Collection naming question

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

This is on a different computer/server from the one I asked about in another thread.

I created a series of collections and some, but not all, got renamed badly by Emby.

As an example I created a collection that I named "Batman collection" and I verified that was the name it had. Over night it got renamed to "The Batman Lego Collection" and the metadata and artwork showed it as a collection of movies using Legos to act as actors to tell various stories. I have no such movies at all. I just have normal live action Batman movies and they are all named correctly like "Batman (1989).mkv"

I really do not want this to happen. I do not want Emby to try to match my collections to anything. This does not happen on my main server but it does on the backup. 

BTW: Once I changed them again to what I wanted the names have not changed again but it has not yet been 24 hours.

I know that there is a setting somewhere that can suppress this behavior but I cannot find it.

Thanks for any help.

[Carlo 4330]

That collection name sounds to me like it was created by the Auto Box Sets Plugin.

Do you have the Auto Box Sets Plugin installed?

It uses the proper name of the collections and will build your collections automatically for you.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

4 minutes ago, cayars said:

That collection name sounds to me like it was created by the Auto Box Sets Plugin.

Do you have the Auto Box Sets Plugin installed?

It uses the proper name of the collections and will build your collections automatically for you.

I never would include that plugin BUT this is a testing server and has been rebuilt many times and i may have failed to remove that piece or crap this time. I will check now:

Nope I have striped down the plugins as I always do and that plugin is not installed.

Good try. Next batter.

[Carlo 4330]

1 hour ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

piece or crap

Really?

It's one of the most useful plugins for Emby. It'll do the grunt work of managing your collections.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

1 hour ago, cayars said:

Really?

It's one of the most useful plugins for Emby. It'll do the grunt work of managing your collections.

Except I do NOT want my collections managed. That plugin creates a lot of meaningless, for me, collections. I want the collections to be what I want. ex. I want all mummy movies in one collection, from the oldest to the most modern. That plugin insists they belong in  multiple collections.

There are numerous other things it does that I really don't like. The naming problem that you attributed to it as a possibility is just one issue it produces when being used. But, maybe, it deserves to be looked at again. I may decide to test it again on my test server. 

[Carlo 4330]

I'd say it''s worth another look.

Something else to think about is that it builds the collections based on the "Official" collection name as listed on the meta data providers sites.  So if a user was to go look at what's in the mummy collection then looks at what's in your mummy collection it's likely the user would think you're wrong.

https://www.themoviedb.org/collection/1733-the-mummy-collection?language=en-US

Now of course when it's your server, you can make collections any dang way you want to.  LOL  But the Auto Box Sets plugin will build the "official" collections and of course automatically update them as you add new content.

Batman, Superman are other examples where collections are broken out for a reason.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

1 minute ago, cayars said:

I'd say it''s worth another look.

Something else to think about is that it builds the collections based on the "Official" collection name as listed on the meta data providers sites.  So if a user was to go look at what's in the mummy collection then looks at what's in your mummy collection it's likely the user would think you're wrong.

https://www.themoviedb.org/collection/1733-the-mummy-collection?language=en-US

Now of course when it's your server, you can make collections any dang way you want to.  LOL  But the Auto Box Sets plugin will build the "official" collections and of course automatically update them as you add new content.

Batman, Superman are other examples where collections are broken out for a reason.

Well what users think is of no concern to me because I am the only user on my server, except when my granddaughters visit. 

I am curious enough to give it a try on my test server. 

BTW: Is there any way to delete all collections at once. Its is very very tedious to do it one at a time.

[Carlo 4330]

Well then, you only have to please a party of One.  LOL

On my system running Windows:

C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\data\collections

adjust the username above to reflect your system info but this will hold the individual collections.  If you ever move your files say from drive e to drive f and they are part of a collection you built manually you would need to modify the collection here by hand to point to the new location.

This knowledge base article explain this better: https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001173192

You will see a folder for each collection.  Inside that folder is the fanart and the collection.xml file.  You would edit this file if you moved content.

If you delete the folders you have deleted the collections.

 

So they are easy to make a copy of "just in case" when playing around or testing.

BTW, the Auto Box Set plugin takes the pain out of moving stuff to different drives as the plugin will fix the collection vs manual collections which require fixing.

I personally let the plugin do the heavy work for me.  For collection I don't like the way they were done I leave but hide using a TAG in the metadata editor.  I use a tag on my system NOSHOW. Then I create a replacement collection. To me this makes for a happy compromise.  When I setup users I add the NOSHOW filter to each user (users->parental code tab->Restrict Items With Tags) so anything tagged on my system with NOSHOW doesn't.

 

I've done that for thing like Batman, Superman and a couple of others. I've also created collections for Oscar nominations/winners and for a few actors to make them easier to access vs searching or filtering in the movies lib. I've also got a few themed Collections vs using playlists i.e. Submarine Movies. CIA/NSA/FBI movies, etc  I prefer collections to playlists for this and it's global of course and can be hidden with a NOSHOW tag I use.

 

Edited July 23, 2020 by cayars

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

@cayars I simply deleted all the folders in that directory and the collections are all gone. I installed the new plugin and it is happily creating new collections.

Further questions:

Is there any problem with deleting collections that way?

if I manually add a movie to one of the created collections will it stick and will the extra movie mess up anything?

If, after the box set plugin is complete, can I rename a few collections and will that stick and will the plugin try to create the renamed collection again?

If I really don't like a particular collection can I delete it and have it not re-appear again.

Can I combine some of the collections and have everything stick?

Is there anything I forgot to as that I should know. 

 

[Carlo 4330]

My goto answer would be to delete the collections from the GUI but you already seen how this works at the directory level so...

I honestly don't know what happens if you add a movie to a Boxset collection.  I don't think I've ever done that to be honest. This one is easy enough to test.

When I've deleted a collection I've had it recreated automatically.  That's why I hide it using the NOSHOW tag.  I then create my own to replace it.

In general, I'd error on the safe side until you test it a bit and assume if Emby created it, that it will "fix" the collections if touched or if you add/remove media in the libraries that is part of the collection. The point of the plugin is to manage and keep the collections it creates up to date with your media.

You could try using the plugin to build your initial list of collections.  Then uninstall the plugin if you wanted and take over manually from that point.  That would be doable but kinds of looses some of the nice features in the plugin.

How many collections did it build for you?

How many do you think you would want to adjust/modify?

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

@cayars It created about 200. I would like to adjust or combine or delete or add to about 25-30 at the most I think.

I do not understand the NOSHOW tag you mention. I do not see anywhere in the metadata to insert a tag. Is that the same as a genre?

Deleting collections from the GUI takes too long as you can only delete them on at a time.

Edited July 23, 2020 by Gilgamesh_48

[Carlo 4330]

OK this is just a personal thing I do.  You may hate it.

Basically when you edit meta data for a movie, show, collection or media item there is a section where you can add a tag.  This tag is anything you want it to be.  Clowns, Adult, NOSHOW, whatever.

So once you have  items set with a TAG you can use the parental tab under the users menu.  In there you can setup TAGs to not display.  So for each user I setup I also setup the NOSHOW tag.  Now the user will never see content tagged this way.  It works for lots of things including TV channels.

So basically I personally don't delete the collections that are created automatically but will "hide" them using my NOSHOW tag.  Then I can create a replacement collection manually to replace it.

Does that make more sense? 

Edited July 23, 2020 by cayars

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

It makes sense but I cannot seem to make it work.

I created a user and gave the new user the same setup as what was previously my only user's setup.

I created a test collection and added a couple of movies to it.

I edited the collection and added the tag NOSHOW to it.

I edited the new user and set up to not show anything with the tag NOSHOW 

I logged out as the primary user and logged back in as the new user and the new user see the new collection.

I verified the new user's settings and the collection has the correct tags and that the tags are identical but the new user still sees the collection

What am I missing?

I have never before had two users because it is just me on my server.

[Carlo 4330]

Try doing the same thing but with a movie or two.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

2 hours ago, cayars said:

Try doing the same thing but with a movie or two.

I did so. It works for movies but it still does not work for collections. *Sigh*

[Carlo 4330]

I've just tested this as well on 4.5.0.14 beta and it's not working for collections.

@Luke can you take a lot at fixing the honoring using tags on collections to hide them?

You can set a tag such as NOSHOW on the collection via the metadata editior.

You can set up a filter for a user to NOT show any items tagged with NOSHOW tag.

Emby displays the collects anyway and doesn't honor the collection.

PS It works fine for individual movies in the collection but not the objective.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

11 minutes ago, cayars said:

I've just tested this as well on 4.5.0.14 beta and it's not working for collections.

@Luke can you take a lot at fixing the honoring using tags on collections to hide them?

You can set a tag such as NOSHOW on the collection via the metadata editior.

You can set up a filter for a user to NOT show any items tagged with NOSHOW tag.

Emby displays the collects anyway and doesn't honor the collection.

PS It works fine for individual movies in the collection but not the objective.

Well I guess all this has served one good purpose and uncovered a bug. I love uncovering bugs even if I did not go looking for them.

Edit: I am also on 4.5.0.14

Edited July 23, 2020 by Gilgamesh_48

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

I thought that bumping this thread would be a good idea as it now exposes a bug and I do not wish to have it forgotten before @Luke or someone else in a position to fix it notices it and responds. 

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

I just discovered that the "NOSHOW" tag as described in this thread works correctly and hides the collection in the "collections" display screens but the collection still displays in the movies display screen. 

I wonder why I did not catch that difference earlier.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

@cayars, or anyone else in a position to answer, do you know if this bug is to be addressed anytime soon? There was an update to the beta server today and it did not address this bug.

I doubt it could have been addressed this fast but since I have discovered the possibility of using the automatic collections plugin for my system and that I can make it behave pretty much as I want all I need is the ability to use tags in parental controls to make it pretty close to perfect for my system.

I know I seem a bit impatient but that is only because I am. At my age waiting is hard because we become painfully aware just how finitely small the number of days reaming to us is and that "smallness" keeps becoming smaller every day. 

Emby is one of the very few joys in my rabidly shortening life (But don't tell my granddaughters that I really intend to live forever and, so far so good.) and I just want it to be perfect for my use.

One more thing: I have tested and discovered that parental control by rating does not work for collections either. That is if I have a user limited to PG-13 and I have a collection rated XXX the collection still shows when browsing. As for tags parental controls for the movies themselves do work.

Edited August 1, 2020 by Gilgamesh_48

[Carlo 4330]

That would be a question for @Luke as he would know what is involved in fixing this parental control bug.

The same thing happens with playlists as well where the tag isn't checked.

[Luke 37022]

Collection visibility is determined by the visibility of the items inside the collection, and in the future, sharing with specific users.

So that means if you have access to at least one item in the collection, then you have access to the collection.

[Carlo 4330]

That's not the issue we're talking about Luke.  Removing things from the collection based on tags or other criteria works fine.

Placing a tag on a playlist or collection itself to hide it doesn't work.

This is important for people wanting to use AutoBoxSets but wants to "fix" a couple of collections without Emby coming back and changing it again.  You should be able to hide a collection using a tag and then create a manual one that you control.

You might also want to create semi questionable names that you wouldn't want kids to see like "Strip Tease Collection" or playlists.  In some cases they might not show due to the content but the admin just might want the collection hidden anyway.  Same with creating these specific for one person in the family but then being able to hide the collection or playlist so everyone else doesn't see them.

Emby will hide all other content tagged this way except these two things.

[Luke 37022]

Quote

Placing a tag on a playlist or collection itself to hide it doesn't work.

And that's what I'm saying is that it's not intended to work. If you don't want a user to see a collection, then make sure they can't see the content within it, and then the collection will go away too.

So in your strip tease collection example, if a user doesn't have access to any videos in that collection, then they won't see that collection.

[Carlo 4330]

Then this is the only place in the server where Parental Filtering doesn't work as expected by a user when they can tag an item.

What about the other situations where a person just wants to hide collections from certain people regardless of content.  I for example have 300 cartoon type collections that I personally don't need to see but my niece and nephew do want to see.

It's an inconsistency in how Emby works the way it is right now.  Is this something you can look into to see how hard it would be to filter at the collection level itself?