jwill 28 Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 (edited) I have a gigantic primarily movie folder set to Mixed and it was working great. The reason it was set to mixed is because there are some TV miniseries mixed in with the movies. But now MediaBrowser has inexplicably dropped the Mixed setting and now my whole setup that was working great is broken. Why make such a drastic change? Removing functionality is just such a bad idea. So much better to just keep the old Mixed setting, and add a new "Unset" option for people who were having trouble with the Mixed setting. That way, people who Mixed worked for (like me) are happy, and people who it did not work for have an Unset option to try. EDITED TO ADD: Ughh, and it is still not possible to change the folder type. At least to what I choose. Evidently it is possible for MB to change it to something else that I do not want. Edited January 6, 2015 by jwill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beardyname 195 Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 you can still use the unset (mixed) option, only thing you have to do is for the top folders in that library set them as movies/tv respectably in the meta-data manager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schroinx 10 Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 So if you needed a mixed lib with say documentaries (series and movies) you would have to divide them into two separate folders, one for each, and then set the top folder to TV and Movies respectively? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vidman 589 Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 (edited) So if you needed a mixed lib with say documentaries (series and movies) you would have to divide them into two separate folders, one for each, and then set the top folder to TV and Movies respectively?I think you would define the documentaries folder as unset and each folder under that as either TV or movie depending on its content Edited January 6, 2015 by Vidman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37116 Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 they are the same thing. you can keep your mixed library, you just need identify the content types of the subfolders using the metadata manager. we had to remove the automagick detection because new features have made it difficult to differentiate certain structures without running into false positives. but you do not have to re-organize your folder structure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beardyname 195 Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 I think you would define the documentaries folder as unset and each folder under that as either TV or movie depending on its content Precisely! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwill 28 Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 (edited) they are the same thing. you can keep your mixed library, you just need identify the content types of the subfolders using the metadata manager. we had to remove the automagick detection because new features have made it difficult to differentiate certain structures without running into false positives. but you do not have to re-organize your folder structure. That is incorrect. I do have to reorganize my folder structure because of this ridiculous change. I have nearly 2000 subdirectories in this library that used to be "Mixed". I am hardly going to go to each one with metadata manager and set the type. It is also incorrect that you "had to remove the automagick detection". It was working fine for me, and I suspect many others. If the program could do it before, it could continue to do it if you just grandfathered the old logic in. It seems that sometimes the developers of MB just go crazy and do things like removing functionality that was working fine for a lot of people. I keep hoping that MediaBrowser will finally settle down a bit, and then something crazy like this happens. Edited January 6, 2015 by jwill 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14930 Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 It may have been working for you, but it wasn't working for everyone and it wasn't working well in some very basic cases. Plus it was just too easily broken. However, I understand your frustration and that is what beta cycles are for - so we can guage the impact of some of these changes on a wider audience than the people running the developer version and then refine the process to work better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techywarrior 688 Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Ebr, I think we can understand that there were major issues with "mixed" in how it auto detected some content and perhaps it was too ambitious an idea to have ever been included in MB3 but since it's already there and people are using it couldn't there be a compromise? What I am suggesting is that when the new server version comes out it sets all mixed libraries to the new unset status. This will allow all future mixed content libraries work the way Luke wants and reduce some new user headaches. For those people who don't have a problem with the new method they can also leave it alone. For people who like the old way, and understand the implications and negative effect it can have on auto detecting their future content, then can change the library to some new option "broken mixed", or whatever name you want to give it, and they can happily go on using the library the way they used to. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14930 Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 As I said, we're going to refine the process to hopefully work better . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14930 Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 If some of you guys can try out the dev build that just went up that would be a great help. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwill 28 Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 (edited) If some of you guys can try out the dev build that just went up that would be a great help. Thanks. I just changed from beta to dev and forced an update. What specific thing do you want me to try? By the way, I still do not understand the reasoning for completely removing "Mixed". Like the subject says, the better approach would seem to be to keep the Mixed, and add a new "Unset" option. That way people who are doing fine with Mixed are not suddenly confronted by a broken system, and if anyone is having problems with mixed they could always use Unset instead (and, of course, you could print a warning for new libraries if the user chooses Mixed, something like, "Mixed could cause detection problems, we recommend "Unset" unless you are sure you know what you are doing"). If there is some good reason that I am missing for forcing this pain on people by removing Mixed completely, it would have at least been nice to keep it around a while with a warning that it was going to disappear in a few months. At least then people could have prepared for the change. Edited January 6, 2015 by jwill 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djlf 40 Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it!!! I have used mediaportal, plex and others but ended up using mediabrowser because of its ease of customisation. This update is a step backwards for me, and makes it feel more like plex. So pissed that I have to spend hours trying to figure out all this. No warning, no time given. Still very confusing!!! Please, please restore the old mixed function. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nydude25 11 Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 I just changed from beta to dev and forced an update. What specific thing do you want me to try? I think you took the opposite route of the change you should have made. Shut off the automatic updates. If you have your system set up just the way you like, then just use it. If the developers want to keep changing things they feel need changing, let them go crazy, but unless you need the features or bug fixes they are adding, there is no need for a an application like MB to be set to automatically update constantly. Especially for someone like yourself who reads and comments on these message boards and would be aware of any major usability or security issues that might come up and require an update. You could then do it manually. Restore your system from a backup and shut off the updates. Otherwise, you're system is just a beta test system for the developers to do with as they please and you see how much fun that can be in situations like this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deathsquirrel 741 Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 (edited) If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it!!! I have used mediaportal, plex and others but ended up using mediabrowser because of its ease of customisation. This update is a step backwards for me, and makes it feel more like plex. So pissed that I have to spend hours trying to figure out all this. No warning, no time given. Still very confusing!!! Please, please restore the old mixed function. To be fair it WAS broken and there WAS warning. I saw at least a couple posts by Luke or EBR on this topic in the large number of threads complaining about various ways the existing mode was busted. Plus its described in the release announcement thread. Edited January 7, 2015 by Deathsquirrel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37116 Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 It was made a little too strict so we are working on rectifying that. that's what these beta cycles are for. there are a number of new features that are in process of being added, such as by-date tv series, and it's just not possible to do automagick mixed folders and support those things at the same time. so i think an easier path is we just won't have those features with mixed folders, at least not without using the new manual tagging that's been added. the auto-magic nature of the mixed folders has always been a problem for us. it was fine for mb2 because it had a very small feature set. now we have features that can easily conflict with each other which makes it very difficult to detect content types. but it can be done as long as the feature set is limited to a defined set where the conditions are predictable. so we're going to do that, and leave the newer features for when content type has been configured. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwill 28 Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 (edited) I think you took the opposite route of the change you should have made. Shut off the automatic updates. If you have your system set up just the way you like, then just use it. If the developers want to keep changing things they feel need changing, let them go crazy, but unless you need the features or bug fixes they are adding, there is no need for a an application like MB to be set to automatically update constantly. Especially for someone like yourself who reads and comments on these message boards and would be aware of any major usability or security issues that might come up and require an update. You could then do it manually. Restore your system from a backup and shut off the updates. Otherwise, you're system is just a beta test system for the developers to do with as they please and you see how much fun that can be in situations like this. I am tempted to do that, but I would like to keep using the beta version (but usually not the development version) in order to help with testing. Still, if the developers continue to make such major changes without warning in the beta version, I may re-think that. This was a huge change that went into the beta version without warning. Beta should be for features that have already been tested and are just looking for final testing before going into stable. I hope the developers are more conservative about that sort of thing in the future. To be fair it WAS broken and there WAS warning. I saw at least a couple posts by Luke or EBR on this topic in the large number of threads complaining about various ways the existing mode was busted. Plus its described in the release announcement thread. It was broken for some users, and it was working fine for others. It makes no sense to break it for everyone. What is this, spread the pain around method of program design? As for warning, putting something in the release announcement when the auto-update goes live does NOT constitute warning. Warning means that the word has been spread for weeks ahead of time. Edited January 7, 2015 by jwill 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwill 28 Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 It was made a little too strict so we are working on rectifying that. that's what these beta cycles are for. there are a number of new features that are in process of being added, such as by-date tv series, and it's just not possible to do automagick mixed folders and support those things at the same time. so i think an easier path is we just won't have those features with mixed folders, at least not without using the new manual tagging that's been added. the auto-magic nature of the mixed folders has always been a problem for us. it was fine for mb2 because it had a very small feature set. now we have features that can easily conflict with each other which makes it very difficult to detect content types. but it can be done as long as the feature set is limited to a defined set where the conditions are predictable. so we're going to do that, and leave the newer features for when content type has been configured. I think you must admit that it was more than "a little too strict". This was a radical change that caused major problems for a lot of users. Beta testing should be for catching bugs. But this was not really a bug, this was a major design change and REMOVAL of functionality. I think it is almost always a bad idea to remove functionality from a program, and if it must be done anyway, then there should be warning given. It sounds like you have decided to revert some of the change so that the old Mixed functionality gets grandfathered in. Is that correct? Is there something in the development release that I should be specifically testing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37116 Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 you should be looking for it to function like before, however with one change. for libraries with content type set to TV, either the series need to be right under the root, or you need to use the metadata manager to set content types. so for instance, what he's asking for here http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/16872-tv-series-seasons-broken-in-latest-and-dev/ he can achieve this but he's going to have to go to the star trek folder and change the content type from inherit to TV. then that in affect becomes a new top level node with series right underneath it. incidentally mixed folders can auto-detect this, but that's only because they're not getting new features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwill 28 Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 you should be looking for it to function like before, however with one change. for libraries with content type set to TV... The library I am having trouble with used to be Mixed, not TV. So, with the recent development release (I'm on Version 3.0.5484.42574), should I expect new content dropped into my "Unset (mixed content)" library to be detected in the same way it used to be before "Mixed" was removed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwill 28 Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 I just tested adding new content with Version 3.0.5484.42574, and it did not work properly. Unset (mixed content) Library movies/ The Equalizer (2014) [tmdbid=156022]/ The Equalizer.mkv Normally, adding new content would automatically trigger a scan media library, but this did not, so I ran it manually. Normally a scan takes 20-30 seconds on my setup. This time the scan took 2 minutes and 25 seconds. With result that it added "movie.xml" and "poster.jpg" to the folder, and nothing else. The poster.jpg was just a screenshot of the movie. Going into metadata manager, I see that the new content is set to "Inherit" rather than "Movies". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beardyname 195 Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 I just tested adding new content with Version 3.0.5484.42574, and it did not work properly. Unset (mixed content) Library movies/ The Equalizer (2014) [tmdbid=156022]/ The Equalizer.mkv Normally, adding new content would automatically trigger a scan media library, but this did not, so I ran it manually. Normally a scan takes 20-30 seconds on my setup. This time the scan took 2 minutes and 25 seconds. With result that it added "movie.xml" and "poster.jpg" to the folder, and nothing else. The poster.jpg was just a screenshot of the movie. Going into metadata manager, I see that the new content is set to "Inherit" rather than "Movies". this is supposed to happen, if you don't set the "movies" folder to movies, that way all the folders below that one will have the content type set to movies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwill 28 Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 this is supposed to happen, if you don't set the "movies" folder to movies, that way all the folders below that one will have the content type set to movies. Please do not reply unless you have read this thread. I was discussing changes that Luke said were made in the development version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwill 28 Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 (edited) I just noticed another problem with the development Version 3.0.5484.42574. All my shows in the Unset (mixed content) library that had been watched have lost their watched status. Every show in the library is now showing as "New" and unwatched now. Edited January 8, 2015 by jwill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14930 Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I just noticed another problem with the development Version 3.0.5484.42574. All my shows in the Unset (mixed content) library that had been watched have lost their watched status. Every show in the library is now showing as "New" and unwatched now. What are you calling a "show"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now