how TV shows are displayed

[spearoid 4]

I have a feeling there's a simple answer to this question but I have already spent way too much time troubleshooting this myself and attempting in vain to find an answer online.

What is the setting/configuration that is responsible for showing a TV Show with descriptions for each episode and the show itself?

I have several "Mixed Content" libraries that contain TV shows...most contain only TV shows....but only one of these libraries displays new TV shows with the descriptions.  The library that shows the descriptions also seems to intelligently handle a 1-season TV show....where it doesn't require I open Season 1 to get to the episodes....the non-descriptive view does make me open this folder. Screenshots attached.

I can cut and paste a newly added/metadata'd TV-show folder into these different libraries and it consistently only displays the way I want it in the one library that is "working" the way I want.

The confusing thing to me is that these "non-working" libraries DO show all my TV shows correctly that have been in these folders for months/years....this issue only manifests with newly added TV shows.

And as a side-note, I only recently learned/realized (because of searching for a solution to this issue) that Emby changed many years ago to using NFO and not my MediaCenterMaster xml files....I've been using MCM since the days of MediaBrowser in WMC and have carefully maintainted my metadata. I'm not entirely sure how/why Emby seems to be happy with all my old stuff (most of which didn't even have nfo files until this past week, but that may be irrelevant.

[Luke 42077]

Hi, what is the second screenshot from? How did you get to that screen?

[spearoid 4]

I navigated to that screen from the Home screen of Emby

Chose Library -> Selected High Score "TV Show" -> Opened the Season 1 folder that was the only thing to click on -> then that screen

I should have clarified, that I cut and paste the High Score show from one library to the other to produce those two different screen shots I shared.

I did this with a newly created show as well and verified the same thing happens....looks like screenshot 1 through one "mixed content" Library and looks like screenshot 2 through any other "mixed content" Library

See pic attached, Family TV and Documentaries both show the description-less view.......but if I paste that same folder in Parents TV (not in view in the screenshot, but also a Mixed content library) all the descriptions are there like screenshot 1.......and this behavior is repeatable with new TV media

[Luke 42077]

How are the files named and organized?

[spearoid 4]

flawlessly? lol

Parents\TV\Seinfeld\Season 1\S01E01.mp4

Parents\Movies\Diehard (1988)\Diehard (1988).mkv

Same TV structure for anything of mine that would be found on thetvdb.com

The only "mixed content" library that is actually mixed content for me, is the Documentaries library, where some documentaries are viewed/treated like movies.

I don't know why my Parents and Family TV folders are set as mixed content....there really is no reason for them to be.

But this problem came to the fore because I wanted this newly created Documentaries library to show the mutli-episode TV-show-like documentaries as well as the single video movie-like documentaries.

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by spearoid

[Luke 42077]

How many other libraries do you have? Can I see the folder paths that have been added to each of them?

[spearoid 4]

there may be an easier way to give you this info, but you can see the paths in this screenshot

[Luke 42077]

OK that looks good, no overlap. So this is probably going to come down to the folder structure in the documentaries library. Can we please see that? Thanks.

[spearoid 4]

So, the fact that I'm seeing this in all but one mixed content library doesn't suggest it isn't in the documentaries library, at least uniquely? Maybe that question is irrelevant, but the answer to your question is in the attached image 

[Luke 42077]

It's best to focus on one example, even if you think they're all the same. The answer we find may end up applying to the other cases.

Can you walk me through your navigation in theater for high score season 1? Can you show the screenshot of the previous screen?

[spearoid 4]

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking for, sorry...when you say "in theater" or even your previous screen request....my last image was just the Windows folders...but I can show the folders up one level from that.

[spearoid 4]

This is the view just before the non-descriptive episode screen

[Luke 42077]

Can I see the folder contents of season 1? (from windows explorer).

[spearoid 4]

Including a second show, The Nineties, because this was the one I recently cleared out all metadata for and verified the repeatability of my issue...High Score metadata may be a little messier

[Luke 42077]

What version of the server?

[spearoid 4]

4.7.14.0

Edited August 31, 2023 by spearoid

[spearoid 4]

Before posting, I had renamed my library db file and let Emby rebuild the db from scratch.....and I noticed none of my TV shows were displaying with descriptions in any folder....I guess I should have mentioned this in the beginning. 

So I restored the previous db file to have at least most of my TV shows displaying properly....and then started fiddling with specific shows like High Score in various library locations

[Luke 42077]

Does the high score folder have a tvshow.nfo file?

[spearoid 4]

Yes

[Luke 42077]

As a test, can you try our hosted web app, http://app.emby.media

How does it look there?

[spearoid 4]

Same behavior....even cut High Score out of Documentaries and tried in Parents TV and it looks beautiful again

[spearoid 4]

I'm starting to wonder if there's any hope here lol.....I am now realizing one of my mixed content libraries, the Family one, displayed one TV docuseries with descriptions perfectly and another without.....cut the 2 series and put in the Parents library and they both look perfect. The one that looks perfect in both is a newly created show for my collection as of this morning...the other show existed before I tinkered with rebuilding the db FWIW

but I didn't realize until testing this Family library that I can reproduce the 2 different behaviors in the same library

[Luke 42077]

For some reason it looks like the series is not detected as a series folder but I don't see any obvious reason why.

Would you be able to spin up a portable install and see if it reproduces on that?

https://emby.media/windows-server.html

Just shut down your current server, download the portable build, unzip and run. When you're done with the test, just delete the portable folder and start your main server back up again.

[Luke 42077]

And you don't need to add every library to that. just start with the documentaries library.

[spearoid 4]

yeah that's a good idea....I have VMs all over the place...I'll just put Emby on one of them and do a from-scratch test....gonna go to bed now though., but will try this tomorrow....thanks for tte assistance and all the crazy amount of time/work you've put into this product

your responses seem to at least confirm that a TV show should display like a TV show, the same way across all like-typed libraries...I wasn't sure if there was some additional/advanced setting for a library that might dictate the way TV shows display