Primary images keep disappearing from most recently added movies

[rastriffler 0]

I've been running an Emby server on a standalone mac mini for several months, but suddenly, recently, I'm having a problem with the primary images disappearing for the most recently added movies (currently 5 of them).

 

When this happens, I click on the triple dot menu for each of them, select "Edit Images", search, select a primary image from the options returned, and save. 

 

This seems to fix the problem for a short period of time, but usually by the next day, if I bring up the Emby interface in a web browser, or open the Emby App on either FireTV Cube or Apple TV, the images are missing again from the 5 most recently added movies.  They are even missing if I open Emby in a browser on the server machine itself.

 

I have repeated this process numerous times, and the images always revert to textual placeholders.

 

The server is running on a mac mini that is running macOS Catalina (10.15.3), the Emby server version 4.3.1.0 (most recent).

I am allowing Emby to store all files and metadata in the default locations.

I am doing no cleanup or deletion of files on the server.

 

Here is an image of what the movie images keep reverting to:

 

 

 

Any help would be hugely appreciated.  This is driving me crazy.

 

Thanks!

[Happy2Play 8218]

You will need to post a server log of when this happened.

[rastriffler 0]

I believe this log should capture it...

embyserver-63717494398.txt

Edited February 18, 2020 by rastriffler

[rastriffler 0]

Another data point that may or may not be helpful:

 

When I browse through these directories:

   ~emby-server/cache/remote-images/

   ~emby-server/cache/images/resized-images/

 

I see multiple copies of the primary image files for the movies in question, downloaded/created on different dates. 

So there is record of my having downloaded the images multiple times.  Not sure if this is confusing the server..?

 

Is it possible that I need to somehow refresh/resync/rebuild the cache?

[rastriffler 0]

One more thing...

 

I updated the image on one of the problematic movies, then imported two new movies.  Oddly, both new movies imported fine (primary images are showing), but the problematic movie (Zoolander) updated to show a background image, rather than the primary image...so it seems adding a new movie causes some kind of refresh which some movies are not reacting well to.

[Luke 36992]

Where are the images located?

[rastriffler 0]

I haven't changed any defaults, so I assume that they are wherever Emby normally stores them, but I see them (with odd, generated names) in these directories:

   ~emby-server/cache/remote-images/

   ~emby-server/cache/images/resized-images/

[Luke 36992]

No that's server output cache from what the apps request. The originals are stored in the server's metadata folder, or in the original media folders if you enabled that.

 

I'm asking because once we investigate I think we're going to find that you have something deleting the original image files, or preventing them from being accessed.

[rastriffler 0]

Please forgive my ignorance here...when I set everything up using defaults it all seemed to work fine, so I'm only finding out the details of how some of this works now.

 

So...

 

 - I do not have a metadata path specified for the library

 - Under Nfo Metadata, both "Save image paths within nfo files" and "Enable path substitution" are checked.

 

~/emby-server/metadata/library  seems to contain poster, backdrop, and folder images.

 

All of the movies in my Library are .mp4 files, which already contain the images.  I don't suppose there is a way to leverage that?

 

Also, the primary images for the two movies I imported last night, which imported perfectly, are now incorrect.  I wonder if they are somehow getting messed up by the scheduled automatic media scan?

 

BTW, thanks very much for your help so far!

Edited February 19, 2020 by rastriffler

[rastriffler 0]

Attaching the log from last night, in case that helps.

 

 

embyserver-63717715271.txt

[Luke 36992]

There's nothing obvious here. The library scan finished with basically no activity. Maybe one of the previous log files might have some indication, did you look in them? Something is probably tampering with the files under the server' s metadata folder.

[rastriffler 0]

Could it be another Emby plugin, like Auto Box Sets, for example?  That's the only non-standard thing I have added.  That machine is used solely as an Emby server, so nothing should be accessing that directory at all.

 

The only other thing I can think of (though I've done this from the beginning) is that I have a Carbon Copy Cloner task that runs every night at midnight to copy any new movies or TV shows from my desktop to the library folder(s) used by Emby on the server.  But that should only be touching the folders on the external drive that hold the movies; it doesn't access the emby-server folder or any sub-folders.

[Luke 36992]

What I would do is use edit images to download an image. The server log should then indicate the full path it was downloaded to. Make a note of the path and then the next time the image disappears take a look the contents of the folder and let us know what you find.

[rastriffler 0]

OK, sounds like a plan!  Thanks for your help!

[rastriffler 0]

OK, so I have more information, a partial solution, and another question  ;o)

 

It turns out that two things were happening:

1. When I modify the images for any of the problematic movies, the artwork was being stored in the folder that contains the movie, e.g., Emby/Movies/Zoolander.mp4 and Emby/Movies/Zoolander-poster.jpg
2. The automatic copying job that copies new movies from my desktop to the server's drive was deleting any files that were not in the corresponding folder on the desktop

This explains why the newly added images were being deleted.  I've adjusted the copy job to never delete anything from the Emby library drive.  Original problem solved.

 

However, the image files are only being stored in the folder with the media for the movies I've explicitly edited, not the movies that were imported in the past.

 

So my question is, why is it storing the image files with the media for this small set of movies, when it clearly isn't for the bulk of my media?  Is this something that changed in a somewhat recent update?

[Luke 36992]

 

However, the image files are only being stored in the folder with the media for the movies I've explicitly edited, not the movies that were imported in the past.

 

So my question is, why is it storing the image files with the media for this small set of movies, when it clearly isn't for the bulk of my media?  Is this something that changed in a somewhat recent update?

 

You must have turned on saving images to local media folders, however, you probably did this after all those initial movies were imported.

 

At the top of the library settings dialog, there is this help text right here:

Please let us know if this answers things for you. Thanks.

[rastriffler 0]

Although I really don't remember changing that setting, it certainly would explain what is happening.

 

Thanks very much for all of your help, and for your patience ;o)  Emby really is an awesome product, and the support is great when newbies like me run into issues. 

[Luke 36992]

Thanks for the feedback !