Migration to EMBY from MB 2.6 plus new HTPC build

[One2Go 98]

Back to the problem I have with getting to my UnRaid servers. I have created a Shared Folder called "UnRaid" under that I created two subfolders "HPTower" and "Tower" under each of those subfolders I created the name of the share in HPTower it is "Documentaries" in Tower it is "Animation" when creating these library folders I added the actual path \\Tower\Animation and \\HPTower\Documentaries. Please look at the screen shot from the Library page in EMBY. It has all the meta data that is needed to display it, it just needs import the Media Browser XML files, but it looks like that this is not happening.

 

Any chance to help with sorting this QMono shortcoming and get the local path correct specification sorted?

 

Is the path substitution done in QNAP or EMBY?

 

Edited April 1, 2017 by One2Go

[Logos302 86]

If I read what luke says in an earlier post properly you need to have it mapped/mounted as a drive letter on the QNAP which is what should show up in your folders, and then in the path sub you should have the share.  

 

  But I'm only guess as I don't have a QNAP.  

[One2Go 98]

Thanks for your help, I just don't get this how to equate a local path in the QNAP to the share of the server where it is located. In Windows it is very easy, but in Linux I have a server GUI and I can't find there where this mapping / mounting could be done. I hate to do a Putty session into the QNAP and then do a nuts and bolts approach to get this done. I have searched all over trying to find an answer and I am getting a bit discouraged. I set this all up on my network, Plex gave me no problems but this QMono bit of not entering UNCs sucks. Sorry for the frustrating tone here.

 

Best answer I found was this and it looks like that it is created in EMBY not in QNAP

 

library: /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/Multimedia/movies
path substitution: //server/Multimedia/movies
 

Sorry Luke but I need your expertise help.

[One2Go 98]

Well just deleted the present folders and ran a scan on local movie files and everything works just fine. So here I am stuck with how to get Emby to see the 35TB of media that is on the two other servers same network different machines.

 

Tried to create in the QNAP shared folder utility to specify the path manually and it will only allow a path that is visible in the dropdown box, enter it manually as in \\server\share or smb://192.168.1.100/Share when you hit the create button it will not create it.

 

So will EMBY on QNAP at all work with media that is located on different servers? If yes then please post a screen shot of your settings.

Edited April 1, 2017 by One2Go

[One2Go 98]

Well it took me over 3 hours of research and reading to come to the conclusion that unless you have your media on the local drives of the NAS, then EMBY is not ready for prime time on a NAS yet. It would have been nice to have this stated clearly at the outset. Just in case someone else has this problem the instructions below will save him some time. Here is the process:

 

Lets say you have a server named MyMedia with a share called Movies that you want EMBY to scan. For example the share can be accessed via the following address \\192.168.1.100\Movies

1. First you have to create a shared folder (a mounting point folder) on the QNAP NAS (ex. MyMedia) you can then create any subfolder under that (ex. Movies)

2. You now have to start a SSH client like PuTTY and connect to the QNAP NAS via a commandline interface, just like the Windows Command Prompt interface.

3. Now you need to run a command line instruction to mount the server share to make it available locally on the QNAP NAS.

4. The command for this example would be /sbin/mount.cifs //192.168.1.100/Movies /share/MyMedia/Movies -o username=admin,password=xxxxxxx

Now you have the content of the Movies share available for scanning by EMBY. I did this for 68 folders of 92 movies and I must say since all the meta data was in those movie folders the visual display was good.

 

However there are numerous downsides to this method and it is the ONLY method, thus my conclusion that EMBY on a NAS is not ready for prime time yet if your content is not on the NAS.

1. If you have several different shares you have to enter that command for each one of them.

2. If you are paranoid you would have to set up a credential file and modify the permissions on it since the username and password is in the clear.

3. Every time you reboot the NAS you have to repeat the same procedure or edit the autorun.sh file using an editor that allows you to do this from the command line something like vi or nano.

4. You may or may not want to change the permissions on the locally created share (the Mounting point folder) to read only.

5. If you power off your media servers as I do to save wear and tear, I have no idea if then the filesystem gets hung and then after power is back on, if this causes errors or what else may happen when the server share becomes active again.

6. This whole setup is made for hours of trouble shooting, like why did Mono cause the CPU to run at between 80% and 90% even after it had finished scanning.

 

To say the least I am not a happy camper, I thought this perhaps was the time to switch and migrate.

 

Well for me it looks like back to more waiting until a simple UNC path statement tells Emby where the media is located that needs to be scanned and in that case it doesn't matter if the servers are powered down, that is how it worked in Media Browser.

 

OR

 

Install the EMBY server on a Windows machine which for me doesn't make sense when I have two UnRaid servers plus two QNAP NASs that are perfectly capable of handling the task to provide content.

 

@@Luke, no disrespect to you as you work hard to make Emby a success but your statement "The mono runtime does not support unc shares. What you need to do is mount those shares as a local path in QNAP, then you can add that local path to Emby" is an over simplification of what it takes to have Emby read a share on another server. In a thread here you asked @@breezytm how to handle a situation like this and I wish you would have stated this earlier in the thread because in my first post in this thread I stated that all my content is on two UnRaid servers, so you knew that Emby on the QNAP NAS needed access to those servers. I am sorry if that comes across as harsh, but I am back to square one.

Edited April 1, 2017 by One2Go

[Luke 37128]

I can understand the immediate sense of frustration, but once you set it up with autorun you won't ever have to worry about it.

[One2Go 98]

@@Luke, again the autorun just addresses ONE of the problems. Just to give you an idea what proceeded in the background and why EMBY on the QNAP is a bad idea.

 

I had a stable NAS with all my programs running fine on QNAP FW 4.2.0. During EMBY server version 3.2.10 installation it wants FFMeg, nowhere is that ancient kludge mentioned at a dependency, so I got the zipped package and unpacked it on the NAS, next thing the installer says it can't find it and I read I have to set two of the files as executable, how the hell do I do that in Linux. Abandon installation research, OK install the FFMPeg qpackage. Problem is it will only install on QNAP FW version 4.2.2 Now whether that is because the latest EMBY server install packages are busted or not I don't know but that you released a flawed installation should have been the red flag to abandon this project. OK update the QNAP FW, now one of my programs generates a warning every minute, not critical but I have to delete over 1500 warnings every day. The only solution live with the instability or get a stable version which requires updating the QNAP FW to beta 4.3.0 not what I want because I believe EMBY has a problem with that beta FW.

 

Here is what one well respected user in this forum had to say "I never found a solution - but I just gave up with Emby on the Qnap. It's just so much easier having Emby installed on Windows, I just have content on the Qnap."

 

You see we are not in Kansas (Windows) anymore Luke. You can either drive a car or work and tinker on it and then drive it. At my age I just want to drive it. When I ordered the NUC I paid for a finished version because I did not want to tinker with custom USB 3 drivers for the Windows 7 installation I just paid for the finished build.

 

May I plead with you to be straight forward with people who are asking you that they are contemplating EMBY on the QNAP, please state that If your media/content is on the QNAP you may go for it, if the content is not on the QNAP then don't and consider a Windows server installation.

 

Now for me it is left to get my QNAP back in the stable configuration it was in before this futile exercise.

 

/OFF Soapbox

Edited April 1, 2017 by One2Go

[One2Go 98]

Final Summation. Back were I was Friday morning. Rolled back the QNAP FW, removed QMono, FFMPeg and Emby server from the QNAP, the NAS is back were it was Friday morning when I started on this project. Education is very expensive a day lost out of my life.

 

Preparing my i-5 NUC vor Emby server installation as well as the client for WMC, but that has to wait for another day when I have time again.