Recordings with no episode info

[csadoian 36]

I noticed something today, not sure if this is new.  I've been recording some programs from some of my local OTA sub-channels lately, and I have noticed a problem in how Emby is handling them.

Example:  Today, I have 3 recordings scheduled.  All three of the recordings are from sub- channels that the guide has no season/episode information for them.  One is "Match Game" on the Buzzer network (2 episodes in a row), the other is "Magnum, P.I." on getTV.  Emby is recording the shows, but they are not shown in the "Active Recordings" list on the Home screen or the Server dashboard.  Since the guide data has no season/episode information, Emby is storing them in the base folder of the respective folders, not in a subfolder like "Season 1" or "Season 2"

When I go to Recordings under "Live TV", I can see the recording(s), but if there is more than one show recorded using Emby Theater I can pick the version to play, but the versions are not shown with a Roku.  Also, on Emby Theater, under the home screen if you scroll down to the "Latest Recordings" area it shows a tile for the new recording, but it has only 1 episode listed (the number shown on the tile's upper right hand corner).

I kinda understand why this is happening, the lack of Season/Episode information in the guide I'm sure is the root cause.  Not sure what can be done about it as far as how Emby is handling these kinds of recordings.  I'm also wondering why the guide is missing the Season/Episode information.

 

embyserver.txt

[Luke 42083]

Hi, did these end up getting an episode number via internet metadata after the recording had completed?

[csadoian 36]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Hi, did these end up getting an episode number via internet metadata after the recording had completed?

The ones I recorded yesterday and referred to in my posting are gone now, we watched and deleted them.  However, this morning two more recorded and I see one of them got an episode number, but the other didn't.  However, they were listed a bit different in the guide as opposed to two other airing of this show that occur later in the day.   I can't go back to this morning, but tomorrow on the early airings when I bring up the detail for the program while in the grid guide, just under the title it displays "104 M15+".  In the later airing all it shows in this area is TV-PG.

A better example would be the program "Covert Affairs".  It will air today at 2pm on my local 43.10 (StartTV).  No season/episode is given in the listing, but right under the title it show "Repeat 14".  When it records, Emby will put it in the folder "Covert Affairs", but not in a Season folder.  It will give it the filename "Covert Affairs 2010-07-20.ts" (I'm guessing at the date, Emby has not recorded it yet).  Emby will generate a corresponding nfo file.  What's also interesting is this episode will NOT show up in my recordings list no matter where I look.  The reason I know it records is I actually open up the Covert Affair file folder using Windows Explorer.  I've been recording the series for quite a while, so each day I use Windows Explorer to find the episode, identify the Season/Episode number and rename the file accordingly  (i.e. "Covert Affairs S01E10".  I delete the .nfo file and move the newly rename file into it's proper season folder and within a few minutes Emby will pick it up and generate a new .nfo and the Episode will appear in the recordings list.

I will attach a screenshot of the folder for the episode recorded yesterday and the corresponding .nfo file Emby generated (I have not moved/renamed the episode yet).  At this point this episode is invisible to Emby.

Note the nfo file attached to this episode has a description that basically describes the season in general, and not the episode.

 

 

Covert Affairs 2010-07-13.nfo

[csadoian 36]

4 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, did these end up getting an episode number via internet metadata after the recording had completed?

After I wrote the reply previous to this one I thought of something with regards to why the current recordings of "Covert Affairs" are not showing up in the "Recordings" section.  I've been recording this series for a few weeks, and initially the guide had Season/Episode information which allowed Emby to put them in their proper "Season" folders.  Since that time the guide  no longer contains this information, they are being dropped into the series's root folder.  I'm speculating the logic in Emby does not look at the root folder if season folders already exist.

This would explain why the recordings of "Match Game" are showing up in my recordings list, even though they are being recorded with no Season/Episode information from the guide.  They land in the root folder of "Match Game", but there are no other "Season" folders, so Emby picks up the episodes.

Speculation on my part, but it makes sense.

 

[Luke 42083]

It may have gotten merged with another episode as multi version. Can you look into that? Try clicking into each episode detail screen and see if there is a version selection box on it.

[csadoian 36]

On 5/15/2023 at 9:22 AM, Luke said:

It may have gotten merged with another episode as multi version. Can you look into that? Try clicking into each episode detail screen and see if there is a version selection box on it.

@LukeI have seen this happen to other recordings that did not already have "Season" folders that existed.  For example, when I record "Match Game" from the Buzzr network they never have any season or episode info attached to them so Emby drops them into the main folder (i.e. "Match Game (1962)" and all the episodes get the same filename with -1, -2 -3, etc appended to them.  These I can see when I click on "recordings" in the Live TV section.  One frustrating thing with multi-version recordings is that Emby for Roku cannot deal with them as the other clients do.  When on the Roku it can sometimes get confusing when it looks like there is only one recording when in reality there may be quite a few.  I've since gone to using my Android tablet to split the versions apart if I suspect there are more recordings than what the Emby for Roku app is showing me.

Anyway, in the case you were referring to (Covert Affairs) when I started recording the series from a local station the guide included the Season/Episode information, so Emby had already made several Season folders.  Then, when the season/episode information was dropped from the guide Emby would record these as multi-versions and drop them into the main folder.  However, they were NOT listed in the "Recordings" section of Live TV.  So there was several days I had checked the schedule, noted that "Covert Affairs" was scheduled to be recorded, yet when I looked for them (I was using Emby Theater for Windows) they did not show up anywhere.  In order to get them to be noticed by Emby I actually had to use Windows Explorer to go to the program's main folder and rename them with the appropriate Season/Episode info, and move them into their respective Season folders.  Once I did that in a few minutes Emby would notice them and they would show up in the recordings list.

It's like I speculated in the previous message ... if "Season" folders already exist and new recordings are made WITHOUT the benefit of Season/Episode information, they don't seem to be noticed by Emby at all.  They don't show up in Recordings unless I do the rename thing and transfer them into their appropriate Season folders.

I hope this makes sense to you.

 

[Luke 42083]

OK we'll take a look at this. Thanks for reporting.