something is sorted 'correctly' or not, if Emby can find a new item, whether it knows what it is or not, it should then also see that there is an 'extras' subfolder and show those files.

I'll admit at the end of the day though, now that I know how Emby expects it, this is a very minor gripe.  And if the answer ends up being "not worth the time to fix" then that's fine.  I'm just trying to understand the reasoning behind it.

[Luke 37251]

Quote

I guess that's the part I don't quite understand.  I don't see why that matters.  You should be able to have a thousand subfolders and Emby shouldn't care.

The reason naming conventions matter is so that the server can tell what's what. There are a number of other supported features beyond just extras and multi-version, and sometimes these features are similar but only slightly different. What's what naming conventions help with.