XML & NFO Questions

[Happy2Play 8296]

What you could do is just open the editor for a movie and click the save button. If you have nfo saving enabled, that will generate an nfo.

 

Yep, just depends on how much media you have customized.

[One2Go 98]

Got it. The only time I may need to use Emby's Metadata manager when a library scan and a refresh of the meta data does not work after updating the meta data content and I have to see why. However this has not happened yet as far as I can remember the XML and Graphics all displayed properly after a refresh.

 

Thanks for your help.

[moviefan 184]

Yes, MCM will read the data in the XML and create a NFO, running it against 4,000 movies and 300 TV shows should not take long because you are not scrapping anything or getting any info you will just create a NFO based on your XML.

 

First add the folders where your movies are stored.

 

Second go to settings and select this

 

After this go to tools and select the "Create external Metadata for all files"

 

Thank you for this suggestion.  I do have MCM which I pretty much only use to rename folders these days but I am going through this process now.

 

This unfortunately will not restore any of my earlier customizations which were lost in the DB, but will at least allow me to hopefully re-do them as time allows and not have Emby eat them again in the future.

 

EDIT:

After going through this process it looks like MCM messed up 40% of the parental ratings by changing them into this kind of stuff:

 

 

 

 

Not sure why it is doing that but I am pretty much going to have to touch every file again to ensure those are right now so not sure it saved me any time in the long run.

Edited March 15, 2018 by moviefan

[ebr 14921]

This unfortunately will not restore any of my earlier customizations which were lost in the DB, but will at least allow me to hopefully re-do them as time allows and not have Emby eat them again in the future.

 

If you feel you've already lost your customizations, why try to use MCM and stick to XML and potentially have similar problems in the future?

 

Why not allow Emby to create nfos for you and then it will just work...

[moviefan 184]

If you feel you've already lost your customizations, why try to use MCM and stick to XML and potentially have similar problems in the future?

 

Why not allow Emby to create nfos for you and then it will just work...

 

I wasn't trying to stick to XML.  I was trying to create all the NFOs at one time so I could be done with XML but Emby doesnt have that option unless I click every single individual title.  I thought this process would avoid that, but given MCM's issues with converting the ratings without screwing a lot of them up it doesn't seem avoidable at this point any longer.

 

I guess the other thing here is my lack of confidence in Emby's ability to save all of my changes locally after this fiasco.  I understand this was likely the result of my continued use of XML while Emby decided to stop supporting it, but my confidence is still shaken.

 

On another note - do you know when the date was that Emby stopped supporting writing the changes to XML?

[Luke 37094]

Probably a couple years ago

[Happy2Play 8296]

Thank you for this suggestion.  I do have MCM which I pretty much only use to rename folders these days but I am going through this process now.

 

This unfortunately will not restore any of my earlier customizations which were lost in the DB, but will at least allow me to hopefully re-do them as time allows and not have Emby eat them again in the future.

 

EDIT:

After going through this process it looks like MCM messed up 40% of the parental ratings by changing them into this kind of stuff:

 

 

 

 

Not sure why it is doing that but I am pretty much going to have to touch every file again to ensure those are right now so not sure it saved me any time in the long run.

 

That is the MPAA Rating that use to come from IMDB.  Are you saying you are still getting this rating? 

 

Also there is a new option in MCM on the Kodi/XBMC tab to use short MPAA/Content rating I had Pete add for this issue.  Tab is available when generate Kodi/SBMC compatible metadata is enabled.

 

[moviefan 184]

 

That is the MPAA Rating that use to come from IMDB.  Are you saying you are still getting this rating? 

 

Also there is a new option in MCM on the Kodi/XBMC tab to use short MPAA/Content rating I had Pete add for this issue.  Tab is available when generate Kodi/SBMC compatible metadata is enabled.

 

 

Yes MCM seemed to convert all of the short ratings to those longer ratings as part of the conversion.  And also changed a bunch of them just into saying "Rated."

 

I will try the option you pointed out.  Didn't notice that initially - i guess because I just enabled the Kodi/XMBC setting for the first time yesterday.

[Happy2Play 8296]

Yes MCM seemed to convert all of the short ratings to those longer ratings as part of the conversion.  And also changed a bunch of them just into saying "Rated."

 

I will try the option you pointed out.  Didn't notice that initially - i guess because I just enabled the Kodi/XMBC setting for the first time yesterday.

 

Wrong forum to discuss this, but I can't reproduce these rating,

[Carlo 4330]

If someone had started out without NFO but then later changed this setting to use it but already has thousand of files, is there any easy way to have the system save all current DB info to NFO files so they will have it (without reloading the library and loosing already customized info)?

[moviefan 184]

Wrong forum to discuss this, but I can't reproduce these rating,

 

I just re-ran the process with that shortened ratings setting enabled and it actually made it worse.

 

Now most of the titles just say "Rated"

 

I guess it's best just to delete all the NFOs MCM created, rescan, and click on every damn title and resave them.  Sigh.

[moviefan 184]

Man this is super frustrating.

 

So I've deleted all of the NFOs except for the titles I had manually fixed.

 

I rescanned the library.  But it's not reading the and updating the ratings with the values from the XML.  Even though there is no NFO files and I have the metadata settings to prefer XML.

 

Seems like Emby decided that the NFO files contained custom edits and put those in the DB.

 

@@Luke How can I make Emby read the local data and update the database?  Is the only way to fix this to destroy the database again?  Is there any way to tell Emby to stop hiding custom edits within the database and just use local data?

Edited March 16, 2018 by moviefan

[Happy2Play 8296]

I just re-ran the process with that shortened ratings setting enabled and it actually made it worse.

 

Now most of the titles just say "Rated"

 

I guess it's best just to delete all the NFOs MCM created, rescan, and click on every damn title and resave them.  Sigh.

 

To me that says your xml metadata needs updated as it contains info that is no longer fetched as this issue is from a long time ago.

[Luke 37094]

With just a library scan? If you want it to re-scan files that have already been scanned in, then you need to do some kind of force manual refresh. The regular library scan is only looking for files that have changed.

[moviefan 184]

To me that says your xml metadata needs updated as it contains info that is no longer fetched as this issue is from a long time ago.

 

I don't understand what you are saying.  My XML ratings are the accurate ones I wish Emby to use.

 

What exactly do I need to do to get Emby to read them?

 

Please dont tell me click on all 4000 movies individually and select refresh.

[moviefan 184]

With just a library scan? If you want it to re-scan files that have already been scanned in, then you need to do some kind of force manual refresh. The regular library scan is only looking for files that have changed.

 

So if I click refresh Metadata on a given library and select Replace All Emby will read the files then?

[Happy2Play 8296]

Can you post a xml for an item that shows the wrong Rating.

[moviefan 184]

Sure.  Attached.  Content rating is PG-13.

 

Emby shows the rating as "Rated"

 

 

 

 

EDIT:  Sorry the site wouldnt let me upload the XML directly I had to zip it.  It's there now.

Edited March 16, 2018 by moviefan

[moviefan 184]

I just turned off the downloaders for movies and tried manually refreshing this title with "Replace all Metadata" setting and it still shows the same rating.

[Happy2Play 8296]

I assume that rating came from the nfo.

 

 

Unless I missed something looking at the xml plugin code there is no reference to FormalMPAA only ContentRating and MPAARating

<ContentRating>PG-13</ContentRating> 

<FormalMPAA>Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, language and some sexuality</FormalMPAA>

@@Luke

 

Is moviefan having this issue because everything is already save to the database?

[moviefan 184]

Well, since I couldn't get any answer here I just blew away the DB again and rebuilt.

 

One thing to point out - actually a nice surprise - Emby created NFOs for ALL of my movies just by clicking on each Library and doing a refresh.  I turned off the downloaders before doing all of this just to make sure nothing was changed during the process and then turned them back on afterwards.

 

So to be clear - anyone who is stuck in the position I was before the DB was destroyed with lots of customizations that only exist within the DB - it appears that enabling NFO creation and then doing a refresh will write all the customizations locally to NFOs.  And anyone who is looking to migrate from XML to NFO should be able to use the same process.  No python scripting necessary.

 

Nice feature that should be advertised a lot more clearly.

[Luke 37094]

Thanks for the feedback.

[unisoft 282]

Yes, MCM will read the data in the XML and create a NFO, running it against 4,000 movies and 300 TV shows should not take long because you are not scrapping anything or getting any info you will just create a NFO based on your XML.

 

First add the folders where your movies are stored.

 

Second go to settings and select this

 

 

 

After this go to tools and select the "Create external Metadata for all files"

 

 

 

 

The problem with this, is that even if you correct by hand the genre information that MCM fails to create properly, when it creates the NFO, it's back to being incorrect again!

 

What MCM does (example):

 

 <Genre>Animation</Genre>

 

What it should be so it appears in Emby Meta Manager:

 

 <Genres>

 <Genre>Animation</Genre>

</Genres>

 

What goes into the NFO created by MCM even if you have corrected to 3 line entry above in SERIES.XML:

 <Genre>Animation</Genre>

 

 

 

Suggest changing your XML files by hand or a bulk editor, then remove library from Emby and add again or refresh all meta data for everything or affected seasons/episodes.

Ensure internet fetchers are disabled when doing this. The NFOs get created by Emby then and as the XML is correct, the genre should now import (and other fields).

This is for anything with SERIES.XML, I still have an issue with MOVIE.XML regardless of genre tag style.

Edited September 18, 2018 by unisoft

[Happy2Play 8296]

The problem with this, is that even if you correct by hand the genre information that MCM fails to create properly, when it creates the NFO, it's back to being incorrect again!

 

What MCM does (example):

 

 <Genre>Animation</Genre>

 

What it should be so it appears in Emby Meta Manager:

 

 <Genres>

 <Genre>Animation</Genre>

</Genres>

 

What goes into the NFO created by MCM even if you have corrected to 3 line entry above in SERIES.XML:

 <Genre>Animation</Genre>

 

 

 

Suggest changing your XML files by hand or a bulk editor, then remove library from Emby and add again or refresh all meta data for everything or affected seasons/episodes.

Ensure internet fetchers are disabled when doing this. The NFOs get created by Emby then and as the XML is correct, the genre should now import (and other fields).

This is for anything with SERIES.XML, I still have an issue with MOVIE.XML regardless of genre tag style.

 

Sorry I don't see this.

 

series xml

<Genre>|Action|Adventure|Science-Fiction|</Genre>

 

exported MCM nfo

<genre>Action</genre>

<genre>Adventure</genre>

<genre>Science-Fiction</genre>

 

But yes it would be nice to have to have piped Genre processed like is does for Actors.

 /// Used to split names of comma or pipe delimeted genres and people

Here is the Actors code, just don't know how to add it for Genre

                case "Actors":
                    {
                        var actors = reader.ReadInnerXml();
                        if (actors.Contains("<"))
                        {

                            // This is one of the mis-named "Actors" full nodes created by MB2
                            // Create a reader and pass it to the persons node processor
                            FetchDataFromPersonsNode(XmlReader.Create(new StringReader("<Persons>" + actors + "</Persons>")), itemResult);
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            // Old-style piped string
                            foreach (var p in SplitNames(actors).Select(v => new PersonInfo { Name = v.Trim(), Type = PersonType.Actor }))
                            {
                                if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(p.Name))
                                {
                                    continue;
                                }
                                itemResult.AddPerson(p);
                            }
                        }
                        break;
                    }

What do you mean by "I still have an issue with MOVIE.XML regardless of genre tag style."?  These are read from xml fine.

 

MCM movie.xml

<Genres>

  <Genre>Crime</Genre>

  <Genre>Romance</Genre>

  <Genre>Thriller</Genre>

</Genres>

Edited September 19, 2018 by Happy2Play

[unisoft 282]

I changed some by hand and some with an editor to correct the XML genre issue.

 

After this, series.xml imported fine for most series. I have a few seasons where despite XML looking like all the others, the dB refuses to import any of the detail and used the file name as the episode title (less extension).

 

As for movie.xml - I had this from MB 2.6.2 days where a single episode programme or TV film existed but not a series worked fine for years.

 

I had to rename movie.xml to series.xml and it then imported fine.

 

Weird thing is, my actual proper movies were 100% imported fine since day 1, yet all the XML files were created by MCM over many years. TV wasn't done at a later date so they've all used the same versions of MCM.

 

I have a couple of m4a music files that show cover art and info fine in any other program using IDv3 tags edited by softpointer tag and rename app. Even if I use the emby meta data manager, it doesn't see info or cover art in the track, and doesn't save it. Think this must be a cache issue or bad record in the dB. I have tried refreshing all meta data. I have even physically removed the track, renamed it and changed the song name in the idv3 tag and embedded a new job for the cover art. Emby still refuses to see it's info yet MB 2.6.2 happy as usual.

 

Don't get me wrong, Emby looks like being a great app and I do hope to ditch many years of MB, but I feel the movie.xml thing and the genre tag issue should have been in the wiki for people migrating over. It was a lot of pain, allied to some dialogues not indicating for a newbie whether source files would be deleted or just the library reference if for example you blew a library away. I've already put some feedback for the LG app, it looks great but still has some basics and rough edges to iron out like spacing between sections on home screen, and font size far too small for top menu, a-z picker and section headings. That's in the feature request section feedback on that

 

The team done good work so far, I was really happy with MB 2.6.2, but no menu entry points for Emby for WMC was dead in the water for me, but a complete replacement for Windows Media Center may be possible, especially if the rough edges can be polished.....