Photos not showing in photo library on Windows Server

[Znippo 1]

Hi! I have been running EmbyServer on my Windows Server 2012 for years, and I am generally very happy with it. For video it works great, but some point in the not so distant past my library containing private photos and videos does no longer show any images. The folders are shown, as are some thumbnails on folders - generated from the first photo in the folder or subfolder. But none of the photos themselves are displayed.

I have tried library types "Home videos & photos" and "Mixed content" with the exact same result. The file permissions are the same for all my libraries, and Emby obviously are able to read the file structures and generate some folder thumbnails.

My folder structure is mixed, as these folders and subfolders contain both photos, some videos and other subfolders. But when I made an Emby library containing just one folder with jpeg images, no photos were shown. Emby is only saying "No items found."

Example of some thumbnails displayed and others not:

When clicking on the "Oppussing" folder, the subfolders are displayed - with no thumbnails. Clicking on any of the subfolders result in "No items found."

I have really tried all I can think of, and the logs have not helped me solving the issue. Can anyone help out here, or have I discovered a bug?

[Abobader 3469]

Hello Znippo,

** 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

[Luke 42083]

Hi there, how many Emby libraries have you created, and what folder paths did you add to each one?

[Znippo 1]

12 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi there, how many Emby libraries have you created, and what folder paths did you add to each one?

Hi Luke, thanks for answering. At first I only had one library containing photos, and that library consisted of only one path, like "S:\Photos". When trying to figure out what could be wrong, I have tested with libraries pointing to just a single folder containing, jpeg files and no subfolders, as well as several other combinations with multiple folder paths in the same library. I have also tried using paths like "\\machinename\photos", as the photo folder is also shared on the network like that. But the same result, "No items found" in each folder.

Other than that, I have more than 20 libraries containing everything from movies to music to audio books and TV shows.

[Luke 42083]

On 10/17/2023 at 5:28 AM, Znippo said:

Hi Luke, thanks for answering. At first I only had one library containing photos, and that library consisted of only one path, like "S:\Photos". When trying to figure out what could be wrong, I have tested with libraries pointing to just a single folder containing, jpeg files and no subfolders, as well as several other combinations with multiple folder paths in the same library. I have also tried using paths like "\\machinename\photos", as the photo folder is also shared on the network like that. But the same result, "No items found" in each folder.

Other than that, I have more than 20 libraries containing everything from movies to music to audio books and TV shows.

Can you screenshot Emby library setup or list them out? A typical cause of empty libraries is overlapping paths between libraries. I usually like to confirm this myself by seeing the exact folder paths so that we're not running in circles investigating other avenues.

So what i mean by overlap is using the same path in multiple libraries, or the path is already underneath another library as a subfolder.

[Znippo 1]

16 hours ago, Luke said:

Can you screenshot Emby library setup or list them out? A typical cause of empty libraries is overlapping paths between libraries. I usually like to confirm this myself by seeing the exact folder paths so that we're not running in circles investigating other avenues.

So what i mean by overlap is using the same path in multiple libraries, or the path is already underneath another library as a subfolder.

Lo and behold! When removing an overlapping path from the old "Mixed content" type library, the photos and videos appeared in the new "Home videos & photos" type library!

So then, I guess, the underlying problem was that my images and videos did not show in the original "Mixed content" library. The overlapping paths problem did not exist before I started to troubleshoot the missing photos.

But as far as I'm concerned, I do not need to find out why, so I am happy. Thanks a lot for the help, Luke!