3.0.5445.6 Empty Folders bug windows only; linux share works correctly

[trmb 2]

I have been experiencing the empty folder bugs described in other threads, starting roughly one week ago.  Mine occurs with my mp4's (primarily sports TV shows) which are converted using MCE Buddy from Windows 7 MCE.  The folders are misreported as empty when using MB3 from the browser, my Windows 7 MCE HTPC interface or my Roku.

 

In my setup, I do the conversion on a separate Windows 7 computer, not the living room HTPC, and they remain post-conversion on that machine's windows share.  I also have a linux share (a WD MyCloud) I usually reserve for my movies (mapped to a drive of the HTPC/MB3 machine), but it has proved useful for testing.

 

Interestingly, the problem seems to be restricted to Windows shares only.  If I copy or move a "empty" folder and its content files to my WD MyCloud, MB3's TV Shows folder finds the folder and its content files and displays the "same" folder's contents correctly. 

 

Curiously however if I move the "empty" folder and its contents to the HTPC from the networked windows share, MB3 still does NOT find the folder or display the contents. The folder will only display the contents correctly when on the linux share.

 

Another wrinkle is that some old TV show recordings that were converted to MP4s long ago show up just fine in MB3, even though they are on the windows share in folders alongside the new sports recordings that fail to show up.  I have not been recoding anything other than sports lately, so I can't say if this is a problem with TV recordings for which it cannot find show metadata.  However the fact that it recognizes the folder and content files immediately when put onto a linux-based share suggests it isn't metadata parsing in general, but a bug with the windows share.

 

I hope this information can help the devs solve this problem.  I suppose it could be a Windows update caused issue or a MB3 bug.  I have not yet tried moving to an older version of the MB3 server, but I may try that later as this is pretty annoying.

 

[trmb 2]

I had a chance to do some follow up testing.  Up until 3.0.5445.6 my new sports recordings had been displaying fine from a windows share folder (MB3 media folder type set to TV Shows) where the newly converted mp4s lived inside a problem folder.  After upgrading, the problem folder appeared to be empty--even old recordings were no longer appearing.  The MB3 folder was assigned as follows:

 

\\machine-name\Videos\Problem Folder\sportsRecording1.mp4

 

Yesterday when I had moved the problem folder onto my linux share, I moved it into a MB3 Home Videos media folder type. That was what worked (from MB3's folder view). In retrospect this now may be because of the shift in MB3 media folder type.

 

I just retested copying the problem folder again on the linux share that I created as a MB3 TV Shows media type folder, and now I see the empty folder problem again--even from the linux share.  So it appears to have do with the TV Shows media folder type.

 

However, putting the problem folder into a newly created Mixed Movies and TV Shows type folder on my linux share worked.  But when I moved that same folder into an old pre-existing Mixed Movies and TV Shows folder type, it again failed to show the contents of the problem folder.  Both structures were roughly the same, though there is more content in the pre-existing old folder.

 

Newly created media folder structure that worked:

 

t:/test --> mixed movies and tv shows

t:/test/College Football/

t:/test/College Football/converted game from MCE.mp4

...and more games

t:/test/NFL Football/

t:/test/NFL Football/converted game from MCE.mp4

... and more games

 

Pre-existing media folder structure that failed:

 

t:/Shared Videos  --> mixed movies and tv shows folder

t:/Shared Videos/Some movie (2014)

t:/Shared Videos/Some movie (2014)/Some movie.mp4

... and more folders with movies like this ...

t:/Shared Videos/Some TV Show/

t:/Shared Videos/Some TV Show/S01/

t:/Shared Videos/Some TV Show/S01/Some TV Show S01 E01.mp4

... and more folders like this ...

 

into which I copied this folder (and though I can see the folder, it fails to display its content files):

 

t:/Shared Videos/College Football/

t:/Shared Videos/College Football/converted game from MCE.mp4

... and more games

 

I also tested creating a new MB3 Mixed Movies and TV Shows folder media type pointed at my windows 7 video share where the newly created mp4 recording files live.  That worked as well.  Of course, now I have my movies library showing sports recordings. But all of my movies are gone from the movies library--though I can see the movie folders from the movies view.  I tried refreshing that folder in Metadata Manager, but that did not help.

 

The next step will be to try deleting all the media folders and recreating them.  After that I may try find the xml files and/or database that MB3 uses for metadata and blow them away and recreate.

[trmb 2]

I deleted all media folders (except music) and recreated them.  This fixed the empty folder problem and related issues as well as it can be under the current release, with the following caveat.

 

TV Show type media folders still fail to display any of the converted to mp4 recordings within a subfolder, but assigning it to a new Mixed Movies & TV folders work, with the only problem being that sports recordings now show as movies in the Movie library.

 

This has now held true for both my Windows 7 and Linux shares.  Probably a metadata and/or file parser problem.

[Luke 37024]

On windows if you could test out the dev build and help validate the fix, that would be helpful. see the alpha area at the bottom. thanks.