What is actually the key identifier for a movie?

[seashell 42]

I have two versions of Aliens in my movies directory.   Aliens (1986) and Aliens Special Edition (1986).  They are in separate folders with those names with mkv files with those names in the folders.  They show as separate entries on the web interface, keep the separate art I've selected etc.  But they track each other in playback status, which happens to be wrong for both.

I watched the special edition pretty much all the way through.  Stopped it at the credits.  In the library it showed both versions 3/4 watched even though I've never watched the standard edition since adding it to the library.  I clicked mark played on the special edition and it marked both versions played.  I marked the special edition unplayed and marked the regular edition unplayed as well.

So clearly somewhere in your database these are linked.  What is the primary key for movies?  How do I prevent this confusion?

Also, I watched the movie via the android TV version of the emby app.  Why was the point I ended playback so poorly captured?  Is this typical for the app?  I've not had this issue with DLNA playback.

[GrimReaper 4740]

1 hour ago, seashell said:

So clearly somewhere in your database these are linked.  What is the primary key for movies?

ProviderIDs. 

1 hour ago, seashell said:

How do I prevent this confusion?

You can't currently, Emby doesn't discern between different cuts for tracking purposes, it's all one and the same item as far it is concerned. 

[roaku 842]

Emby tracks watch status by third party metadata ID, so unfortunately, it doesn't recognize different cuts of movies or understand the potential different run times, as you've noticed, unless each cut has its own entry with your configured primary metadata provider.

This also means you get multiple entries in your continue watching row while any one of the movie entries is being watched.

The alternative is to combine your cuts into one item using the multi version functionality. This solves the continue watching duplication, but you can't control which version Emby will default to playing, and Emby won't 'remember' which version you were watching if you stop and resume. It will also potentially still get resume points confused when the versions have different lengths.

There's currently no 'perfect' way to handle multiple cuts of the same movie, but there are feature requests to improve it.

I prefer the multi version approach. Others like separate items. Some use separate items but group them into collections so they appear as one movie in their grid/list views

Edited January 3, 2024 by roaku

[seashell 42]

Thanks for the quick replies, but that's disappointing.  Such basic functionality missing and it's obviously known and ignored.

I'm finding the entire library experience increasingly frustrating the more I add, and the documentation is lacking.  Search the forum and there's discussion of "core" naming and this folder triggers that and such.  Is that in the documentation?  Certainly nowhere obvious.  The word core doesn't exist on the Moving naming page, not any page I've found regarding naming and media preparation.

[seashell 42]

So I see multiple IDs from the various metadata sites.  Is the providerID the top one (looks like the sites can be reordered)?  Is providerID even accessible by the user?

I wonder if this is the same reason it shows me one file but plays a different one.

[Luke 42079]

Doing it this way by provider id's does have it's benefits. You can move files around and user data will be preserved, you can rename files, replace the video files with new versions, etc, and user data is preserved.

[seashell 42]

Do you play files based on this ID as well?  Ignoring the path?

And I'll ask again, where is the the provider id in the metadata?  How do I see/edit it?

[Luke 42079]

4 minutes ago, seashell said:

Do you play files based on this ID as well?  Ignoring the path?

 

No. We'd have to look at a specific example of what you mean: 

How to Report a Problem

 

[Luke 42079]

4 minutes ago, seashell said:

 

And I'll ask again, where is the the provider id in the metadata?  How do I see/edit it?

The external ids section in the metadata editor.

[seashell 42]

4 minutes ago, Luke said:

The external ids section in the metadata editor.

So specifically for Aliens there are three sites that have provided IDs in the metadata editor.  Which is serving as the primary key that is linking the two versions together?  Just the highest ones as listed in the editor?  A combo of all three?

As to the playing the wrong file error I renamed various things and it stopped playing the wrong files, so I no longer have an example at this time.  Best I could do is describe it which I doubt would be helpful.

[Luke 42079]

59 minutes ago, seashell said:

So specifically for Aliens there are three sites that have provided IDs in the metadata editor.  Which is serving as the primary key that is linking the two versions together?  Just the highest ones as listed in the editor?  A combo of all three?

As to the playing the wrong file error I renamed various things and it stopped playing the wrong files, so I no longer have an example at this time.  Best I could do is describe it which I doubt would be helpful.

Movies go by the moviedb id, imdb id, or tvdb id. In that order using whichever one is the first one that is present in the metadata. If none are then it will be by file path.

[seashell 42]

4 minutes ago, Luke said:

Movies go by the moviedb id, imdb id, or tvdb id. In that order using whichever one is the first one that is present in the metadata. If none are then it will be by file path.

Thanks for that.  So as a quick test I modified the moviedb id by adding an "a" to the end (moviedb id's seem to be only numeric) for the non-special edition.  I then clicked the "Lock this item to prevent future changes" option.  This severed the connection between the normal edition and special edition (at least as tested via the mark played/unplayed option) which was my goal.

Is this approach going to trigger any known problems?

[Luke 42079]

I think just that you won't be able to get internet metadata for it going forward. If you forget that you did this then down the road if/when you actually try to do that, you may find yourself getting frustrated and thinking that things aren't working.

[seashell 42]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

I think just that you won't be able to get internet metadata for it going forward. If you forget that you did this then down the road if/when you actually try to do that, you may find yourself getting frustrated and thinking that things aren't working.

Heh.  Kind of how I feel now with the inability to separate the two versions with them tied together by provider id.

I think this will be less annoying for me. 

However, I'd welcome you adding an "alternate version tag" box to the metadata editor which you appended to the provider id if present for purposes of being the internal id but didn't append it when pulling internet metadata.  Basically a safer version of what I just did.

[Luke 42079]

Quote

As to the playing the wrong file error I renamed various things and it stopped playing the wrong files, so I no longer have an example at this time.  Best I could do is describe it which I doubt would be helpful.

My guess for this is that they may have been grouped together as multi-version. Then you get one screen with a version selection box to select which one you want to play. I would guess that you just didn't notice this, and this is what led you into thinking that the wrong thing was being played.

[seashell 42]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

My guess for this is that they may have been grouped together as multi-version. Then you get one screen with a version selection box to select which one you want to play. I would guess that you just didn't notice this, and this is what led you into thinking that the wrong thing was being played.

No, it was for extra stuff with a show in a "TV Show" labeled library.  I had a directory named "Music Videos" and a directory named "Extras" and when I would play an entry in the "Extras" section (which shows as as "Specials" in the webpage) it would play the first entry from the Music Videos folder.  It showed different thumbnails, paths, etc.  It just played the wrong video from a completely different directory. 

This is where I talk about lacking documentation.  Nothing in the TV sections says "Extras" becomes "Specials", while Music Videos shows up as "Music Videos".  And when I moved rearranged things to have a  "Credits" folder that shows up as Credits.  So it's not at all clear based on the documentation what folders are special, why some clobber each other etc.