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Make collections path independent


levander

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levander

Please make collections independent of it’s path so relocating or renaming media in folder structures doesn’t affect collections and its items.

 

I often update media files, it’s folder name or/and folder structure for various reasons and every time I do that those items affected disappears from collections I put them in. 

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Makes sense, but, actually, this is a really tough one because there isn't really any other way to uniquely identify something other than its fully qualified path.  You might think hash but one, there is a performance impact to that and two that wouldn't survive any change you made to the file either. 

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levander

I know it is tough, I already asked about it in other threads and it was clear from the discussion that it is problematic. But maybe someone would also be interested and have some ideas. My ideas might not be useful because I’m not a coder but maybe it would be enough to change how emby deals with the way it is scanning... that is: when location or filename is changed why emby wouldn’t just update the location and not assume that media doesn’t exist and so it removes it and then again creates it...?

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If you create an m3u music playlist for use in any media player, the same thing applies. Collections are essentially the same concept as a playlist, they are just presented differently.

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Happy2Play

From a AutoBoxset plugin stand point that should already happen as they use the tmdbcollectionid, but from a custom collection stand point what would be used?  There is no way to know the item has only changed paths or name.

 

Collections items would have to be tracked by a universal id (imdb, tmdb, tvdb id), but if one of those don't exist then you are back to where we started, no way to track.

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levander

If you create an m3u music playlist for use in any media player, the same thing applies. Collections are essentially the same concept as a playlist, they are just presented differently.

 

Yes, you told me exactly same thing once. I thought this is not any media player!

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.. that is: when location or filename is changed why emby wouldn’t just update the location and not assume that media doesn’t exist and so it removes it and then again creates it...?

 

Because there is no way for the system to know that is what happened.  All the system sees is one file is gone and another has appeared.

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levander

From a AutoBoxset plugin stand point that should already happen as they use the tmdbcollectionid, but from a custom collection stand point what would be used?  There is no way to know the item has only changed paths or name.

 

Collections items would have to be tracked by a universal id (imdb, tmdb, tvdb id), but if one of those don't exist then you are back to where we started, no way to track.

Nfo? once it is put into collections, item’s nfo could store that data (or emby library db). It is same thing as with other custom data like tags. Tags are not affected when scanning after moving/renaming. 

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Nfo? once it is put into collections, item’s nfo could store that data (or emby library db). It is same thing as with other custom data like tags. Tags are not affected when scanning after moving/renaming. 

 

Theoretically... but managing that and making sure it is all still valid and accurate could very quickly become a difficult task.

 

Plus, not everyone saves to NFOs (in fact, by default, we don't).

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levander

Damn. This is almost exact transcript of already discussed same issue https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/67566-collections-again/

 

It seems like I am only one have this problem. 
 

Well, if collections are essentially same concepts as playlists as Luke put it then “somewhere in future” smart playlists could be (AGAIN!) answer to my problems/wishes. 

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levander

@@ebr @@Luke @@Happy2Play At least would it be possible to make items not disappear from collections so I can see those items with “dead links”? At the moment changed path makes items disappear from collections so it is impossible to know which items in which collections were affected by that change. 

Edited by levander
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levander

You're not the only one -- it is just a difficult problem to solve.

 

I don’t know.... AllI know is in Plex I had collections and I relocated and renamed files without problem. So there must be a way. 

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laie_techie

If there was a "Move Media" function (only available to admin) from within Emby, Emby could update the database entries, NFO files, and physically move the file (assuming the emby user on the file system has write permissions). It is a complex problem, to be sure.

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levander

If there was a "Move Media" function (only available to admin) from within Emby, Emby could update the database entries, NFO files, and physically move the file (assuming the emby user on the file system has write permissions). It is a complex problem, to be sure.

 

 

I don't think that would solve the problem but it would creat more problems. It gets frustrating using OSX Finder sometimes for that purpose (which is dedicated file managing software).

 

I don't know how Plex is doing it but my guess is that it has to do something with "re-linking" changed files with existing items in the library. Emby removes and recreates changed files. 

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Collections are the one thing Plex does way better than emby.

 

Care to expand on that with specifics?  Maybe we can improve.

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levander

Regarding Plex vs Emby collections as I experience it. 

 

Plex doesn’t have problem with titles of this thread. And, yes, you have options per collections to choose how to show it in the library (where emby has only per library option). And that makes it better. 
 

On the other hand there are some very annoying thing s regarding collections in Plex that will NEVER change:

 

First of all Plex mixed up tags with collections, so in Plex that’s same thing. That is huge disadvantage. Secondly, Movie detail screen shows only first (or only one random) Collection which the movie is part of. It’s true that emby only recently introduced that feature (which I haven’t tested).  

 

Emby collections were one of the main reasons I left Plex (other reasons were nfo support and dedicated people details). But it is  also true that at that time emby had more collections features: collections within collections and people in collections, they were removed.
Funny thing is that over time I stopped using collections in emby because it is too complicated, time consuming and unreliable to manually maintain link paths of movies, folders I happen to remove or rename for whatever reason. So, it’s s*** from both sides. 

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  • 1 month later...

I find this to be a constant problem as well.

 

Every single collection I have only contains movies with imdb/tmdb/tvdb IDs.

So my idea would be to allow both the full path to the media file and a unique imdb/tmdb/tvdb ID in the collection.xml.

If the item you add to a collection has a imdb/tmdb/tvdb ID, then store that in the collection.xml file.

If the item does not have a unique ID, then store the full path to the file.

 

Obviously a solution such as this would not improve things for those that are using collections for home videos or other content without a unique ID, but at least it would be better than only ever using the file path.

 

Perhaps something like this in the collection.xml:

<Item>
  <LocalTitle>Christmas</LocalTitle>
  <CollectionItems>
    <CollectionItem>
      <Path>C:\Videos\2016\Christmas.morning.2016.mp4</Path>
    </CollectionItem>
    <CollectionItem>
      <IMDbId>tt1430607</IMDbId>
      <TMDbId>51052</TMDbId>
    </CollectionItem>
  </CollectionItems>
</Item>
 

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And what if you had two different versions of the same movie that you didn't wish to be in that collection?

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Good point. It would not work for someone that had collections based on criteria not involving the title, such as a collection of all 720p movies and one of all 1080p movies.

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