Getting Frustrated :(

[chef 3749]

Your tv show structure is not right

 

It is should be this:

 

Dora the explorer/season 1/ 1x1 Big Red Chicken.mkv

 

You are missing the season folder level.

 

Each episode must be put in to season folders named after the respective season.

 

 

Hope this helps.

Edited February 10, 2014 by chef

[Luke 37180]

Your structure is supported. The current release version of the server has a bug preventing the use of episodes directly in a series folder. 

 

Go to advanced settings, set your update level to dev to get the fix - 

 

warning though

 

the current dev track has undergone a lot of changes. it will rescan your library so please be patient with that. several plugins are currently not working in the dev track due to the changes, but they'll be restored in the coming days.

[Luke 37180]

Your tv show structure is not right

 

It is should be this:

 

Dora the explorer/season 1/ 1x1 Big Red Chicken.mkv

 

You are missing the season folder level.

 

Each episode must be put in to season folders named after the respective season.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

That's not true. What hes' doing is supported. You don't need season folders anymore.

[chef 3749]

That's not true. What hes' doing is supported. You don't need season folders anymore.

My goodness I was not aware of this.

 

So it would seem that the new dev version will fix these issues.

 

However, from a database stand point of organization, I like to keep the episode files in season folders. It helps me find files quickly.

 

It would seem as though your frustrations might be over. Best of luck.

Edited February 10, 2014 by chef

[Locoblade 0]

Its correct according to the wiki though?

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/MediaBrowser/wiki/Library-Structure (the glee example)

 

 

The folder structure is series/season/episode or series/episode without using season folders.

/TV Series
/Seinfeld
/Season 1
S01E01 Seinfeld The Seinfeld Chronicles.mkv
S01E02 Seinfeld The Stake Out.mkv
S01E03 Seinfeld Number Six.iso

/Season 2
/S02E01-E04
/video_ts
/S02E05-E08
/bdmv

/Glee
S01E01.mkv
S01E02.mkv
S02E05.mkv
S02E06.iso

 

Not every TV show has a series / season though, surely you don't need to make up fictitious subfolders to make it work do you? Although my original example perhaps isn't the best, a lot of the stuff I have for the kids is just a collection of episodes with no series, what do I do with those?

 

Edit, just seen Luke's post. I'm not using any plugins at the moment, is there anything else likely to trip me up with the dev build?

 

thanks

Edited February 10, 2014 by Locoblade

[Locoblade 0]

What about stuff with no downloadable metadata, is it just a case of find appropriate images and fill in as much as you can manually?

[Luke 37180]

Yes that Glee example is fine. For your random stuff, if you're going to put it under the tv folder type, then you'll get best results if each of the tv series is using a supported tv structure. if you don't want to do that you can always try classifying it as plain home videos, but then you won't get internet metadata....and if they're named ending with things like "part 1", "part 2", etc, it might collide with the multi-file movie naming convention.

[Luke 37180]

What about stuff with no downloadable metadata, is it just a case of find appropriate images and fill in as much as you can manually?

 

Depends on why it wasn't downloaded. If it wasn't downloaded because we couldn't figure out what series it was, then it could be due to your folder structure. So again, check that. Then go to the metadata editing area, check the tvdb id's. Often by correcting the Id and refreshing that one series will get all the missing metadata.

[Locoblade 0]

Just revisited the first one that had no metadata and I think it was the lack of a space in the middle of the name (Jake and the Never_Land Pirates rather than neverland) that was causing it, think I need to go to bed and come back to it tomorrow with a fresh head

[Locoblade 0]

One other thing, is there a way to store the images away from the root of the media folder? As mentioned my kids also browse and play some of the media via the windows share using FileBrowser on the iPad, and having jpg images sitting there for them to click will just confuse things!

 

thanks for all your help

[mentasm 43]

I sometimes find a visit to www.thetvdb.com usually helps to see, 1, if the show exists and what the naming is exactly, 2, what seasons there should be, and 3, if there are posters, backdrops, banners etc available there.  If stuff is there, but MB3 isn't grabbing it you have a naming or folder issue locally that needs to be resolved.

 

This is where using something like sickbeard for obtaining the media makes things very easy as once you add the show, all the folder and episode naming etc is done automatically for you.

[Luke 37180]

One other thing, is there a way to store the images away from the root of the media folder? As mentioned my kids also browse and play some of the media via the windows share using FileBrowser on the iPad, and having jpg images sitting there for them to click will just confuse things!

 

thanks for all your help

 

yes, there was an option about that in the startup wizard, and in the metadata config area.

[Locoblade 0]

"Save images within media folders" is not ticked though, which is what confused me. I wondered if it had anything to do with the metadata compatibility level being set to Compatible MB3/Plex/XBMC rather than Standard?

[Luke 37180]

Shouldn't matter but I will review.

[Locoblade 0]

Hi all

 

I really want to make MediaBrowser work for me as I can see great potential, but getting my existing media set up in precisely the right layout and with precisely the right naming convention so the media is displayed correctly is becoming increasingly frustrating to the point where I'm starting to consider whether I'd be better off giving up and just accepting the limitations of the basic DLNA server I had previously, something that doesn't care about naming and folder structure etc. I don't see too many others struggling as badly though so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, perhaps it's the media type I'm trying to host, mostly younger kids TV shows, Dora, Doc McStuffins, Peppa Pig etc?

 

The "TV Shows" option in particular seems very hit and miss as to what it decides is a TV show, and if it decides not, there's no obvious indicator why not, is it because the naming is incorrect, is it because the folder structure is incorrect, is it because there's no metadata to download, is it some other issue? I've looked through the server log files but there's nothing immediately obvious to indicate what's wrong at least to a newbie to the platform, so at the moment I'm just taking stabs in the dark changing things at a best guess of what might be wrong and having very limited success. I believe I've followed the Wiki on naming convention and structure etc and although on most of the media it finds metadata, images etc and you see the program in "Shows", there's nothing when you click inside. Much of the kids TV stuff doesn't have a "Season" as such and I keep the folder structure as simple as possible so the kids can browse them via the file shares using the iPad etc, so I'm using a format similar to the below as in the Wiki

 

the folder "Kids TV" is added as  media folder to the media library 

inside that there's folders for each program, then the episodes inside those folders, for example

 

\ Dora The Explorer \ Dora The Explorer 01x01 The Big Red Chicken.mp4

 

Although I think this follows the Wiki (the glee example?), is this an issue as it seems that programs with seasons in season folders are more likely  to work? The kids use iPads etc to browse the shares and play these files directly (not through MediaBrowser) and as mentioned much of it isn't reaslly seasonal TV programs so I really don't want to bury everything in 3 layers of folders for them to click through.  Is there a more suitable media type I should be using for this type of ?

 

Then what happens when a show has no metadata at all, is there a guide anywhere on what to add manually to give enough information that it will display and play correctly, or a way to point it at alternative sources possibly? As a previous question of mine has answered, there's no way to bulk edit media so what's the best way to deal with 400+ episodes that have no rating whilst using parental controls to prevent the kids seeing stuff not intended for the kids to watch?

 

Sorry for the long post, I previously tried Plex and didn't get on with it at all. In comparison, MediaBrowser is much more what I am after in terms of user control and features, its just the unusually precise ways the media needs presenting that's causing me headaches, and I'm sure there must be ways to make it easier?!

 

cheers

[Locoblade 0]

Looking a bit closer it's just the seasonXX-poster.jpg and seasonXX-banner.jpg  images being stored in the folders, is that by design or an error?

Edited February 11, 2014 by Locoblade

[Locoblade 0]

The media points to Kids TV as a TV Shows folder, the underlying folder structure is Kids TV\Charlie and Lola

Files are named "Charlie and Lola S01E02 - Charlie Is Broken.m4v"

 

Seems to be the same as I have for others, and the name seems to be correct for TVDB

 

One oddity though, somehow the previous dev build seemed to generate a second "Charlie and Lola" folder in the same directory with an xml file in and I had two "Charlie and Lola" folders showing in the metadata list. I deleted that second folder with the xml and re-scanned the media but still doesnt pick up

Edited February 13, 2014 by Locoblade

[Luke 37180]

can  you post screenshots of the folders?

[Locoblade 0]

Here you go

[Luke 37180]

and one of the edit page please

[Locoblade 0]

This one?

[Locoblade 0]

Right, solved that but on to another issue :o/

 

I deleted the season images and reinstalled MediaBrowser ensuring the "Save Images within Media Folders" wasn't ticked, and it's is now storing everything centrally. However, the problem now is using the dev build I get various metadata categories that were OK previously now locking themselves and I'm not able to unlock them?

[Luke 37180]

Right, solved that but on to another issue :o/

 

I deleted the season images and reinstalled MediaBrowser ensuring the "Save Images within Media Folders" wasn't ticked, and it's is now storing everything centrally. However, the problem now is using the dev build I get various metadata categories that were OK previously now locking themselves and I'm not able to unlock them?

 

Yea, apologies. You had to take a dev build to resolve a problem, which isn't ideal but that was the option. As it turns out, during this release cycle we're overhauling the metadata fetching. So you need to go to the metadata config area and look through all the options and make sure they're set the way you want. You probably want to disable the "Media Browser Xml" metadata saver for some or all of your media types.

 

The locking bug should be fixed in the latest dev build.

[Locoblade 0]

Cheers, how do I update to the latest dev?

 

If I go to Dashboard it says

 

Version 3.0.5155.42772

A new version of Media Browser Server is available!

Version 3.0.5157.22127 is now available for download.

Please shutdown the server and update manually.

 

If I click on the update manually link it takes me to the main website download page which I am guessing isn't going to give me a dev build?

 

Edit: is that because Im running it as a service?

Edited February 13, 2014 by Locoblade

[Luke 37180]

just stop the service and use the regular tray icon app to get the latest update. that's what you have to do if you're using the service on dev builds. once the next public release is out you'll want to set your update level back to release to avoid getting dev updates