Multi-version movies only displays two versions

[lordairivis 9]

34 minutes ago, brothom said:

As a programmer I can safely say that anything that looks like a bug, always has a logical explanation lol.

The thing is that we can't reproduce this issue on new installs so it has to do with something in the database. Wiping these items would be a good start.

I don't know if you have an extra PC or laptop on which you can try to reproduce this bug yourself? That'll help us a lot too since we can't reproduce it and you're currently the only one that can. 

Since this is a VM and I can freely play around with the install and then just roll back to snapshot after, here's what I did. After taking a snapshot of the VM, I renamed the library.db file in /var/lib/emby/ to library.db.bak and rebuilt my entire Emby library from scratch. I also uninstalled all plugins leaving just the general movie/tv/music metadata provider plugins. One thing I do notice right away is that at one point I had the Auto Box Set plugin installed, but I no longer see that available in the catalog nor do I see the .dll in /var/lib/emby/plugins/ or any trace of it, so I have no idea if whatever that plugin did is still affecting the library in some way.

After the rebuilt Movies library had finished scanning, I manually grouped the movie again and I'm still seeing the same result with only 2 items being visible in the group until I disable the parental controls filtering. I may just have to spin up another VM and set up Emby from scratch on it and try with a fully fresh installation to properly test this.

[Happy2Play 9780]

4 minutes ago, lordairivis said:

One thing I do notice right away is that at one point I had the Auto Box Set plugin installed, but I no longer see that available in the catalog nor do I see the .dll in /var/lib/emby/plugins/ or any trace of it, so I have no idea if whatever that plugin did is still affecting the library in some way.

It became a core feature years ago and the dll actually does nothing now.

8 minutes ago, lordairivis said:

After the rebuilt Movies library had finished scanning, I manually grouped the movie again and I'm still seeing the same result with only 2 items being visible in the group until I disable the parental controls filtering. I may just have to spin up another VM and set up Emby from scratch on it and try with a fully fresh installation to properly test this.

I have no idea then.

What exactly are the user setting?  Are you only applying the block tag?

[lordairivis 9]

8 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

It became a core feature years ago and the dll actually does nothing now.

I have no idea then.

What exactly are the user setting?  Are you only applying the block tag?

Correct, only applying the block tag as in my screenshot:

SOMETHING is screwing with grouping and the parental controls are SOMEHOW related, but what it is and how it's doing it are a mystery to me. I am currently going to try spinning up a new VM with a fresh installation of Emby and see if I can reproduce the issue there. I don't know why you all are unable to reproduce this issue, but in the post I made on Reddit at least one person has been able to reproduce it with their setup so at least I know I'm not going insane

Edited July 18, 2025 by lordairivis

[lordairivis 9]

So I spun up a brand new Ubuntu 24.04.2 VM and did a fresh install of Emby 4.8.11.0, using the same files from the same folder/location as in my real Emby install connected via NFSv4 and mounted in the new VM. No other changes have been made; this is a barebones default installation of Emby 4.8.11.0 created specifically for this test with one single administrator user with full permissions to the files/folders on the network share as well as full access rights to the items in the library.

I set up and configured this new instance of Emby and configured my Movies library with each of the Movies folders from my network share. Once Emby finished scanning the library and adding all the files, I was able to see all 3 versions of Godzilla Minus One listed separately in the library, as expected. I multi-selected the items in the library and manually grouped them.

All 3 items are selectable from the dropdown, as expected:

Then, I added the parental control filter for the tag, like I have in my real Emby environment:

Going back to check the entry in the library, I now only see 2 of the items as listed in the dropdown:

With the parental controls still applied, if I scroll down the page and split the versions apart, I once again see all 3 different versions listed separately in the library.

Since this is a test VM, I updated to the latest 4.9.1.7 BETA of Emby and conducted the same test. This time, after re-applying the parental control filtering, I am thankfully still able to see all three versions listed in the dropdown after grouping the items.

So, it appears that whatever is causing my issue in 4.8.11.0 with the movie grouping and parental control filtering is fixed in 4.9.1.7 BETA, at least with a barebones base install. Once 4.9 is actually released I will have to see if I still have this issue in my real Emby installation. I still don't know what is causing the problem, or how to go about fixing it, but at least "wait until 4.9 comes out and upgrade" is a valid solution to the problem for me.