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Search for people not working correctly


khodges747

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khodges747

Hi guys,

I suddenly can't research media by actor names. I almost always use MB for WMC (3.0.283.0), but the same problems occurs in MB Theater and the web client. I'm running the last update of the server (3.0.5675.1).

 

Example: Search for Morgan Freeman in MB Web client shows 2 movies (see screenshot).

post-1660-0-67583500-1437233864_thumb.png

 

In MB for WMC, by selecting a movie that has him as an actor and clicking his name, it also shows 2 movies (the same 2 movies as in the web client, see 2nd screenshot) but not even the one I just searched from.

post-1660-0-71815900-1437233923_thumb.png

 

But when I use Windows Explorer to search my media library for Morgan Freeman, If find 22 movies (and 2 TV series) that have him in the metadata files.

post-1660-0-92832500-1437234151_thumb.png

 

I assume this is a server problem since it happens everywhere.

 

It used to work brilliantly, but I don't know when it stopped since I don't use it that often.

 

Has this been reported before?

 

Thanks,

Keith

 

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Theodore

This is happening to me to using the web client. On previous versions I could click into a movie then click on an actor and Emby would show me all the movies and shows this actor is listed in. Now all it shows is the movies this actor is in only in movies that have been added since I performed the update last night. Movies added prior to that that I click through an actor on show them as being in no other movies or shows - even though I know this to be incorrect.

 

I am also running into the issue where it is REMOVING all people from the XML files of movies. It doesn't appear to be retro-active (meaning movies added before updating don't seem to be getting this treatment), but I am having to add and re-add movies several times to keep this data intact in the XML.

 

EDIT: Edit to include that even the removing and re-adding the movie isn't reliable for getting the actors to appear. Even doing this isn't changing the behavior of all actors and crew being removed from the XML. Also MBS does not appear to be respecting metadata field locks. Or at least it keeps toggling them to the "off" position on the web console.

 

EDIT2: After some experimenting I have found a way to replicate this issue at will - refresh data. If I just import the movie it shows all people in the XML. However, if I do Advanced Refresh --> Download Missing Data Only, it clears all people from the XML and the web console. I hope this helps in finding a *FAST* resolution because I am going to have to go back and re-import all actors once you've got it solved and published.

Edited by Theodore
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khodges747

Thanks for your input.

 

I noticed the same thing about names being REMOVED from my XML files, but thought that maybe it was just a problem I had caused somehow.

 

The problem is, I don't know which movies don't have the actors any more, so I can't refresh just the bad ones.

 

I'm sure somebody will give us an answer soon.

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Happy2Play

EDIT2: After some experimenting I have found a way to replicate this issue at will - refresh data. If I just import the movie it shows all people in the XML. However, if I do Advanced Refresh --> Download Missing Data Only, it clears all people from the XML and the web console. I hope this helps in finding a *FAST* resolution because I am going to have to go back and re-import all actors once you've got it solved and published.

I am not able to reproduce advance refresh clearing people from xml but I know advance refresh missing metadata only does not get missing people.  The only way so far I have found to re-add missing people to xml is to do a refresh.

 

If this is happening for you can you verify in the xml that the people are actually there before doing a advance refresh. 

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Theodore

I am not able to reproduce advance refresh clearing people from xml but I know advance refresh missing metadata only does not get missing people.  The only way so far I have found to re-add missing people to xml is to do a refresh.

 

If this is happening for you can you verify in the xml that the people are actually there before doing a advance refresh. 

 

I can absolutely confirm that people were listed in the XML prior to doing the advanced refresh. On 5 movies being brought into the collection, 5 out of 5 times the people were there when they were imported and were subsequently cleared after doing the refresh. One of the things I did to try and block this was to add "<LockedFields>Name|Overview|Genres|Cast</LockedFields>" into the XML before importing and it still removed them just as it did when that line was not in the XML.

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Happy2Play

You are on the current official release correct.  Version 3.0.5675.1

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Theodore

You are on the current official release correct.  Version 3.0.5675.1

 

Sorry, should have specified that sooner but yes, 3.0.5675.1. I updated yesterday.

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Happy2Play

Is Emby collecting your metadata or something else?  If something else then what format are they in the xml?

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Theodore

I've never been happy with Emby's scraper for people (its always incomplete) so I use a 3rd party. The data in the XML is like this:

 

  <Persons>
    <Person>
      <Name>Sean Connery</Name>
      <Type>Actor</Type>
      <Role>James Bond</Role>
    </Person>

  </Persons>
 

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khodges747

I'd like to get this thread back to the subject I consider the most important:

 

MB is not locating all the occurences of actors when selecting the actor's name from Cast..

 

Yesterday I manually went through every movie in my library and made sure the People were there (I estimate 10% had no People listed). I refreshed any that were missing.

 

I now have 22 movies with Morgan Freeman in my library.

 

MB for WMC and the web client and MB Theater show only 11 of them.

 

I think it's a bug, and I assume it's a server problem since it happens in all clients.

 

Here are log files showing the search for Morgan Freeman.

 

MBClassic-2072015bd4f960db75a4900bf5aaff38bb9d04c.log

server-63572947199.txt

 

I said earlier that some People were being deleted. This is no longer happening, and may have just been incomplete metadata collection by MB's scraper. Once I get everything in the metadata files it stays there.

 

Keith

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Theodore

The same thing has been said in many thread, see this one.

 

http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/23523-filmography-not-working/

 

So according to what you said on this one, I need to refresh something but I cannot figure out what I need to refresh. I refreshed a movie that had erased the people from the XML file and they did not come back. I refreshed Dustin Hoffman and none of his filmography came back.

 

From what you quoted by Luke, he didn't force a migration to a new database change because people complained about update/migration times. This makes sense and probably pretty smart, but by not doing it at least in the background it has broken key functionality of the program - and that is really BAD!

 

So what is the fix and when can we expect it to be published? I ran a refresh on one movie that did have its actors and so far they haven't disappeared, but given that EVERY movie I have added since updating has deleted all the people out of the XML, I am EXTREAMELY leery of doing this on my library of almost 1300 movies and shows. That is just way too many too have to rebuild again - even the 6 added since the update is going to be a pain in the a$$. 

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It is in the background. Anytime a record gets saved it gets switched to the new format. So if you're willing to wait a week or two it will just happen naturally. Otherwise you can just refresh top level folders from the metadata manager.

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Theodore

It is in the background. Anytime a record gets saved it gets switched to the new format. So if you're willing to wait a week or two it will just happen naturally. Otherwise you can just refresh top level folders from the metadata manager.

 

Ok, it's in the new format and that's fine. But then why is it that the movies that I've imported since the update do NOT show ANY people when I verified they were in the XML files before bringing them in? And why do the people who show up in the library show nothing in their filmography? In the past I have not been happy with Emby's embedded fetcher as it was almost always incomplete when it came to people (I suspect it was because TMDB's records are almost always incomplete) so I used a 3rd party fetcher to scrape IMDB to get everything. If this isn't going to work anymore, what is the solution? I see in the metadata manager that the IMDB ID is recorded, can a scraper be built for that?

 

EDIT: Edit to add that you want to build in a new (better?) format for cataloging available data, I understand and support that as a general principle. The issue is coming in though that I have taken a LOT of time to make sure all of my data was correct and whatever this migration did is undoing all of that and replacing it with incomplete data at best and inaccurate information at worst. If this is the case, you need to push an update immediately to stop this process until it can be built to respect current data and accept data brought in via a 3rd party application.

 

Plus, with whatever data is already present, the Field Locks aren't being respected from this update - or at least don't appear to be settable on new imports. I have added the line in the XML "<LockedFields>Name|Overview|Genres|Cast</LockedFields>" and also tried setting it by the web console, but as soon as the save is placed the sliders ALWAYS go back to "On" for those categories.

Edited by Theodore
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khodges747

I can confirm that deleting people from metadata is not only related to 3rd party fetchers.

 

Today I added 3 new movies to my collection. All had the people when added to the library. One has now lost the Persons section of the XML file (generated by MB, not by a 3rd party) twice. I checked it in MB for WMC just after adding it, and the actors were present. Later I looked at the XML file and they were no longer there. I refreshed the metadata (using the Identify function in the Metadata Manager) and they all came back. Then I rebooted because of a Windows 7 update and they were all gone again. I have now refreshed for the 2nd time and they are back.

 

The other 2 movies added to the same library (same top level folder) have not lost any data.

 

So basically I agree with Theodore. We need a new update to the server that stops this problem before it randomly undoes a bunch of metadata without anyone knowing it.

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badaas

This is what I am seeing with movies especially. All vanished, a refresh they reappear.

They have all both TV and movies disappeared in the kodi emby plugin as well for me.

First TV cast went, now both are not restorable even when in web app.

The images are in the thumbnail database after a clean wipe/install of kodi, but not showing in kodi.

Tried with stable and beta versions of plugin.

Slightly off topic but may help.

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CX23882

It is in the background. Anytime a record gets saved it gets switched to the new format. So if you're willing to wait a week or two it will just happen naturally. Otherwise you can just refresh top level folders from the metadata manager.

What if the library is fairly static and doesn't see many updates? Does it still get migrated?

 

The overwriting/deleting of cast when doing a refresh is the reason that refreshing is not a workable solution. I had to make a ton of corrections because the TMDB and TheTVDB data was either incomplete, or plain wrong. Refreshing undoes all of that work.

 

Even the couple of movies which have definitely been saved in this version (I know, because I was annoyed by the cast being damaged by the refresh, and which I subsequently corrected) and were showing correct filmography for those movies/actors, after a server restart, filmography is once again empty for those cast members.

Edited by CX23882
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CBers

So there's no quick answer to getting actor images/information back?

 

I tried the top level folder refresh from the metadata manager and ran the Refresh People scheduled task, but still nothing in my IBN\People folder.

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Theodore

Anything? Anyone? Is there an update or a status for this? I have over 1300 records in my library - not including individual episodes - and it is going to take me YEARS to rebuild all of this data if you cannot fix this or at least stop it from happening until it is fixed!

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Theodore

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE! (Good luck not saying that in his voice)

 

I did some experimenting this evening and a thought occurred to me: <Locked>True</Locked>

 

I ran the movies that lost people through the 3rd party fetcher to get an IMDB scrape into the XML. I use Media Center Master which also features a "Lock" function to add this line into the XML - which is also the same tag Emby uses when you select "Lock this item to prevent future changes" on the Edit page for the movie. I then moved the movie folder and ran "Scan media library" to grab it and catalog it.

 

After the scan ran I got back into the movie edit screen and on the left side pane, a little padlock appears to show it is locked. Enable the checkbox under the Metadata Settings header for "Lock this item to prevent future changes" and click save. After the save and reload, uncheck that box and click save again (this will disable the lock). Now run Advanced Refresh and select "Add missing data only". Once the refresh completes, re-enable the Lock Metadata checkbox at the bottom THEN click save.

 

I am going to keep doing it this way for now (Luke and Happy2Play, this way REALLY sucks - please solve this soon!) and let you know if results change, but so far it is 4 for 4 in keeping people information complete on new imports.

 

And as a "safety" against any of my other titles getting hosed by this glitch, I have enabled the "Lock this item to prevent future changes" checkbox on EVERYTHING from the category root down for movies and TV.

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a little padlock appears to show it is locked. Enable the checkbox under the Metadata Settings header for "Lock this item to prevent future changes" and click save.

 

that step is unneeded because if the padlock is there that means it's already locked. i believe you ought to just be able to edit your xml/nfo in your other program, and do nothing in Emby, and just let Emby gradually see the metadata file changes through normal library scans.

 

I have tested and verified this many times recently - now keep in mind my tests are more in line with the default server settings since that's what most people use, so in turn, that's where more of my time gets allocated. it sounds like some of you guys in this thread basically go and disable everything and then use third party programs. i specifically tested with internet metadata disabled to make sure of this but there's obviously a lot of other settings that can create wrinkles and it's hard to test all of them. So yes, it's possible a side effect slipped through with some kind of configuration that i hadn't tested.

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Theodore

I tell them in my instructions to enable it in the check box because it cannot be disabled until that box is enabled - which it isn't when imported with the <Locked>True</Locked> line in the XML. All this appears to be doing is preventing the library scan from making its own edits until I am ready to do them.

 

As for custom settings, my install is VERY vanilla. I run MBS on a 2008R2 box and the media is in UNC paths on a QNAP. I've made very few special settings other than preferring XML over NFO and which fetchers to use first. I use the 3rd party fetcher because Emby doesn't have an IMDB scraper/fetcher and the people data from TMDb, TVDb, or OMDb is incomplete at best and sometimes even just wrong. The data from those sites being incomplete is not a fault of Emby, its a fault of being crowd-sourced. As far as plugins that could be responsible, I have 3: Beeg, Email Notifications, and EmbyTV. That's it. No path substitutions - every client can hit the UNC paths directly.

 

Saying there isn't a problem because of special settings when I don't have any special settings isn't cool at all. There is a problem here because 5 people in this thread are all reporting the same thing and without searching for other threads, it is also brought up in this one. Only the other commenters here can say what their configurations look like, but what special settings should we be on the look out for? I've been using Media Center Master to fetch data since somewhere around MB2.2 and the XML input has been (relatively) unchanged for a very long time. The only thing it is actively bringing in to the library is title, sort title, parental rating, genres, and people (and now the lock of course). Everything else I've let Emby grab.

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khodges747

Thanks Luke, I learned something today.

 

I just disabled the checkbox next to "Download artwork and metadata from the internet" and deleted a couple actors from a movie, saved it and then refreshed it (with the Identify option). Lo and behold, it put back the actors I had deleted.

 

What's surprising is the option about DL'ing from the internet. If MB is not getting metadata and images from the internet, where in the heck are they coming from? The ether?

 

I thought that option was for people who wanted zero metadata for their media.

 

Just to be clear, I don't use any 3rd party scrapers for metadata. I don't disable things except for the rare movie where I have decided to modify some data. I DO however use (at least until now) the option of getting metadata from the internet.

 

I'll leave it OFF for a few days, just to see what happens. But this problem is taking a lot of my time making sure that movies don't lose metadata, specifically people.Another movie just lost all its people simply because I moved it from one location to another in my library.

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Happy2Play

MCM is my primary metadata manager and import all my movies into my Emby library.

 

MCM uses <Locked> and Emby uses <LockData>.  So unless Emby honors the <Locked> field which according to the metadata manager is doesn't from my testing, locking the metadata in MCM doesn't accomplish anything that I can see from the user side.

 

But obviously Ebmy is acting differently for every ones setup.

 

@@Luke

With some more testing doing a Advanced Refresh (Local refresh only) Images (None) clears People everytime.

 

Version 3.0.5675.1

Edited by Happy2Play
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