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Audio Books and ExternalUrls


steamhead

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steamhead

Many of my audio books have a dedicated web page containing Cast and Production details, so it would be great to be able to set ExternalUrls to provide a link to them.

Problem is, when I try to set the field, the instant I read the record back, it is unset. 

Am I doing something wrong, or am I flogging a dead horse as ExternalUrls isn't supported for Audio Books?

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steamhead

The ExternalUrls field, I looked at objects that had the field set and followed exactly the same format, so something like this
 

"ExternalUrls":[{"Name":"Big Finish","Url":"https://www.bigfinish.com/v/releases/8"}]

I use the usual process of get the record, update the individual field and then post the whole record back with the POST  /emby/Items/{itemID} request and get the usual 204 status like every other request of that type.  However when I immediately read the record back I get -

"ExternalUrls":[],

I suspect, even though it appears empty in every record, it's simply a field not supported by Audio Books, but as I get no error status when trying to set it, it would be nice to know if it's not supported, in which case I'll give up, or it is supported and I need to figure out why it's not working.

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PenkethBoy

Where did you expect this to appear in the UI?

externalURLs are for musicbrainz and Audiodb urls that link to the mbz and adb ids that show as links in the UI for an Audiobook, music etc - so they are supported just not in the way you want.

IIRC back in v3 - artist/movie websites were supported - but was removed as a lot of those links were dead - website removed etc - so just produced noise

if you use Picard and update the metadata for a audiobook that exists on mbz you will see the externalurls populated - 5 for Mbz and maybe 2 for audiodb

I tested adding a bogus externalUrl and what you did does work - but emby just ignores it as you have found - as emby i suspect is looking for specific externalurl names when something does not match it gets ignored - so does not get flagged as an error. This is what i would do as adding error handling for unsupported stuff just gets old very quickly.

 

Alternatives

1. Add it to the Overview - dont think you will get a clickable url but it will at least be visible - but if you double click it so its fully selected in the web app then you can navigate to it in chrome at least - not tried in other apps - but results are likely to be variable

2. You could create a feature request and Luke might add it back - but not sure its worth it for 99% of users

1 is your best option as 2 very unlikely to get any traction 

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steamhead

I expect it to appear in the UI exactly where it does for the external links for Musicbrainz etc.  I can see these are set by the meta data collectors, but as they hold the site label and full url, rather than just an ID, there's no reason to assume they couldn't be set for anything, by anyone - except when you try it, you can't 😞  Glad it's not just me.

I've already tried 1 and as you say doesn't become a clickable link, so not much use on mobile devices, where I listen to my audio books.

I'll just add it to the list of nails and move on.

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PenkethBoy
35 minutes ago, steamhead said:

I expect it to appear in the UI exactly where it does for the external links for Musicbrainz etc.  I can see these are set by the meta data collectors, but as they hold the site label and full url, rather than just an ID, there's no reason to assume they couldn't be set for anything, by anyone - except when you try it, you can't 😞  Glad it's not just me.

Lol :) my expectation would not have been that - as this is Emby and those sort of things only happen my a luck accident

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