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Things I Wish I Knew Before I Set Up Emby Server On The Nvidia Shield Pro.


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Netfool

I'm sure many of these topics are documented in the Knowledge Base, the Forum, or in the online Nvidia Shield Pro user guide.  I'm also quite certain nobody actually reads those completely, end-to-end, before doing an Emby Server Install on their shiny new toy.  Listed here are surprises and pitfalls I encountered as a first time user of an Android device and newly arrived refugee from Plex.  

Forum Admins:  PLEASE correct anything I have wrong here!

Taxonomy:  Folders refer to directories and sub-directories on the media store. Libraries are top-level folders. Genres are indices of the metadata contained in individual recording sub-directories. Collections are lists in the form of xml files stored in /Android/data/com.emby.embyserver/files/data/collections as are the image files for the collections.  All of the Collections in the system appear as a Top Level Library called "Collections", and intermixed with folders in the Folders View of a library.

Library Organization: Collections can cross libraries. (i.e. You can have the movie Serenity from the Movies library and the TV series Firefly from the TV Series library in the same collection without defining a Mixed Content Library).

  • Putting movies in a collection takes the individual movies out of the Movies View and inserts a single entry for the collection.  Collections and Folders appear at the top of the Folders View. Folders can be included in a Collection.
     
  • Running out of resources (mostly internal storage) during a conversion can break the server in ways that block a user's access to the system and corrupt the user's profiles and access permissions.  
     
  • It is essential to define at least one or more administrative users in addition to the primary administrator as there are some problems (such as filling internal storage) that can disable an administrator account.
     
  • When you format a USB drive as internal storage, it effectively replaces your current internal storage.  You will no longer be able to use storage space on your existing internal storage for installing large game files.  Make sure the new storage space is larger than your current internal storage (16GB).  This means that the path to the USB drive is /storage/emulated/0/ which was once the path to the 16GB built-in flash.
     
  • After adding a USB drive for internal storage, some things remain in use in the original 16GB of built-in flash. Transcoding and Conversion temp file space are two of those things. So adding USB Flash doesn't help Transcoding and Conversion unless you change the Transcoding Temporary Path and the Conversions Temporary path in the Dashboard.  Alternatively, you can put the Transcoding and Conversions Temporary Paths on network drives.
     
  • Emby Server for the Nvidia Shield comes with more than a dozen plugins pre-installed. However, simply installing a plugin does not necessarily configure it, and most plugins can't be configured from the dashboard.  Select Plugins on the dashboard and then click on each installed plugin to find out if additional configuration is necessary.  
     
  • If you do nothing else with plugins, you must absolutely configure the Server Configuration Backup plugin.  Be sure to read https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159936-backup. But be aware that the Backup plugin does not back up library.db and it's possible to cause some database problems that make the Collections xml files useless. (No, I'm not sure how, but I've done it).
     
  • Conversions are not resumable.  (i.e. if you restart the server you restart any conversions from the beginning).  Discovering this for the first time 8 or 9 hours into a conversion is annoying.
     
  • Bad things can happen if you don't use the proper procedure to shutdown and/or restart the Emby Server.  If you see a message that you need to restart the Emby Server, do things in this order:

                           1.  In the webUI Dashboard, stop any active processes.
                           2.  In the webUI Dashboard, stop the Emby Server using the Power Icon at the top.
                           3.  Switch to the Nvidia Shield Pro Remote, Press the Settings button and select Restart.

  • Way at the bottom of the Dashboard menu is the Scheduled Tasks menu.  There you can find "Rotate Log Files".  If you're chasing a problem (or submitting a log to the forum for help) rotating the log just before you reproduce the problem leaves you with a much smaller log that's a lot easier to decipher.
     
  • Emby server will stretch or squish manually added placeholder images. The correct aspect ratio (width:height) for placeholder images is
              16:9 for Libraries
                3:2 for Movies & TV Shows
                1:1 for Genres
                3:2 for Collections

 

UPDATE: Be sure to read post #6 by @ebr and post #7 by @Luke below they contain important clarifications.

Edited by Netfool
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If the shield is anything like other versions you should be able to change Transcoding and Conversion temp file spaces as well as a couple of other key directories.

Click on the Conversions menu option on the left, then the settings tab up top.  "Temporary file path"

Click on the Transcoding menu option on the left and you should have a field called "Transcoding Temporary path"

Click on the Settings menu option and you can set the "Cache path"

Click on the Library menu option, then the Advanced tab and you can set the "Metadata path"

 

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Happy2Play
55 minutes ago, Netfool said:

Emby server will stretch or squish manually added placeholder images. The correct aspect ratio (width:height) for placeholder images is
          16:9 for Libraries
            3:2 for Movies & TV Shows
            1:1 for Genres
            3:2 for Collections

This is a majority rules situation, so the most images with the same aspect ratio wins in most situations on deciding placeholders.  But there are "View" options on some screens so you will need to provide specific examples.

See my genre is 3:2

AR.thumb.jpg.e36385135fd1ca2153db41e907f78572.jpg

But yes My Media (Libraries) are 16:9 place holders and expect 16:9 images if assigning static image.

Have you click the three dot menu for view options in each library?

media.jpg.f9e00ba32b2d488cef5bf15a5ee85c75.jpg

Edited by Happy2Play
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Netfool
5 hours ago, cayars said:

If the shield is anything like other versions you should be able to change Transcoding and Conversion temp file spaces as well as a couple of other key directories.

OK... my writing obviously isn't clear enough...   I thought that's what I said here:

6 hours ago, Netfool said:

After adding a USB drive for internal storage, some things remain in use in the original 16GB of built-in flash. Transcoding and Conversion temp file space are two of those things. So adding USB Flash doesn't help Transcoding and Conversion unless you change the Transcoding Temporary Path and the Conversions Temporary path in the Dashboard.  Alternatively, you can put the Transcoding and Conversions Temporary Paths on network drives.

 

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Netfool
5 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

This is a majority rules situation, so the most images with the same aspect ratio wins in most situations on deciding placeholders. 

 

5 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

Have you click the three dot menu for view options in each library?

Yes, I have, but most of the views are pre-populated so unless you go through and manually change a majority of the images to some other aspect ratio, the defaults will win.   Picking a banner image as a primary for a movie or TV series is only going to end badly.   I strongly suspect that most users are like myself and just looking for something more readable across the room than a mosaic of the primary images of the movies in a collection or the movies of that genre.
(Granted;  I'm a septuagenarian and my vision isn't what it once was).

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14 hours ago, Netfool said:

Libraries are top-level folders.

That's not completely accurate.  Libraries are virtual - made up of whatever top-level folders you wish.  They have no direct relationship to your file system (except as defined by you by pointing the library to specific folders).

14 hours ago, Netfool said:

Genres are indices of the metadata contained in individual recording sub-directories.

Genres are just metadata and the UI provides you the ability to view any particular library in a genre view which, again is virtual.  Not related to recording...

14 hours ago, Netfool said:

Putting movies in a collection takes the individual movies out of the Movies View and inserts a single entry for the collection

This is not accurate.  Putting an item in a collection, simply adds that item to that collection.  Then there are specific ways that collection can be viewed.  There is a view-level option to "Collapse items into collections" which will do as  you state above but that is optional and can be different for different views.

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Putting movies in a collection takes the individual movies out of the Movies View and inserts a single entry for the collection.

Out of the box no it doesn't. It only does this if you configure it to. If this is what you're getting then it's because you said you wanted it.

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Netfool
20 hours ago, Netfool said:

Putting movies in a collection takes the individual movies out of the Movies View and inserts a single entry for the collection.  Collections and Folders appear at the top of the Folders View. Folders can be included in a Collection.
 

6 hours ago, ebr said:

This is not accurate.  Putting an item in a collection, simply adds that item to that collection.  Then there are specific ways that collection can be viewed.  There is a view-level option to "Collapse items into collections" which will do as  you state above but that is optional and can be different for different views.

 

3 hours ago, Luke said:

Putting movies in a collection takes the individual movies out of the Movies View and inserts a single entry for the collection.

Out of the box no it doesn't. It only does this if you configure it to. If this is what you're getting then it's because you said you wanted it.

Thanks to @ebr and @Luke for reminding me this is a user setting that I had changed as I wandered through the "twisty little maze of passages" that is the server webUI back when I first set it up.

For others as new to all this as I, you can get to it by clicking on a Library and then at the top of the library listing click on the ●●● menu near the top.  That brings up view settings for each view:

560259113_ScreenShot2020-08-13at1_14_34PM.thumb.png.6b09e52c5bd1a43f3e2964517368a085.png

(Please don't take my remarks about the webUI as derogatory.  UI design is a really hard problem, and Emby Server's is far better than most!)

The 'twisty little maze of passages' is from Colossal Cave Adventure, one of the earliest computer games (from the 1970's).  For more information see: the Wikipedia article.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Karamdd
On 8/13/2020 at 9:41 PM, Netfool said:

 

Thanks to @ebr and @Luke for reminding me this is a user setting that I had changed as I wandered through the "twisty little maze of passages" that is the server webUI back when I first set it up.

For others as new to all this as I, you can get to it by clicking on a Library and then at the top of the library listing click on the ●●● menu near the top.  That brings up view settings for each view:

560259113_ScreenShot2020-08-13at1_14_34PM.thumb.png.6b09e52c5bd1a43f3e2964517368a085.png

(Please don't take my remarks about the webUI as derogatory.  UI design is a really hard problem, and Emby Server's is far better than most!)

The 'twisty little maze of passages' is from Colossal Cave Adventure, one of the earliest computer games (from the 1970's).  For more information see: the Wikipedia article.

How to enter a server

 

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4 minutes ago, Karamdd said:

How to enter a server

 

Hi there, have you setup your own Emby Server?

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