Duplicate NFO Files Rendering Movies (Not Local Trailers) Unplayable

[gochiefs88842 5]

Hello and thanks advance for any support; it's a bit of a read, but I'm hopeful a simple fix exists...

 

A few weeks ago, I decided to batch process hundreds of VOB files into MKV equivalents using MakeMKV and an applet program called MKV Batch Converter. The process renamed each VOB file (e.g., "25th Hour (2002)\VIDEO_TS) into an MKV file within the same parent folder (e.g., "25th Hour (2002)\25th Hour.mkv") and I manually deleted the original "VIDEO_TS" and "AUDIO_TS" files.  None of the other metadata/artwork appeared to be modified during these conversions, however I recently discovered that Emby Server generated a second NFO file for many (but not all) of those batch processed movies.  The duplication involves one NFO title which matches the MKV file name (e.g., "25th Hour (2002)\25th Hour (2002).nfo) and another which seems to resurrect the ghost of the previously deleted VIDEO_TS file (e.g., "25th Hour (2002)\VIDEO_TS\VIDEO_TS.nfo).  This dynamic has now made the MKV movie files unplayable on the server ("Video Error - There was an error playing the video"). Interestingly, the trailer files all seem to play fine on Emby Server, regardless of folder structure (some in the their own "Trailer" folders, e.g., "25th Hour (2002)\Trailers\trailer.flv" and some within the parent folder itself, e.g., "21 Jump Street (2012)\21 Jump Street (2012)-trailer.mp4").

 

I originally discovered this issue in Emby for WMC when many of my local trailer icons disappeared and hitting "play movie" would instead play the trailer. I became curious whether a trailer had to actually be within a "Trailers" subfolder for EMC to recognize both file types. I tried to triage the issue for hours until I realized that the common denominator was not the form of the trailers folder structure, but instead that those media folders with two NFO files were causing different playback issues on both the server and client side.  

 

Notably, more recent library additions I have made--not conversions from VOBs, but straight rips to MKV--only have one NFO file within the parent folder and play/display perfectly fine in both Emby Server and Emby for WMC.  For the problem movies, however, even when I try to manually delete the duplicate VIDEO_TS.nfo file, Emby Server immediately regenerates it.  

 

I could really use some advice on how to permanently remove these duplicate NFO files (and prevent regeneration) so that I can (1) watch trailers AND movies in Emby Server and (2) don't have to relocate every trailers file into its own "Trailers" subfolder for EMC playback.  Screenshots of folder structures and Emby Server metadata settings attached.

 

     

[Luke 39697]

we don't support VIDEO_TS and an mkv file inside movie folders so i would imagine that is creating a side effect of some sort.

[gochiefs88842 5]

Hi Luke.  Understood, but it won't let me manually delete the "VIDEO_TS.nfo" folder and subfile.  I delete it, then Emby Server recreates it.  I assume this is related to the metadata settings in the server, but I don't know how to stop this from occurring.  And honestly, I'm not sure where it's originating the .nfo file from to begin with--the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders were all previously deleted.  The self-titled .nfo files are clearly the good ones, but the VIDEO_TS ones are the whackamoles that I can't stop from appearing.

Edited February 19, 2016 by gochiefs88842

[Luke 39697]

yea that folder path is in the database as a dvd. you might just need to delete the video_ts folder and then rename the parent folder to something else.

[gochiefs88842 5]

I have tried deleting the entire VIDEO_TS folder (and the .nfo subfile within it) and then Emby just recreates both of them instantaneously.  If I'm understanding your message above, are you suggesting I do that and then also rename the parent folder?  It seems like if I rename "25th Hour (2002)" to any other iteration, metadata scrapers would not properly identify it moving forward, correct?  Is there not some way I can mass delete all of the VIDEO_TS folders (and .nfo subfiles) from my library and start from a clean slate? Like removing and re-adding libraries, fresh library scan, something along those lines?

Edited February 19, 2016 by gochiefs88842

[gochiefs88842 5]

Update: Exiting server and all clients and then manually deleting all VIDEO_TS folders/VIDEO_TS.nfo files (and a whole bunch of other stale metadata tags, for that matter) and then restarting server, running library/database scan and then loading clients did the trick.  And for what it's worth to those tag searching to this post, Emby for WMC and the server both seem to allow different folder structures for trailers ("Trailers" folder within parent folder vs. self-titled trailer video file within parent folder) once your nfo tags are cleaned up/redundancies eliminated.