Issue with the "Latest Movies" view

[gnollo 16]

I have over three-thousand movies on my unraid server, which I access using the Mediabrowser server-client structure.

A few weeks ago, old movies started appearing at the top of the "latest" view. About 70 or so, upon analysis.

I looked at the folder date, and the date of the files in the server, and that hadn't changed, so I was unsure to why this was happening.

Upon closer examination (I starter removing those files from the server as it makes MB useless otherwise to me).

I discovered a pattern amongst the folders that were being "re-dated" by the mediabrowser server (although it was not actually changing the movie date or the folder date on the server):

1) dvds ripped which had the vob files in the root directory instead of VIDEO_TS folder

2) divx movie folder with one video file and a rar file containing the subtitles in the root directory

3) divx movie folder with multiple video files (part 1, part 2 etc)

4) offline bluray folders, which I created to add to the collection, by placing in the root folder a shortcut to a .iso I created 

 

Now I think I can fixe problem 1 and 2.

Problem 3 I tried fixing by merging the mkv files, and they are coming out garbage using mkvmerge. Any suggestions on other tools I should use to merge them or on a version of the mb server that I should use to overcome the issue of multiple files?

Problem 4, I have no idea how to fix. It is important to me as I have hundreds of blurays and I do not want to rip them to the server (too much space taken up right now) but I still want to know I have them, when I browse for movies, actors, genre etc.

 

I am on version 3.0.5464.40000 right now.

 

Thank you for your help in advance

[ebr 14930]

Check the metadata advanced tab and be sure your Date Added handling is set to the File creation date.

[gnollo 16]

Check the metadata advanced tab and be sure your Date Added handling is set to the File creation date.

 

It was set to "use date scanned into the library". I changed it to reflect your suggestion. Interestingly those movies were scanned in across 2010 to 2013, so why should that have made a difference in the last four weeks?

To test if this work, I will rescan the folder where all my offline bluray folders sit, and see if they come up at the top of "date added" view...

Whilst I have removed all the movies that were on the server, I simply removed the separate directory for the offline disks from the scanned directory list.

 

Will let you know how it works.

[gnollo 16]

Scanned the offline folders, library does not show in the latest movies view, which is good.

I tested it by searching for one of the folders I created to represent the bluray, and it comes up as a movie, because of the ISO.

So now I am left with the movies in multiple parts. How do I fix that problem WITHOUT having to join all of them?

Thanks for your help in advance.

[gnollo 16]

So today the offline folders have made their way back to the top of the list. Even though they were created a long time ago. My suspicion is that this happens because they don't contain an iso, but a shortcut to such iso.

So I changed the server date and time to a past date, removed the iso shortcuts and replaced them with a true .iso (which I created and simply asks to find the bluray disk and insert it to begin the playback). Re-scanned, and for now the folder have disappeared from the top of the latest view. They are still there, as I can search for them, and I now also the metadata is searchable.

 

The problem remains the movies split across multiple files. Whilst I removed the ones that showed at the top of the latest view, I noticed that I have plenty more that still show on the list, although they are near the bottom of the "latest" view.

I was pleased to see that all of the skins I tested with mediabrowser 3 (through MCE), show the multiple files, although not in the right order, so I can play both.

What I discovered is that the metadata is not displaying, although it is saved locally. This means that if you look by genre, or director, or actor, the movie will not appear, although it is there.

I did a test and removed a file from the folder for "shallow hal", bringing it down to 1, rescanned, and voila, now it is searcheable.

Interestingly, removing the file changed the FOLDER date to today, and yet shallow hal does not appear atop the latest list.

It does also not appear at the bottom, as it was before, so where is it? (I am not about to scroll through 3500 movies, but I am curious to understand what determins exactly which position it has, is it the date of the video file, or of the metadata?

 

Is it my understanding correct that if you want to see the metadata, you gotta join the files?

Is there another way to achieve full functionality?

[gnollo 16]

Bump...

[gnollo 16]

Well, I have tried to find my own answers, as no-one seems to have a clue here. I am posting my findings as I hope it will be helpful for other people that are having issues with metadata.

One small detail from my setup: I use Mediacenter Master (MCM) to save all the movie info locally, so Mediabrowser (MB) scans the movie.xml files MCM saves in each folder.

Findings:

 

1) Movies with multiple files can be successfully played back with the mediabrowser interface. I am seeing two different behaviours from the interface:

a) MB shows only the first file (but when playback of the first completes, it moves directly to the second file). All the necessary metadata is processed and saved by the interface.

MB shows you two files (or more) and you can play them, although they are not displayed in the right order. No metadata is recorded or displayed, although it is all there in the movie.xml file. Removing the multiple files and replacing them with a single file, and rescanning the library will fix the metadata issue. Removing all the files apart from the video ones, and using MCM to recreate the files also seems to fix the issue when it is an avi file (I am trying to replicate this as we speak). This fix does not work for mkv files, I have one double mkv file that I cannot merge, so it will show nothing in terms of metadata until I find a workaround.

 

2) Date added. This data does not come from the date you added the file to the library, but it comes from the movie.xml file. This is why I was having problems re-adding files to the library, and those files going to the top of the library, although I set the server date to 2013. All the file dates were old, but as I refreshed the metadata using MCM, it had a new "date added" in the movie.xml file.

Changing the date in the file and rescanning didn't work. I had to use the metadata manager interface and change all the date added, that fixed the issue and pushed the old movies back down the view list.

[gnollo 16]

Actually, I have a different folder with two avi files and no matter what I do, I am unable to get the metadata to display.

And another grudge, having to scan all the folders each time I make a change (over 4000 folders across movies and tv series) takes almost half an hour each time.

If I only could just scan a single folder to update the library....

[Happy2Play 8296]

If I only could just scan a single folder to update the library....

You can, open that folder in Metadata Manager - Advance Refresh  (none) (none).

Edited January 4, 2015 by Happy2Play

[gnollo 16]

Thanks Happy2Play, that helps a lot. I am still having problems with multiple video files in a folder (mkvs and avis) and metadata not showing at all.

When I search for the movie affected, it says it is a FOLDER instead of a Movie in the search result window (using the browser).

Any way that I can identify easily all the movies that are also identified as FOLDER, so I don't have to actually scan through over 3000 titles?

And does anyone have any idea of how to solve this problem, other than merging the files, or why some multifile movies are ok and others are not?

[gnollo 16]

 So I tried your suggestion and I played around with the folder. I removed one of the files, removed every other file in the directory, rescanned it with MCM to store the new metatada, and used the refresh option in metadata manager. No can do sir, it still didn't pull in any metadata from the folder.

A full scan did though... I have now full metadata showing in Metadata Manager.

I now added the other file back in the folder, and tried refreshing, I can still only play one file.

Now I am rescanning the full library, and see if that fixes it.

[gnollo 16]

_{Rescanning the library made the metadata disappear. Back to square one.}

[gnollo 16]

well, I am not giving up. Next I am going to try and concatenate somehow the titles, like if they were a tv series (episode 1 and 2).

That would allow me to see the movie info perhaps.

[gnollo 16]

Well, I knew that there would be an answer. I was able to fix the metadata issue by renaming the movies to match the folder name EXACTLY and then added the "- cd1" and "- cd2" at the end of the file name.

It fixed it, but it required a complete rescan of the library to be registered. Interestingly some movies work fine with filenames that don't match the folder exactly, other don't.

 

THREAD CLOSED