Two Servers one QNAP one Windows, continuous media scanning?

[Ice 17]

I have setup an Emby Server on one of my QNAP NAS, just to see how well it runs, I also have a server setup on a windows 10 machine (running for many years). They both access the same media which is located on the two NAS

They seem to conflict when they scan for media and each in turn rebuilds their database. If I shut  one or the other down after the one left running does it's rebuild it runs without issue. If I then shut it down and start up the other the rebuilding starts again. I have a very large collection of media so a rebuild can take a couple of days.

My question is, is there anyway around this issue?

Long term I want to just run the server from the NAS, so worst case scenario I just decommission the windows server...

[Lessaj 82]

Have you configured RTM on both and are you telling both to put images/NFO files next to the media? If so, the servers are seeing those changes take place and then refreshing, and they keep changing so they're both seeing the changes and fighting to be the last to update.

[Gilgamesh_48 948]

I had a two server setup (accessing the same media) that ran fine for years but Emby made some change and suddenly both servers started scanning continuously. After investigation I discovered that both servers were writing the metadata to be with the media. That is they both were storing metadata to the same place and that was somehow triggering scans. To put it simply server A would scan and write data into the media directory and that would trigger server B to scan which would write data and that would trigger server A to scan and so on for the foreseeable future.

I fixed the problem by picking one server to handle the meta data in media folders and configuring the other to store its metadata on the serve itself. 

That not only fixed the continuous scans problem but it also made the servers more stable. 

I hope this lends a little clue for you.

[rbjtech 4337]

28 minutes ago, Lessaj said:

Have you configured RTM on both and are you telling both to put images/NFO files next to the media? If so, the servers are seeing those changes take place and then refreshing, and they keep changing so they're both seeing the changes and fighting to be the last to update.

Correct and exactly the reason for the cyclic updates.   Solution is to nominate one of the servers as the master - it has RTM on and writes the NFO files.   The slave(s) server must have RTM turned off and also only NFO Read.

[Ice 17]

9 hours ago, Lessaj said:

Have you configured RTM on both and are you telling both to put images/NFO files next to the media? If so, the servers are seeing those changes take place and then refreshing, and they keep changing so they're both seeing the changes and fighting to be the last to update.

RTM is active on both.

NFO files  regarding the media are kept  with the media, all the Metadata is kept separate.

Can you store the media NFO in a separate location, if so where do I find this option?

[Ice 17]

9 hours ago, rbjtech said:

Correct and exactly the reason for the cyclic updates.   Solution is to nominate one of the servers as the master - it has RTM on and writes the NFO files.   The slave(s) server must have RTM turned off and also only NFO Read.

Makes sense, how do I enable NFO read only?

[Lessaj 82]

I believe the only options are in the database, or in NFO next to the media. But you just explained exactly why you're having this problem, they're both performing RTM and keeping the NFOs next to the media, so they're constantly seeing a change happen and fighting to be the last to update it. So if you're going to have both running looking at the same media, one of them needs to be the saver, and the other needs to be the reader. Ultimately you're going to decomm the windows server so you could let be the primary until you're ready to switch and then just turn RTM and NFO saving on after.

You want this enabled:

And this disabled:

[Ice 17]

9 hours ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

I had a two server setup (accessing the same media) that ran fine for years but Emby made some change and suddenly both servers started scanning continuously. After investigation I discovered that both servers were writing the metadata to be with the media. That is they both were storing metadata to the same place and that was somehow triggering scans. To put it simply server A would scan and write data into the media directory and that would trigger server B to scan which would write data and that would trigger server A to scan and so on for the foreseeable future.

I fixed the problem by picking one server to handle the meta data in media folders and configuring the other to store its metadata on the serve itself. 

That not only fixed the continuous scans problem but it also made the servers more stable. 

I hope this lends a little clue for you.

I have the metadata separated, but the NFO data is written to the media directory. I can't to seem to find an option to store the NFO data separate from the media  

[Ice 17]

4 minutes ago, Lessaj said:

I believe the only options are in the database, or in NFO next to the media. But you just explained exactly why you're having this problem, they're both performing RTM and keeping the NFOs next to the media, so they're constantly seeing a change happen and fighting to be the last to update it. So if you're going to have both running looking at the same media, one of them needs to be the saver, and the other needs to be the reader. Ultimately you're going to decomm the windows server so you could let be the primary until you're ready to switch and then just turn RTM and NFO saving on after.

You want this enabled:

And this disabled:

Cool thanks for that, didn't even notice those two options, I will give it a try and see how it goes...:)

[Gilgamesh_48 948]

14 minutes ago, Ice said:

I have the metadata separated, but the NFO data is written to the media directory. I can't to seem to find an option to store the NFO data separate from the media  

Which is also another reason to turn off "Real Time Monitoring" on one server. (The slave one is where RTM does more damage than good.)

I think once an nfo gets written it is very unusual for it to get rewritten by Emby. But I have not reached the level of "Master" so many of the mysteries of the innerworkings of Emby are well outside my knowledge.

I can see problems arising from having both servers wanting to use "Live TV" but I do not actually use "Live TV" so I have never tested that. 

[Ice 17]

17 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

Which is also another reason to turn off "Real Time Monitoring" on one server. (The slave one is where RTM does more damage than good.)

I think once an nfo gets written it is very unusual for it to get rewritten by Emby. But I have not reached the level of "Master" so many of the mysteries of the innerworkings of Emby are well outside my knowledge.

I can see problems arising from having both servers wanting to use "Live TV" but I do not actually use "Live TV" so I have never tested that. 

I will have to forgo Live TV I suppose when the server is solely running off the NAS, I don't use it very often anyway. I can still record Live TV via it's own software then just copy it to the NAS for Emby viewing I suppose.

[Ice 17]

On 11/05/2024 at 10:49, Ice said:

Cool thanks for that, didn't even notice those two options, I will give it a try and see how it goes...:)

Seems to be working as it should now after following your suggestions.

Thanks everyone for your assistance..:)

Edited May 12 by Ice