Question about custom season names

[Invader115 10]

I have a large collection of TV shows on Emby, and not all of them can be cleanly divided into seasons. Many are split into volumes, and some are split into much more specialized parts. After installing the latest Emby version, these custom-named seasons were busted up into their own TV series entries, which is obviously not ideal.

 

 

Here is the first row of my TV series in alphabetical order. These numbered "shows" are actually seasons for a cartoon called Total Drama, where they were properly displayed before this update.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Going further into the alphabet, more serious issues arise. For instance, these. These "Assorted" folders are for recorded shows where continuity isn't important enough to justify the effort of sorting episodes. As you can see, I have a lot of shows like that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's not all. Closer to the end of the alphabet is another batch of shows that were really screwed by this update. These "volumes" are more annoying than the last set because these are typically shows where continuity does matter, and where I have put in the effort to organize them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emby ups the ante toward the very bottom, where it has decided to take some individual episodes and stick them on the series screen as well.

 

Notably, the affected episodes are all stored in individual folders, but this part's still surprising because they're subfolders of an Assorted folder.

 

Two additional screenshots are included for this part, showing the directory structure of the affected episodes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cause of this issue, at least generally, is pretty obvious. I was using Emby for a while, saw an update for the server and took a break to let it install. When I came back the problem was there.

 

 

The version that gave me this problem is 4.1.0.26. All was perfectly fine right before I installed the update.

 

None of my shows had their directory structure altered by the update. In terms of file paths, everything is identical to how it was before the update.

 

 

Anyway, I hope I've done an adequate job of explaining why this is an enormous problem for me. I was very happy with how everything was sorted before, and if this problem isn't reverted I'll have to spend a lot of effort reorganizing things in a way I'm much less happy with.

 

[Happy2Play 8282]

Yep the changes to "Improve series folder detection" is affecting your structure as those custom folders are no longer seen as seasons.

[Invader115 10]

That certainly seems to be the culprit.

 

I'm not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems to me that this could be avoided by preventing Emby from searching for additional series in the subfolders of already-detected series.

 

EDIT: After going the better part of a day with no more word on my problem, it seems pretty clear that my old layout's not coming back. At some point I'll make a post detailing however I get around this problem. I don't know if anyone else did things like I did, but I'll share the info just in case.

Edited April 19, 2019 by Invader115

[Luke 37070]

 

 

it seems to me that this could be avoided by preventing Emby from searching for additional series in the subfolders of already-detected series.

We do actually already have this, but in your case the top level was not detected as a series folder anymore because it doesn't look like one - no season folders or episode files.

[Invader115 10]

That makes a lot of sense, and I have no sage back-seat developer advice for that one. I'm sure that nugget of information will come in handy when I get into reorganizing my library.

 

 

Edits w/ confirmed fix (for my use case):

 

Sure enough, going straight to the system folder of What History Forgot and creating an empty subfolder called "Season 0", placed alongside my "Assorted" folder (which still holds all the episodes), was enough to make Emby recognize the series and its episodes properly. Thanks for the reply; it looks like fixing this is going to be a lot easier than I anticipated.

 

This fix adds an unnecessary "Specials" folder to the show's Emby page, but that's much preferable to my entire TV library looking like it was put in a blender.

 

 

Emby, once again able to detect my series, displays their custom season names just as it did before. Fixing the rest of the affected series was as simple as copying that empty "Season 0" folder and pasting one into every affected series' system directory.

 

 

Note 4/21/19: I'm trying to edit this post to make it more understandable. It wasn't very readable before.

Edited April 22, 2019 by Invader115

[dcol 165]

Emby's logic drilling down folders has a caveat. It sees the word Season as a show if there are no numbers after it and will pick up bad metadata based on that word.

For me, every show under the folder 'Season' will use the metadata for a show called 'My Fighting Season'. If Emby records the show it sets the correct metadata, but if the show comes from an external source and uses a folder named 'Season' you will get the wrong metadata. For me, I use NextPVR and for shows that do not have season info, such as specials, news, sports, you will get the wrong metadata. I think they need to fix this.

 

And heaven help us if a show is ever released called 'Season'. Maybe a cooking show.

Edited April 20, 2019 by dcol

[dcol 165]

Yes, and I have come up with a solution that works!. I just added a '0' to the folder name Season, so every show will be at least 'Season 0'

I assume regular shows that have 'Season 001' will also work.

 

I also tested a show that is S07E05. Created folder Season 007 and it also works. Problem solved

[iNSPiREDS 0]

Just wanted to report that I had the exact same issue. If all the episode folders/files aren't placed inside a "Season X" folder, Emby loses the plot.

I usually just keep multiple episodes of the same Season on my hard drive and as such don't have the need to create a redundant folder called "Season X". This used to work perfectly before, but with this past update, it doesn't anymore.

 

After a bit of testing:

 

This works fine. The metadata is loaded just fine and Emby is able to establish this is Season 1 of The Handmaids Tale.

 

 

 This is where Emby has a brain fart and fails to interpret each folder as an individual episode. This used to work flawlessly before the update.

 

[Luke 37070]

The Ray Donovan example will be resolved in Emby Server 4.2+. Thanks.

[karmantyu 3]

If a show – folder is not recognized as a show from database by Emby the subfolders are listed still separately. The season's subfolders in my case located in the show folders are named SE1, SE2 or SE01 or S01 and so on. Should I rename the season folders like Season 01  or is there a possibility anywhere to input Emby the wildcard patterns what it should regard as a show's season subfolder? Emby could take the show folder name as the show name if its not recognized from database. I think SEn* , Snn* where the folders are subfolders and ‘n’ means numbers would be nice to have as recognition patterns for the season's subfolders.

Thanks

Edited February 6, 2020 by karmantyu

[PenkethBoy 2063]

rename as Season 1 , Season 2 etc and you will get much better matching

 

and read this

 

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159110-tv-naming

Edited February 6, 2020 by PenkethBoy

[PhyberApex 16]

THANK YOU KIND SIR FOR REPORTING WITH YOUR SOLUTION! THIS TOOK ME FOREVER!

 

Finally there is order!

 

Thanks you so much!

 

That makes a lot of sense, and I have no sage back-seat developer advice for that one. I'm sure that nugget of information will come in handy when I get into reorganizing my library.

 

 

Edits w/ confirmed fix (for my use case):

 

Sure enough, going straight to the system folder of What History Forgot and creating an empty subfolder called "Season 0", placed alongside my "Assorted" folder (which still holds all the episodes), was enough to make Emby recognize the series and its episodes properly. Thanks for the reply; it looks like fixing this is going to be a lot easier than I anticipated.

 

This fix adds an unnecessary "Specials" folder to the show's Emby page, but that's much preferable to my entire TV library looking like it was put in a blender.

 

 

Emby, once again able to detect my series, displays their custom season names just as it did before. Fixing the rest of the affected series was as simple as copying that empty "Season 0" folder and pasting one into every affected series' system directory.

 

 

Note 4/21/19: I'm trying to edit this post to make it more understandable. It wasn't very readable before.

[dcol 165]

rename as Season 1 , Season 2 etc and you will get much better matching

 

and read this

 

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159110-tv-naming

For me this issue is in Music Videos, where there are no 'seasons' to speak of.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

what has Music videos got to do with season folder names?