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Migrating from Windows to Synology


kurtgschumacher

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kurtgschumacher

I've been running Emby on a Windows system with my media files on several external drives. It became unwieldy so I got a Synnology NAS. I installed Emby, and plugged my media drives into the USB ports and copies my files over. I set up my libraries as they were on the Windows system and waited for the initial scan to finish. So far so good.

 

Then I used the backup/restore plugin to create a backup on the Windows system. I copied the backup files to the Synology system and did a restore. After the server restarted I couldn't see any difference in anything. In particular, my playlist and collections were not there. I've got a lot of playlists and collections, and some of them are very large. My understanding was that the restore would... well, restore them.

 

Does the restore not work between Windows and Synology? If that's the case then it seems to me that its usefulness is limited. I hate to think about having to recreate my collections and playlists manually.

 

Am I missing something? Does anyone have any advice?

 

Thanks!

~~ Kurt

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Happy2Play

Did you only restore Users and Userdata?  I would not restore anything else across different OSes do to potential path issues.

 

Can you post a server log.

 

 

But with path changes your Collections and Playlists have to be manually corrected, will find wiki like and update.

Edited by Happy2Play
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FrostByte

I also migrated from Windows to Synology.  You will need to do some massaging of the playlists to get them back.  Not only might you have to change the paths (can be done with a simple mass replace), but you need to change the userid line (it's a very long alpha numeric string) at the bottom of your playlists.  Even though it recreated the same username, the alpha numeric string changes.  You can get the new number by clicking on your user in the control panel

      <UserId>79cdd81c5eff4c4987a5b623970733bd</UserId>

Once you change that number to the new one and rescan your playlists should show back up

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kurtgschumacher

I realized when I looked at the playlist files on Windows that I would have to change path names. I did SSH in to the Synology... I know, I'm not supposed to do that, but it's the only way to get to the data files. I did find the playlist files, but no collection files.

 

FrostByte, thanks for the tip on the userid. I'll work on getting my playlists working and then see if I can figure out collections. I just looked at the server again and a Collections library has appeared, but it's empty. Probably the userid issue.

 

I'll attack this tomorrow and report on my success, or lack thereof.

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Happy2Play

You have to manually migrate the "Emby-Server\programdata\data\collections" folder to your new install.  It will go in you new programdata path.

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FrostByte
/var/packages/EmbyServer/target/var/data/playlists/

/var/packages/EmbyServer/target/var/data/collections/

 

I like WinSCP.  It's my favorite tool for doing all the things I'm not supposed to do on my NAS :)

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kurtgschumacher

I also migrated from Windows to Synology.  You will need to do some massaging of the playlists to get them back.  Not only might you have to change the paths (can be done with a simple mass replace), but you need to change the userid line (it's a very long alpha numeric string) at the bottom of your playlists.  Even though it recreated the same username, the alpha numeric string changes.  You can get the new number by clicking on your user in the control panel

      <UserId>79cdd81c5eff4c4987a5b623970733bd</UserId>

Once you change that number to the new one and rescan your playlists should show back up

 

I created a playlist and a collection on the Synology server so that I could find my new userid. The collection.xml file doesn't include a userid. The playlist.xml file does, but it's <UserId>1</UserId>.

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kurtgschumacher

You have to manually migrate the "Emby-Server\programdata\data\collections" folder to your new install.  It will go in you new programdata path.

 

Are there any plans to upgrade the backup/restore plugin to include support for collections?

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PenkethBoy

collections you can just copy across

 

the xml files just need the paths within changing

 

no user id to change

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kurtgschumacher

collections you can just copy across

 

 

Easier said than done on a Synology NAS. The only way to get to the /var tree is to SSH in as admin and sudo to root access. You can't get there with any FTP client I've found.

 

So my plan is to put the playlist and collection files in a folder that I have access to; SSH in and sudo; move to the collections and playlists folders; and copy the files from the public folder. Wish me luck!

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kurtgschumacher

Yes, I've already looked at that, and it is specific to Windows. It doesn't work for *nix systems like Synology, the data paths are different as noted by FrostByte earlier in this thread. It either needs to be updated to cover *nix systems, or better have a separate support article.

 

Once I've achieved success I'll post a detailed description of the process here.

 

 

To learn more about this please check out our help article on it:

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001173192-collections-manual-migration

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kurtgschumacher

I have my collections back! Here's what I did. 

 

My media files on the Synology are in a shared directory: Public/EmbyMedia/Movies, Public/EmbyMedia/Music, and Public/EmbyMedia/TV Shows.

The media files on my Windows system were in M:Movies, M:Music, and 'M:TV Shows'

 

1. I copied the 'collections' folder from the Emby data folder on Windows to the Public folder on the Synology server.

 

2. In each collection folder ('collection name [boxset]') I edited the collection.xml file and made the following changes to each <path></path> setting:

2.1 Change all '\' to '/'

2.2 Change the path name from 'R:/Movies' to '/volume1/Public/EmbyMedia/Movies', similarly for Music and TV Shows

 

Synology has locked down root access, so you can't use FTP to get to the collections folder. You have to log in as 'admin' user with ssh. (The built-in ssh command on Windows 10 works fine.) You have to set some things up first.

 

3. In the DSM, go to Control Panel > File Services > Terminal & SNMP and check the boxes to enable the Telnet and SSH services

 

4. Go to Control Panel > User and edit the 'admin' user. Assign a password so you can log in.

 

5. You're ready to do the work now! Log in to the IP address of the Synology as 'admin' and issue the following commands:

sudo -i (enter the 'admin' password when prompted)

cd /var/packages/EmbyServer/target/var/data

cp -r /volume1/Public/collections/* collections

cd collections

chown -R embysvr:users *

ls -al

 

You should see all your collection files. Yay!

 

6. Open the Emby server and scan the files in the 'Collections' library. Open Collections and you should see them all. Yay again!

 

7. It would be a good idea to go back to Synology DMS and disable Telnet/SSH and clear the admin password.

 

Note to the Emby developers: None of this would be necessary if the Backup/Restore plugin would convert collections like it does playlists! 

Edited by kurtgschumacher
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