Another movie file naming question/advice

[jasonmcroy 316]

Hello everyone.

I couldn't find an answer to my exact question using search, so I apologize if this has been mentioned and answered before.

My question is about movies that have the : symbol in the name. For example, on the movie database you have X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse or another good one is Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: The Flash.

My handling of this on my Windows computer is to replace the : with a -. So the above files would look like X-Men - Days of Future Past, X-Men - Apocalypse, etc. 

I bring this up because Emby never matches those movies in it's initial scan and I have to manually fix it. I have quite a few of the Lego movies and they all get incorrectly assigned anytime I have re-installed my server. 

What would be the best handling for these types of file names? Should I just leave a blank space instead of using any symbols?

[Luke 42079]

Hi , a dash or space is fine.

[Ceten 27]

I replace the ':' with a dash in all my folder names and never got any issues with recognising a movie because of this so I'm guessing the issue must be something else?
What does your folder structure look like?

Edited May 10, 2022 by Ceten

[jasonmcroy 316]

Thanks for your answer @Luke. 

I guess then I have to ask why Emby has so much trouble with those particular files every time I re-install a server? Just as a note, it always picks up The Padawan Menace fine and the Jurassic World file correctly as well. But all the others get really odd replacements. Most of them show up as "The Lego Movie" (which I also have in my library).

Kodi also always gets these file wrong but for some reason Plex always picks them up correctly as well as my Channels DVR server.

Here is a screenshot of those files in my folder:

[jasonmcroy 316]

Here is a sample of the file inside a folder - they are all just name liked the folder.

Edited May 10, 2022 by jasonmcroy

[Luke 42079]

7 minutes ago, jasonmcroy said:

Thanks for your answer @Luke. 

I guess then I have to ask why Emby has so much trouble with those particular files every time I re-install a server? Just as a note, it always picks up The Padawan Menace fine and the Jurassic World file correctly as well. But all the others get really odd replacements. Most of them show up as "The Lego Movie" (which I also have in my library).

Kodi also always gets these file wrong but for some reason Plex always picks them up correctly as well as my Channels DVR server.

Here is a screenshot of those files in my folder:

It won't have any trouble with those names. We'll have to look at an example from when they were imported:

Thanks.

[Happy2Play 9780]

3 hours ago, Luke said:

It won't have any trouble with those names. We'll have to look at an example from when they were imported:

Thanks.

Example here "Lego DC Comics - Super Heroes - The Flash (2018)" is misidentified as "The Lego Ninjago Movie".  But you can see only "Lego" and year are being queried, and from that query Ninjago is the first result and The Flash being second.  So a question would be why was the query parsed to "Lego" only?

2022-05-10 13:23:13.184 Info App: MovieDbProvider: Finding id for item: Lego DC Comics - Super Heroes - The Flash (2018)
2022-05-10 13:23:13.188 Debug App: Throttling Tmdb by 203 ms
2022-05-10 13:23:13.409 Info HttpClient: GET https://api.themoviedb.org/3/search/movie?api_keyf6bd687ffa63cd282b6ff2c6877f266&query=Lego&language=en&year=2018
2022-05-10 13:23:13.565 Debug App: Throttling Tmdb by 143 ms
2022-05-10 13:23:13.715 Info HttpClient: GET https://api.themoviedb.org/3/movie/274862?api_key=‌f6bd687ffa63cd282b6ff2c6877f2669‌&append_to_response=casts,releases,images,keywords,trailers&language=en&include_image_language=en,null

But note my test was in beta 4.7.0.38.

[Luke 42079]

OK that one example is not a new thing and is specific to having DC by itself in the file name. That's in the string cleaning list I think because it often appears in typical file names of downloaded content.

[Happy2Play 9780]

So this will create issue for at least the 8 movies shown above.

So will all Items with DC in there name have issues?

dc — The Movie Database (TMDB) (themoviedb.org)

But with a quick test it does not affect anything that begins with DC.

2022-05-10 14:27:25.769 Info App: MovieDbProvider: Finding id for item: DC Showcase - Green Arrow (2010)
2022-05-10 14:27:25.769 Info HttpClient: GET https://api.themoviedb.org/3/search/movie?api_key=‌f6bd687ffa63cd282b6ff2c6877f2669‌&query=DC Showcase - Green Arrow&language=en&year=2010

But will affect all 13 "Lego DC"

lego dc — The Movie Database (TMDB) (themoviedb.org)

[Luke 42079]

Yea I can see that. It's just not an easy fix.

[jasonmcroy 316]

I am glad it could be re-produced. 

Interestingly it doesn't affect the files names that have Lego in them without the DC in them. For example, Lego Star Wars was found just fine. So it is just the ones with DC in it. 

Happy2plays example above is exactly what I see happening. Some of them are recognized as Lego Ninjango and some are recognized as The Lego Movie. One of them was recognized as Lego Brick Documentary.

I am attaching a log with some examples of the initial scan of those movies in case they're useful. If you want the whole log I can provide that too.

I am on the latest stable server by the way. Stable version 4.6.7.0

partial_log.txt

 

 

[Happy2Play 9780]

8 minutes ago, jasonmcroy said:

I am glad it could be re-produced. 

Interestingly it doesn't affect the files names that have Lego in them without the DC in them. For example, Lego Star Wars was found just fine. So it is just the ones with DC in it. 

Happy2plays example above is exactly what I see happening. Some of them are recognized as Lego Ninjango and some are recognized as The Lego Movie. One of them was recognized as Lego Brick Documentary.

I am attaching a log with some examples of the initial scan of those movies in case they're useful. If you want the whole log I can provide that too.

I am on the latest stable server by the way. Stable version 4.6.7.0

partial_log.txt 10.02 kB · 0 downloads

 

 

It is the parser string that automatically removes or I guess stops at DC in name and removes it and everything after.  Similar to ignoring all naming after year.  But I personally have not seen DC (download content) ever in any naming scheme for content except for maybe Directors Cut.

[jasonmcroy 316]

Ok. Thanks for the explanation. I can think with that. I don't know much about how these things work.

That would mean even if I were to append the tmdb number at the end of the file per the naming convention instructions wiki it wouldn't matter because the parser string would just stop at the DC part either way. Am I thinking correctly on that?

[Happy2Play 9780]

7 minutes ago, jasonmcroy said:

Ok. Thanks for the explanation. I can think with that. I don't know much about how these things work.

That would mean even if I were to append the tmdb number at the end of the file per the naming convention instructions wiki it wouldn't matter because the parser string would just stop at the DC part either way. Am I thinking correctly on that?

That would be the ultimate workaround as Emby would use id.  I only appended folder.

2022-05-10 18:56:02.646 Debug App: Running MovieDbProvider for C:\Users\Media\Desktop\Videos\Movies - DB\Lego DC Comics - Super Heroes - The Flash (2018) [tmdbid=504997]\Lego DC Comics - Super Heroes - The Flash (2018).strm
2022-05-10 18:56:02.646 Info HttpClient: GET https://api.themoviedb.org/3/movie/504997?api_key=‌f6bd687ffa63cd282b6ff2c6877f2669‌&append_to_response=casts,releases,images,keywords,trailers&language=en&include_image_language=en,null

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Happy2Play

[jasonmcroy 316]

Ok good, thanks for that. That was a question I had because it's not that clear in the instructions as to whether to only append that to the folder name or the folder name and the file name in the folder. 

[Happy2Play 9780]

1 minute ago, jasonmcroy said:

Ok good, thanks for that. That was a question I had because it's not that clear in the instructions as to whether to only append that to the folder name or the folder name and the file name in the folder. 

Only time filename is used for movies is in a flat structure environment (no movie folders) that I am aware of. 

So you could have */Lego DC Comics - Super Heroes - The Flash (2018) [tmdbid=504997]/abcdefg.mkv and identified from folder name.

[jasonmcroy 316]

26 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Only time filename is used for movies is in a flat structure environment (no movie folders) that I am aware of. 

So you could have */Lego DC Comics - Super Heroes - The Flash (2018) [tmdbid=504997]/abcdefg.mkv and identified from folder name.

That is really good to know.

So, I tested all the Lego DC files with your data and it worked like a charm. At least for the future if I have need to reinstall the server fresh I won't run into this again.

I also tested it with two other troublesome movies I have and it worked on those too. For example, Emby never recognizes the movie Sparks (2013)for some reason it always picks Ruby Sparks (2012) for some reason. 

[Happy2Play 9780]

12 minutes ago, jasonmcroy said:

I also tested it with two other troublesome movies I have and it worked on those too. For example, Emby never recognizes the movie Sparks (2013)for some reason it always picks Ruby Sparks (2012) for some reason. 

Sort of a query defect as Sparks (2013) returns 3 results from TMDB.  Also items release year is subjective to specific country on TMDB as Ruby Sparks has 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018 and 2021.

sparks — The Movie Database (TMDB) (themoviedb.org)

Was wondering where "The Vampire Mistress" came from but it has a alternate title of "Harry Sparks' The Vampire Mistress"

Have a look at this old topic.

Search using exact match - Talk — The Movie Database (TMDB) (themoviedb.org)

[jasonmcroy 316]

Interesting read. Thanks, that explains some things.