Movie Posters not Right

[Doctor Bob 9]

This one has been bugging me for awhile now.
 

Then I launch Emby for Media Center and navigate to Movies. I see this:

Actor heads instead of movie posters.

I tried changing view from Unwatched to Latest, I see the same thing.

 

When I change view from Latest to Watched, I see the movie posters again.

 

What is going one here?
Is there a way to get the movie posters back in the Watched and Unwatched views?

All other media libraries (TV Shows, Documentaries, etc) display fine.
 

[ebr 14902]

Hi.  Are you running the beta server?

[Doctor Bob 9]

Hello ebr,

 

Thank you for getting back to me about this issue.

I don't believe I'm running a beta version of the emby server.

Version 4.5.4.0

 

Emby for Media Center is version 3.0.317.0

OS: Windows7 Pro

 

Cheers,

 

Robert

 

 

 

Edited January 26, 2021 by Doctor Bob

[Luke 36997]

Do they display properly in the Emby web app?

[Doctor Bob 9]

Hello Luke,

Yes, web browser access shows movie posters.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Robert

 

[Doctor Bob 9]

To follow up, movie posters also appear as normal in emby theater.

 

Edited January 26, 2021 by Doctor Bob

[ebr 14902]

You aren't looking in the same place in the other apps.  Neither of those other apps have the EHS display that you are looking at in EMC.  If you enter the library in EMC, what do you see?

[Doctor Bob 9]

Hello ebr,

 

This is what I see when I enter the EMC movie library:

 

[Doctor Bob 9]

If I scroll through the entire movie library all movie posters appear. No actor heads.

[ebr 14902]

Right so that is exactly the same as the web app and Theater.  The issue is with that "special" list that is on the EHS only in EMC.  

At this point, if you are using the release version of the server, I don't really know why...

[Doctor Bob 9]

I'm back.... Oh dear.

A couple of weeks back I re-installed my Media Center PC (format sdd, re-install Windows 7 and programs). Since then I've been sorting out issues with EMC. It's now working very well, Emby Server and EMC are getting along quite well. I am running Emby version 4.5.4.0 and EMC 3.0.318.0 with the Chocolate default theme.

However, a fresh installation still produces these generic actor profile heads instead of the normal movie posters in EHS.

When I first re-installed the Media PC, Emby and EMC I set the my libraries as follows:
1. Movies = type movie
2. TV Shows = type tv show
3. Documentaries = type mixed content
4. Music Videos = type music video
5. Educational = type mixed content
6. Guitar Tutorials = type mixed content

At that time the generic actors heads appeared in the following libraries:
1. Documentaries    (mixed content)
2. Educational          (mixed content)
3. Guitar Tutorials    (mixed content)

Movies, TV Shows and Music Videos displayed normal posters like this (TV Shows):

 

Along the way one of the issues I resolved with the help from the Emby community was to allow for movie collections to appear under a common poster in EMC. To do this I had remove my movie library from Emby and recreate it as type = mixed content.

Once I did this and the library was re-scanned and up to date, the generic actor heads appeared in EHS (Movies) as shown in the first image above.

So it looks as if this issue is related to libraries of type mixed content. My TV Shows and Music Videos libraries still display normal posters.
 

I just thought I would throw this out there as it my shed some light on this issue.

 

 

[ebr 14902]

I'm afraid my best advice at this point is going to be to find a server version that works well with EMC and stay there.  That is if you MUST stay with WMC because, really, my best advice would be to move off of it.  As I said in your other topic - continuing to maintain this system is getting close to impossible.

[One2Go 98]

Completely agree with EBR as I am staying at the versions of EMC as well as server that works for me. I can't see any changes in EMC or the server that would make me upgrade as the chances of difficulties you may encounter are just too great.

To troubleshoot your situation ALWAYS first check the how it appears in the Webapp. If it works there then it should work in EMC. Next try a scanning of actors meta data and see if they appear in the Webapp. In addition there is a location in the server directory structure where all the actor images are saved look if they are there. Next there is always the possibility that EMC version 318 introduced that so try version 317 and see if that changes. But the directory for images has a long list of directories each one starting with a letter of the alphabet and contained in there are the images of the actors.

In my setup server version 4.0.1.0 and EMC version 3.0.317 everything works just as desired.

[Doctor Bob 9]

Thank you for the advice. Yes you are probably right, things move on.

I have found the Emby Server 4.0.1.0 GitHub repository and downloaded & extracted embyserver-win-x64-4.0.1.0.7z
After closing the Ember Server, I renamed my current system folder to system.bak and copied the 4.0.1.0 system folder to C:\Users\Media\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\
When I start the Emby Server it appears in the system tray briefly then disappears (crashes).
After restoring the system folder back to my current version, I made a copy of it and then copied the 4.0.1.0 system folder over top of it. Same result.

How do I downgrade my Emby Server without loosing my library configuration?

 

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by Doctor Bob

[ebr 14902]

You will have to use the backup plugin or re-create it.  There is no way your databases are going to be compatible on a back version.

[Happy2Play 8239]

Installed plugins will not be compatible either.

[Doctor Bob 9]

1 hour ago, ebr said:

You will have to use the backup plugin or re-create it.

I have learnt a whole lot about emby over the past couple of weeks. The community has been awesome. I did not know about the Server Configuration Backup plugin. I have since installed it. A very excellent plugin.

Actor generic heads appearing in EHS for mixed content libraries is not a big deal. Everything else is working great. So I have taken One2Go's advice and disabled automatic updates in Emby Server.

Thank you very much for your help over the past weeks.

[One2Go 98]

You didn't answer the question, do the actors appear in the Webapp? If they do then they should also appear in EMC because it is straight forward. I often had to add actor photos because I either didn't like what Emby found or they were too obscure. Under your Emby server folder structure there is a directory called images and all the actor's pictures can be found there in the corresponding alphabetical folder. This is where you should start troubleshooting rather then changing your server version. I just anticipated what might happen because that is the nature of software development, you either go with the vendor's program and path or you stay at the configuration that works for you. Some stayed at Media Browser 2.6 others followed the Devs here and switched to Emby.

[Doctor Bob 9]

Looking at the Webapp, I see actor's images in my Movie library when I enter into the movie details (click on the movie poster). This is also the case for Documentaries and the other Mixed content libraries. In the Webapp I can click on an actor's image and bring up detailed information and other movie's that the actor appears in the movie library.

So the Webapp is working well, emby server is fetching the right content.

To double check, I selected the a generic actor's head in EMC Movie EHS which showed the movie the actor appeared in. I then selected that movie in the Webapp. The Webapp shows all the actor images (no generic head images). The content is correct. Its just the EHS poster images in EMC Mixed Content libraries EHS that show the generic actor's head, which in reality it should be displaying a movie poster.

EMC Movie library EHS

 

Webbapp

Select image reveals more details

 

1 hour ago, One2Go said:

Under your Emby server folder structure there is a directory called images and all the actor's pictures can be found there in the corresponding alphabetical folder.

Are you referring to folders under this path?
%AppData%\Emby-Server\programdata\metadata\library\

Searching in this folder for .jpg files finds 1,579 images. Changing to Large Icons view shows actor's image, no generic head images like the following were found:

 

Your are right, I'm not game to change the Ember Server version (downgrade) just in the hope that it may solve this minor issue.
So from what I have shown here it appears the issue is within EMC and since it looks like EMC is no longer seeing development, I guess this spells the end of the road.

 

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by Doctor Bob

[One2Go 98]

Sorry but the path is:
C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\metadata\People

withing that directory People you have the folders with the 1st letter.

 

Than within the letter H for example you than have the names of the actors and withing the names folder you have the image named folder.jpg.

Edited March 6, 2021 by One2Go

[Happy2Play 8239]

If your people are only in /library you can use the People Backup plugin to export them.  plugin is in the catalog  

But in the end People have changed over the years from /people/a-z subfolders to new only going to /library to back to /people in name-tmdbid-1234 folders in 4.6.

 

[Doctor Bob 9]

4 hours ago, One2Go said:

Sorry but the path is:
C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\metadata\People

Looks like I do not have that folder path in version 4.5.4.0

The folder in Emby-Server is programdata and system. I thought metadata might have been a hidden folder but I have enabled hidden and system files/folder view in Explorer.

 

[Happy2Play 8239]

7 minutes ago, Doctor Bob said:

Looks like I do not have that folder path in version 4.5.4.0

The folder in Emby-Server is programdata and system. I thought metadata might have been a hidden folder but I have enabled hidden and system files/folder view in Explorer.

 

Everything was moved into the programdata folder years ago so all installs now have programdata vs original all folders in Emby-Server.

So a question on what WMC uses?  As a manual new install could go back to that structure.

[Doctor Bob 9]

1 minute ago, Happy2Play said:

Everything was moved into the programdata folder years ago

Right, so path: %AppData%\Emby-Server\programdata\metadata\library\
as I mentioned in a previous post.

However, the real issue is not the actor's images, it's why am I seeing actor's images (generic or otherwise) in EMC EHS when I should be seeing movie posters? This only seems to occur in Mixed Content libaries in EMC.

[One2Go 98]

As Happy2Play stated the location for the images has been bumped around for years. The problem you have is the three different components have to play nice and look in the right places. The server will look in the place that is the latest listed reference. However that may not be the case for the EMC nor the themes.

I do remember a long running contention here until Throgmorton changed where he looks for images used for his themes from ImagesByName to Emby-Server\metadata\people. So it may be necessary as Happy2Play suggested get the actor images in two separate places to cover different possibilities which is a pain every time you add an actor.

As far as your difficulties with the EHS and displaying the posters for mixed content I have no idea why that is. As a suggestion try to install Throgsoft's Destiny and Maelstrom themes and use Maelstrom for your EHS and see what that does. This is what the Maelstrom EHS looks like with the cover art plugin.

Finally if nothing works try a clean install on a separate box with server version 4.0.1.0 and EMC 317 or 318 and test out your mixed content libraries. The whole idea with nested folders has been abandoned some time ago and it will cause difficulties in the newer versions. In addition you can tell running EMC is getting very little support from others, so you sort of have to rely on those who have a configuration up and running.