Missing Episodes & Episode Ordering

[DylanParham 14]

Hi, this is kind of a multi-parter so sorry if I go a bit back and forth or ramble. More than happy to help test or elaborate wherever needed. The TLDR is that Emby doesn't seem to check whether metadata it's receiving is in Airing or Absolute order (or doesn't set that setting for the series) and missing episode data is only available if you include TheTVDB as a metadata provider.

 

As backstory - I am trying to make a concerted effort to switch FROM TheTVDB TO TMDB as my primary metadata provider, and I use FileBot as a library organization tool. As part of a recent change at FileBot, they released some improvements that make my personal workflow for gathering, matching and sorting media files much easier. This has led me to notice two things:

1. Missing episode data is only provided by TheTVDB and not other providers as reported by Happy2Play, this seems true from what I can tell.
2. Emby does not do a great job of determining when to show Aired vs Absolute episode Display order based on the metadata that it receives and uses to sort episodes.
3. Emby can and will properly map Aired order TVDB missing episode information onto Absolute order TMDB metadata if:
   1. The Display order is correctly selected in the series settings.
   2. The file structure correctly matches the desired airing order.

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Example: Bungo Stray Dogs

1. https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/65931 - Listed as 1 season with 1 special (absolute ordered)
2. https://thetvdb.com/series/bungo-stray-dogs - Listed as 3 separate seasons with 1 special (airing ordered)

My file naming structure, which is produced by the following bindings on FileBot:

{ drive }/{ emby.id }

1. "X:\TV Shows\Bungo Stray Dogs (2016) {tmdb-65931}\Season 01\Bungo Stray Dogs (2016) - S01E01 - Fortune Is Unpredictable and Mutable.mkv"
2. "X:\TV Shows\Bungo Stray Dogs (2016) {tmdb-65931}\Season 01\Bungo Stray Dogs (2016) - S01E29 - Slap the Stick & Addict.mkv"
3. "X:\TV Shows\Bungo Stray Dogs (2016) {tmdb-65931}\Season 01\Bungo Stray Dogs (2016) - S01E56 - At the Port in the Sky (Part 3).mkv"

 

To illustrate, I intentionally removed Episode 55 from the series and did a fresh insert/sort/identify/metadata scan etc to get everything as default as I could with TMDB-only metadata.

If I REMOVE the TVDB metadata providers, I get correctly-ordered episodes all matched etc. in a single season from TMDB, but no missing episodes:

Returning the TVDB provider and replacing metadata, I get empty Aired order seasons from TVDB, still no missing episode (same as above), but all of my TMDB/Absolute sorted episodes are jammed into S1 as they should be:

 

Manually changing the episode Display order in the Series settings to Absolute fixes the season structure and shows me missing episodes:

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Another admittedly cherry picked example is One Piece, which shows me varying amounts of missing episodes in each season because TMDB returns seasons AND episodes but in a weird hybrid airing/absolute order that Emby won't play nice with on either display order. Airing and Absolute both basically do the same thing for different reasons.

1. "U:\TV Shows\One Piece (1999) {tmdb-37854}\Season 14\One Piece (1999) - S14E524 - Deadly Combat under the Sea! The Demon of the Ocean Strikes.mkv"
2. "U:\TV Shows\One Piece (1999) {tmdb-37854}\Season 18\One Piece (1999) - S18E755 - Garchu! The Straw Hat Crew Reunites.mkv"
3. "U:\TV Shows\One Piece (1999) {tmdb-37854}\Season 21\One Piece (1999) - S21E950 - Warriors' Dream! Luffy's Conquer of Udon.mkv"

Airing order:

 

Absolute order:

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Settings where I'm adding/removing TheTVDB to induce the gain/loss of missing episode data:

 

 

Thank you for reading my super long post with a niche problem that I could just as easily fix by unchecking a box and selecting a dropdown every once in a while

embyserver.txt

Edited August 20, 2023 by DylanParham
duplicate imagesx2

[pwhodges 2012]

25 minutes ago, DylanParham said:

The TLDR is that Emby doesn't seem to check whether metadata it's receiving is in Airing or Absolute order (or doesn't set that setting for the series) and missing episode data is only available if you include TheTVDB as a metadata provider.

Emby can't check what order your files are named in for itself, as the names contain no indication of that.

The procedure is that you name the files to match the episode numbering (in the chosen metadata provider) of the order you wish to use, and then when you've added the series immediately go to edit its metadata and select the order that matches your files.

There is a present limitation that the only orders known to Emby are Aired (the default), DVD, and Absolute - so if you want to use a different order (e.g. Book order for the -monogatari series) you can't.  There is an open feature request concerning this.

Paul

Edited August 20, 2023 by pwhodges

[DylanParham 14]

41 minutes ago, pwhodges said:

Emby can't check what order your files are named in for itself, as the names contain no indication of that.

The procedure is that you name the files to match the episode numbering of the order you wish to use, and then when you've added the series immediately go to edit its metadata and select the order that matches your files.

There is a present limitation that the only orders known to Emby are Aired (the default), DVD, and Absolute - so if you want to use a different order (e.g. Book order for the -monogatari series) you can't.  There is an open feature request concerning this.

That all makes sense - thanks for the explanation! I don't know the specifics of how the metadata is gathered, but TMDB for instance has several different airing orders available to choose from:

We just have no way as users to choose which provider is selected when the metadata is pulled into Emby, nor is it very transparent which metadata provider is being used for which data. So the problem for me is that the metadata that I'm getting is mixed (regular episode info, missing episodes, etc) from TMDB OR TVDB and the data could be either Airing OR Absolute OR something else entirely, and that information isn't getting handed off properly to the series settings. If there are different orders available on the site for a show, then surely they would tell you in the response which episode group API is giving you? Could Emby specifically request Airing order since that's what is default for new series? Maybe that belongs in a feature request instead

 

If Luke or ebr happen to see this, Travis Bell (founder of TMDB) explained how to use Episode Groups within their API here: https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/5e1f71b2d6dbba0015e1e369

Edited August 20, 2023 by DylanParham
minor edits

[pwhodges 2012]

Per library, you can enable or disable providers, and the top of the list is the one used for identification; missing metadata can get filled in from the others.  By default TVDB is used for series and TMDB for movies, and this is my preferred choice as well on the basis of the data I get (I have a lot of anime, but find the specialised anime providers enabled by the Anime plugin are too messy to consider).  The Emby limitation to the three orderings is the same either way, I think.

In extreme cases, you can change the metadata provider ordering, refresh the metadata, and then lock the item before restoring the normal provider settings.  I've never found the need for that; if TVDB is missing metadata, or even has it wrong, I just go in and edit it - I've added several whole series, both for myself and for others.

Incidentally, some people get confused about Emby and IMDB.  Emby doesn't use IMDB itself, because it's too expensive to consider, but their IDs can be used as keys when searching the other databases, which is why they are available to use for searching in Emby.

I think the developers know how to do different orders (they already do some, after all); it's just that there is so much other development going on that it's hard to get them to move this particular thing up their priority list!

Paul

 

PS - I haven't commented on missing episodes, as I've never used the facility and so have nothing to say about it.

Edited August 20, 2023 by pwhodges

[Luke 42083]

1. Missing episode data is only provided by TheTVDB and not other providers as reported by Happy2Play, this seems true from what I can tellL

 This is correct.

[Luke 42083]

Emby does not do a great job of determining when to showAired vs Absolute episode Display order based on the
 

it is not based on metadata but is based on the option you configure for the series. Does that answer your question?

 

[Luke 42083]

Missing episodes are also currently only implemented for aired order, so once you charge the series order to something else they will gradually go away.

[MBSki 1114]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

Missing episodes are also currently only implemented for aired order, so once you charge the series order to something else they will gradually go away.

I did not know that. You have that on the list of to do items to add?