How do I make Emby respect my folders?

[Monograxo 0]

I just got Emby installed, but I've been having some issues with anime that have a lot of episodes.

Saint Seiya, for example, is divided between 6 season folders. Season 1 has 73 episodes, all of which are in the Windows Season 1 folder, but Emby pulls episodes from both Season 2 and Season 3 folders, making Season 1 have more than 114 episodes. The same happens with Bleach, where episode 100 is getting put in Season 1's folder for some reason, despite being a Season 5 episode.

How can I get Emby to stop trying to interpret what episode is what and where they belong to?

Please give me a detailed explanation if possible, I'm pretty new to the program and I'm still getting familiar with the UI.

Edited October 14, 2023 by Monograxo

[Abobader 3464]

Hello Monograxo,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[GrimReaper 4740]

Sounds like you have TMDB as preferred series provider (Season 1 with 114 episodes):

https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/42444-saint-seiya/seasons

Put TVDB (73+26+15 eps) on top, Refresh Metadata. 

https://thetvdb.com/series/saint-seiya#seasons

Same goes for Bleach:

https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/30984-bleach/seasons

https://thetvdb.com/series/bleach#seasons

 

[pwhodges 2012]

Emby needs to match your filenames to the metadata that it is looking at online.  This metadata may vary between TMDB and TVDB, and there may be options for different orderings (e.g. TV, DVD, absolute) which you can tell Emby to use (by editing the series metadata after initial import).

So you need to check that your file naming/numbering matches your preferred database (TVDB is the usual choice for TV series), and that your naming scheme is compatible with Emby's parser:

https://emby.media/support/articles/TV-Naming.html

Paul

[Monograxo 0]

7 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

Sounds like you have TMDB as preferred series provider (Season 1 with 114 episodes):

https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/42444-saint-seiya/seasons

Put TVDB (73+26+15 eps) on top, Refresh Metadata. 

https://thetvdb.com/series/saint-seiya#seasons

Same goes for Bleach:

https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/30984-bleach/seasons

https://thetvdb.com/series/bleach#seasons

 

I had TVDB actually, but even after turning off all metadata, deleting the metadata folder, removing the library and reimporting it still organizes season 1 as 114 episodes. I tried matching it multiple times with the TVDB or only using TVDB as the importer and it refuses to work.

Even if I import without any metadata it still considers season 1 114 episodes for some reason.

Edited October 14, 2023 by Monograxo

[GrimReaper 4740]

What do you mean "turned off all metadata"? You need at least one provider enabled. And how are your files named and organized? Are you writing NFOs with your media? 

Edited October 14, 2023 by GrimReaper

[Monograxo 0]

Just now, GrimReaper said:

How are your files named and organized? 

[Anime Name] [Episode Number] [Episode Name] [Quality]

So for example Bleach - 001 - The Day I Became a Shinigami [480p]

Folder Structure is like this:

 

[GrimReaper 4740]

And are the episodes within season folders starting from 001 for each season or are they consecutively number in respect to Season 1 001 episode (i.e. Absolute numbering)? 

[Monograxo 0]

3 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

And are the episodes within season folders starting from 001 for each season or are they consecutively number in respect to Season 1 001 episode (i.e. Absolute numbering)? 

They are ordered consecutively. I think Emby is looking for the usual S01E01 format, which makes it think that Episode 100 Bleach - 100 - Soifon Fails! The Last of the Special Forces [480p] is S01E00

Edited October 14, 2023 by Monograxo

[Monograxo 0]

13 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

What do you mean "turned off all metadata"? You need at least one provider enabled. And how are your files named and organized? Are you writing NFOs with your media? 

When reimporting my anime library I didn't choose any metadata provider, and it still classified season 1 as 114 episodes. Regardless of the metadata provider I choose season 1 of saint seiya is always considered that.

[GrimReaper 4740]

5 minutes ago, Monograxo said:

They are ordered consecutively

Then yes, Emby is sorting them in Absolute order, as episode 100 in Season 5 doesn't exist, that is S05E09.

https://thetvdb.com/series/bleach/episodes/318388

You need to either:

1) 

5 hours ago, pwhodges said:

you need to check that your file naming/numbering matches your preferred database (TVDB is the usual choice for TV series), and that your naming scheme is compatible with Emby's parser:

Quote

Episode naming conventions

A number of naming conventions are supported:

• show name - S01E01 - Episode Name.ext
• show name S01E01 Episode Name.ext
• anything_s01e02.ext
• anything_s1e2.ext
• anything_s01.e02.ext
• anything_s01_e02.ext
• anything_1x02.ext
• anything_102.ext
• anything_1x02.ext
• 02 Episode Name.ext
• s01e02.ext
• 1x02.ext

or 

2) Settle on Absolute sort order. 

Edited October 14, 2023 by GrimReaper

[Monograxo 0]

Just now, GrimReaper said:

Then yes, Emby is sorting them in Absolute order, as episode 100 in Season 5 doesn't exist, that is S05E09. You need to either:

1) 

or 

2) Settle on Absolute sort order. 

How do I go about choosing the Absolute Sort order?

[GrimReaper 4740]

That is what you're already seeing, all episodes within single Season 1. 

https://thetvdb.com/series/bleach/seasons/absolute/1

Edited October 14, 2023 by GrimReaper

[Monograxo 0]

Just now, GrimReaper said:

That is what you're already seeing, all episodes within singe Season 1. 

https://thetvdb.com/series/bleach/seasons/absolute/1

It's not, I have 16 seasons, but Emby keeps pulling episodes from Season 5 into the Season 1 folder. All 16 season folders show up on Emby, just with less episodes than they should have because they are being sent to Season 1.

[GrimReaper 4740]

I'll try to explain it again: you can't have episodes numbered absolutely but split them in season folders, you need to opt for either having single season in Absolute order or multiple seasons in Aired order; if multiple seasons, you need to rename them according your preferred meta-provider, meaning you can't have episode 350 within Season 6 subfolder, that needs to be S16E08 as that was 8. episode of that season. You might get away with some folders being identified properly due to some loophole in parser logic, but you'll still need to rename episodes in those seasons that are not catching, like your Season 5, there's no solution around that AFAIK. And it's simply bad filefolder structure/organization. 

Or create Home Videos and Photos-type library and you'll have no metadata fetching/identifying involved and they'll be presented just like folders as in your OS. 

Edited October 14, 2023 by GrimReaper

[Monograxo 0]

4 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

I'll try to explain it again: you can't have episodes numbered absolutely but split them in season folders, you need to opt for either having single season in Absolute order or multiple seasons in Aired order; if multiple seasons, you need to rename them according your preferred meta-provider, meaning you can't have episode 350 within Season 6 subfolder, that needs to be S16E08 as that was 8. episode of that season. You might get away with some folders being identified properly due to some loophole in parser logic, but you'll still need to rename episodes in those seasons that are not catching, like your Season 5, there's no solution around that AFAIK. And it's simply bad filefolder structure/organization. 

I see. I'll put everything into the same folder and see if the issue is solved.

[pwhodges 2012]

If you want everything in one run, put everything in one folder ("Season 01") numbered consecutively, and in the metadata select "absolute" order.

If you want them sorted by season, put them in separate folders for each season, and NUMBER THE EPISODES FROM 1 IN EACH SEASON like TVDB does.

You cannot mix these options.

Paul

[Monograxo 0]

52 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

I'll try to explain it again: you can't have episodes numbered absolutely but split them in season folders, you need to opt for either having single season in Absolute order or multiple seasons in Aired order; if multiple seasons, you need to rename them according your preferred meta-provider, meaning you can't have episode 350 within Season 6 subfolder, that needs to be S16E08 as that was 8. episode of that season. You might get away with some folders being identified properly due to some loophole in parser logic, but you'll still need to rename episodes in those seasons that are not catching, like your Season 5, there's no solution around that AFAIK. And it's simply bad filefolder structure/organization. 

Or create Home Videos and Photos-type library and you'll have no metadata fetching/identifying involved and they'll be presented just like folders as in your OS. 

Even with absolute order it still misplaces files, I'll resort to the home videos library.

[pwhodges 2012]

It works for other people because they follow the guidelines - you're actually making it harder for yourself.

Paul

[Monograxo 0]

2 minutes ago, pwhodges said:

It works for other people because they follow the guidelines - you're actually making it harder for yourself.

Paul

Doesn't get more simple than just chucking everything into the same folder. I even bulk renamed the episodes so they are S01E01 to S01E366 and Emby still misplaces three episodes for no good reason.

[pwhodges 2012]

Emby is following the metadata supplied by TVDB (or whichever is your top provider) to match your file names.  If your episode naming doesn't match that used by the provider, how do you expect Emby to know what you want?

Sometimes the episode sequence is different on various occasions that the media is published, and the metadata providers have to choose.  The misplaced episodes may be specials or not, differently from what you expect.  Either find the metadata that matches your files (and provide it manually if none of the databases used by Emby offers it), or find the database which has the metadata closest to what you want, and adjust your file naming to fill the gaps.

The simplest method is magic; but getting it right is not magic.

Paul