Plugin: Export VODS from .m3u - split m3u livetv, tvshows, movies (Going BETA!!)

[mickle026 650]

I have added error handler to downloading - only took a few minutes  , it will return an empty file if it fails with 0 lines, so it will just continue, but it will log that it failed.

Now I am going to get some sleep .
 

VODtoSTRMscheduledTask.dll

[mickle026 650]

31 minutes ago, goin3d said:

Yes, trying that exactly as you have it now and timing out the total run.

One more thing on the multi-file/file failing item that i'm seeing.  I have "Clean Out/Remove Old (obsolete) entries from the output directory." checked to keep the output folder current.  If for any reason 1, 2, or 3 of the m3u's i enter can't connect, then the whole run fails AND the output folder is being deleted.  If something fails should that happen?  

It will delete it as its not the same as what's being processed, what would you prefer to happen? - stop altogether? or an option of what to do?
1. Stop / Abort processing
2. Continue Anyway.
3. Unselect Remove Obsolete Files & Continue 
etc

Edited April 20, 2025 by mickle026

[fbrassin 47]

I've just came back home after three days yesterday and tried one of the last build.

I ended ok after about 7 hour, the previous one lasted about the same time.

So, it seems ok.

In the log i see many of these 

19.apr.2025 - 23:02:39 Access error writing to /media/S3/strm/Movies/Il professore e il pazzo (2019)/Il professore e il pazzo (2019).strm. Retrying... (Attempt 30) - Error: Access to the path '/media/S3/strm/Movies/Il professore e il pazzo (2019)/Il professore e il pazzo (2019).strm' is denied.
19.apr.2025 - 23:02:39 Attempt 30 to write file: /media/S3/strm/Movies/La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978)/La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978).strm
19.apr.2025 - 23:02:39 Access error writing to /media/S3/strm/Movies/La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978)/La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978).strm. Retrying... (Attempt 30) - Error: Access to the path '/media/S3/strm/Movies/La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978)/La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978).strm' is denied.
19.apr.2025 - 23:02:39 Attempt 29 to write file: /media/S3/strm/Movies/il diavolo e l'acquasanta (1979)/il diavolo e l'acquasanta (1979).strm
19.apr.2025 - 23:02:39 Access error writing to /media/S3/strm/Movies/il diavolo e l'acquasanta (1979)/il diavolo e l'acquasanta (1979).strm. Retrying... (Attempt 29) - Error: Access to the path '/media/S3/strm/Movies/il diavolo e l'acquasanta (1979)/il diavolo e l'acquasanta (1979).strm' is denied.
19.apr.2025 - 23:02:39 Attempt 32 to write file: /media/S3/strm/Movies/Il rapporto Pelican/Il rapporto Pelican.strm

what could be the cause of this Error: Access to the path?

 

Moreover what does this option "Use Minimal Memory" exactly does?

[mickle026 650]

9 minutes ago, fbrassin said:

I've just came back home after three days yesterday and tried one of the last build.

I ended ok after about 7 hour, the previous one lasted about the same time.

So, it seems ok.

In the log i see many of these 

19.apr.2025 - 23:02:39 Access error writing to /media/S3/strm/Movies/Il professore e il pazzo (2019)/Il professore e il pazzo (2019).strm. Retrying... (Attempt 30) - Error: Access to the path '/media/S3/strm/Movies/Il professore e il pazzo (2019)/Il professore e il pazzo (2019).strm' is denied.
19.apr.2025 - 23:02:39 Attempt 30 to write file: /media/S3/strm/Movies/La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978)/La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978).strm
19.apr.2025 - 23:02:39 Access error writing to /media/S3/strm/Movies/La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978)/La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978).strm. Retrying... (Attempt 30) - Error: Access to the path '/media/S3/strm/Movies/La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978)/La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978).strm' is denied.
19.apr.2025 - 23:02:39 Attempt 29 to write file: /media/S3/strm/Movies/il diavolo e l'acquasanta (1979)/il diavolo e l'acquasanta (1979).strm
19.apr.2025 - 23:02:39 Access error writing to /media/S3/strm/Movies/il diavolo e l'acquasanta (1979)/il diavolo e l'acquasanta (1979).strm. Retrying... (Attempt 29) - Error: Access to the path '/media/S3/strm/Movies/il diavolo e l'acquasanta (1979)/il diavolo e l'acquasanta (1979).strm' is denied.
19.apr.2025 - 23:02:39 Attempt 32 to write file: /media/S3/strm/Movies/Il rapporto Pelican/Il rapporto Pelican.strm

what could be the cause of this Error: Access to the path?

 

Moreover what does this option "Use Minimal Memory" exactly does?

The memory limiter does exactly that.

If you check logs it will tell you periodically when this is on how much memory is being used, it will also prevent the CPU going above 80%, if it goes above 80% it will pause and continue when the system drops below 80% to prevent system freezing.

For high end systems, it doesn't really make much difference, I have it on and an m3u with over 500,000 entries and it took only 6 mins.

It's is more for old,low power, or Nas/docker systems where the system has much less CPU and memory available.  It might take a little longer but it should not max out the system anymore.

 

I have no idea why your filesystem is preventing writes, is it full?

[sundevil67 28]

19 hours ago, mickle026 said:

I am very sorry, I really do not understand this post & what it is your are asking....

Doesn't all your channels (livetv, movies, tvshows) come in the same m3u file?

This suggests that it does, and you only need 1 m3u file

There are 3 M3U files - one for movies, livetv, and TVshows. The sources simply don't include recent shows or anything before 2023, yet they are all in their catalog, because they can be watched through their app. This is an issue this plugin can't workaround, and unfortunately I've hit a wall with their support) It is very frustrating, because it essentially renders my whole effort here moot. The whole point was to keep it updated when new episodes of shows I like are released, and the shows themselves just aren't in the XML. Anyone else dealing with this? I assume everyone must be who is using Apollo

Of course now after monkeying with using multiple m3u URLS in the plugin, it's stopped working for me altogether & gets stuck at 2% indefinitely every time I try to run it. 

[sundevil67 28]

I replaced my old 2011 Mac Mini a while ago with a 2022 model that has some juice ... but it's possible Emby was just running too many tasks, but it does seem to take a very long time. I'll have  look at the log.

Anyway, after an exhaustive conversation with my provider, I learned that each year of TV shows is contained in separate M3U files. The only way I can think of to handle that would be to combine everything before 2025 into a single file, add that to my library and then just run the plugin for everything new in 2025 & beyond. I'm going to add the latest .dll & see what happens. 

17 hours ago, mickle026 said:

The memory limiter does exactly that.

If you check logs it will tell you periodically when this is on how much memory is being used, it will also prevent the CPU going above 80%, if it goes above 80% it will pause and continue when the system drops below 80% to prevent system freezing.

For high end systems, it doesn't really make much difference, I have it on and an m3u with over 500,000 entries and it took only 6 mins.

It's is more for old,low power, or Nas/docker systems where the system has much less CPU and memory available.  It might take a little longer but it should not max out the system anymore.

 

I have no idea why your filesystem is preventing writes, is it full?

 

[mickle026 650]

15 minutes ago, sundevil67 said:

I replaced my old 2011 Mac Mini a while ago with a 2022 model that has some juice ... but it's possible Emby was just running too many tasks, but it does seem to take a very long time. I'll have  look at the log.

Anyway, after an exhaustive conversation with my provider, I learned that each year of TV shows is contained in separate M3U files. The only way I can think of to handle that would be to combine everything before 2025 into a single file, add that to my library and then just run the plugin for everything new in 2025 & beyond. I'm going to add the latest .dll & see what happens. 

 

The latest dll is at the bottom of post 1 on the first page, the last one on the thread so far is the same but the one in post 1 has a bit more html fixes and enhancements , function wise they are the same.

[mickle026 650]

1 hour ago, sundevil67 said:

I replaced my old 2011 Mac Mini a while ago with a 2022 model that has some juice ... but it's possible Emby was just running too many tasks, but it does seem to take a very long time. I'll have  look at the log.

Anyway, after an exhaustive conversation with my provider, I learned that each year of TV shows is contained in separate M3U files. The only way I can think of to handle that would be to combine everything before 2025 into a single file, add that to my library and then just run the plugin for everything new in 2025 & beyond. I'm going to add the latest .dll & see what happens. 

 

Can you access the m3u files you are describing?

I could modify the plugin so that instead of 3 inputs boxes it can have a textarea and put multiple URLs in a list and then process the whole list regardless of how many m3u files there are. 

Is this something that would solve your issues?

[BigIrn 10]

@mickle026I don't know what you did but my M1 Pro finished in ~20 minutes. Holy Shit!! I'm going to try it on my mac mini m4. My only complaint is that it keeps grouping movies into genres even though I have selected it not to.

ScheduledTask-[M3UToStrm]21.Apr.2025 - 11.13.52.txt

Edit: What is the use of the LIVE TV strms? Not sure what it is intended for.

Edit2: I figured out how to not group by genre. It ran ~19 minutes. Thank you!!!

Edited April 21, 2025 by BigIrn

[mickle026 650]

47 minutes ago, BigIrn said:

What is the use of the LIVE TV strms? Not sure what it is intended for.

That's totally up to the user, It can be done by this plugin so I put it there incase someone asked for it.

Glad it is working now

[mickle026 650]

@sundevil67

It appears that you are trying to load an m3u8 file from what I can fin out on apollo tv site
How do I set up Apollo Group TV on Emby? : ApolloGroup.TV

This is not the same as an m3u from a general stream provider, the m3u8 is more for HLS streams and they would have to be parsed completely differently to what this plugin does.
the m3u8 varies in structure and looks more like this:

m3u <> m3u8 - not the same!
 

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:6
#EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS


#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=2168183,BANDWIDTH=2177116,CODECS="avc1.640020,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=960x540,FRAME-RATE=60.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="cc1",AUDIO="aud1",SUBTITLES="sub1"
v5/prog_index.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=7968416,BANDWIDTH=8001098,CODECS="avc1.64002a,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=1920x1080,FRAME-RATE=60.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="cc1",AUDIO="aud1",SUBTITLES="sub1"
v9/prog_index.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=6170000,BANDWIDTH=6312875,CODECS="avc1.64002a,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=1920x1080,FRAME-RATE=60.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="cc1",AUDIO="aud1",SUBTITLES="sub1"
v8/prog_index.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=4670769,BANDWIDTH=4943747,CODECS="avc1.64002a,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=1920x1080,FRAME-RATE=60.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="cc1",AUDIO="aud1",SUBTITLES="sub1"
v7/prog_index.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=3168702,BANDWIDTH=3216424,CODECS="avc1.640020,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=1280x720,FRAME-RATE=60.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="cc1",AUDIO="aud1",SUBTITLES="sub1"
v6/prog_index.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=1265132,BANDWIDTH=1268994,CODECS="avc1.64001e,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=768x432,FRAME-RATE=30.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="cc1",AUDIO="aud1",SUBTITLES="sub1"
v4/prog_index.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=895755,BANDWIDTH=902298,CODECS="avc1.64001e,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=640x360,FRAME-RATE=30.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="cc1",AUDIO="aud1",SUBTITLES="sub1"
v3/prog_index.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=530721,BANDWIDTH=541052,CODECS="avc1.640015,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=480x270,FRAME-RATE=30.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="cc1",AUDIO="aud1",SUBTITLES="sub1"
v2/prog_index.m3u8

whereas an standard m3u looks like this:
 

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="" tvg-name="EN| L.A. Law S01 E02" tvg-logo="http://Somesiteurl/images/_small.jpg" group-title="[EN] SERIES",EN| L.A. Law S01 E02
http://xxxx.xxxx.xxx:80/series/xxxxx/xxxxx/the-show-45.mkv
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="" tvg-name="EN| L.A. Law S01 E03" tvg-logo="http://Somesiteurl/images/_small.jpg" group-title="[EN] SERIES",EN| L.A. Law S01 E03
http://xxxx.xxxx.xxx:80/series/xxxxx/xxxxx/the-show-46.mkv
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="" tvg-name="EN| L.A. Law S01 E04" tvg-logo="http://Somesiteurl/images/_small.jpg" group-title="[EN] SERIES",EN| L.A. Law S01 E04
http://xxxx.xxxx.xxx:80/series/xxxxx/xxxxx/the-show-47.mkv
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="" tvg-name="EN| L.A. Law S01 E05" tvg-logo="http://Somesiteurl/images/_small.jpg" group-title="[EN] SERIES",EN| L.A. Law S01 E05
http://xxxx.xxxx.xxx:80/series/xxxxx/xxxxx/the-show-48.mkv
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="" tvg-name="EN| L.A. Law S01 E06" tvg-logo="http://Somesiteurl/images/_small.jpg" group-title="[EN] SERIES",EN| L.A. Law S01 E06
http://xxxx.xxxx.xxx:80/series/xxxxx/xxxxx/the-show-49.mkv
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="" tvg-name="EN| L.A. Law S01 E07" tvg-logo="http://Somesiteurl/images/_small.jpg" group-title="[EN] SERIES",EN| L.A. Law S01 E07
http://xxxx.xxxx.xxx:80/series/xxxxx/xxxxx/the-show-50.mkv
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="" tvg-name="EN| L.A. Law S01 E08" tvg-logo="http://Somesiteurl/images/_small.jpg" group-title="[EN] SERIES",EN| L.A. Law S01 E08
http://xxxx.xxxx.xxx:80/series/xxxxx/xxxxx/the-show-51.mkv
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="" tvg-name="EN| L.A. Law S01 E09" tvg-logo="http://Somesiteurl/images/_small.jpg" group-title="[EN] SERIES",EN| L.A. Law S01 E09
http://xxxx.xxxx.xxx:80/series/xxxxx/xxxxx/the-show-52.mkv
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="" tvg-name="EN| L.A. Law S01 E10" tvg-logo="http://Somesiteurl/images/_small.jpg" group-title="[EN] SERIES",EN| L.A. Law S01 E10
http://xxxx.xxxx.xxx:80/series/xxxxx/xxxxx/the-show-53.mkv
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="" tvg-name="EN| L.A. Law S01 E11" tvg-logo="http://Somesiteurl/images/_small.jpg" group-title="[EN] SERIES",EN| L.A. Law S01 E11
http://xxxx.xxxx.xxx:80/series/xxxxx/xxxxx/the-show-54.mkv

So this plugin will probably read the m2u8 and filter everything out as its not a standard m3u

 

[gillmacca01 211]

1 hour ago, BigIrn said:

@mickle026I don't know what you did but my M1 Pro finished in ~20 minutes. Holy Shit!! I'm going to try it on my mac mini m4. My only complaint is that it keeps grouping movies into genres even though I have selected it not to.

ScheduledTask-[M3UToStrm]21.Apr.2025 - 11.13.52.txt 1.57 kB · 1 download

Edit: What is the use of the LIVE TV strms? Not sure what it is intended for.

Edit2: I figured out how to not group by genre. It ran ~19 minutes. Thank you!!!

Once i am fully back up and running, I plan on using live tv to create a library for things that you cannot get listings for. example, PPV, football (soccer) teams, etc

[fbrassin 47]

The latest version works fine with no stuck on my system now, but when i enable emby check it stucks again and it cannot finish.

I will use it without emby check.

Hasn't emby check pause when it reaches 80% of system use? Or it is Emby?

[goin3d 4]

20 hours ago, sundevil67 said:

There are 3 M3U files - one for movies, livetv, and TVshows. The sources simply don't include recent shows or anything before 2023, yet they are all in their catalog, because they can be watched through their app. This is an issue this plugin can't workaround, and unfortunately I've hit a wall with their support) It is very frustrating, because it essentially renders my whole effort here moot. The whole point was to keep it updated when new episodes of shows I like are released, and the shows themselves just aren't in the XML. Anyone else dealing with this? I assume everyone must be who is using Apollo

Of course now after monkeying with using multiple m3u URLS in the plugin, it's stopped working for me altogether & gets stuck at 2% indefinitely every time I try to run it. 

Yes, the whole stream structure for that provider is horrible.  Getting any solid support is just as bad!  If you’re set on them you may want to checkout something like IPTVBoss where you can consume the feeds and output m3u files with just the content of your choosing on a schedule.  I do not know if it’s still the case but Apollo used to have multiple links for VOD because it was broken up as you’re finding.  

[BigIrn 10]

21 hours ago, sundevil67 said:

I replaced my old 2011 Mac Mini a while ago with a 2022 model that has some juice ... but it's possible Emby was just running too many tasks, but it does seem to take a very long time. I'll have  look at the log.

Anyway, after an exhaustive conversation with my provider, I learned that each year of TV shows is contained in separate M3U files. The only way I can think of to handle that would be to combine everything before 2025 into a single file, add that to my library and then just run the plugin for everything new in 2025 & beyond. I'm going to add the latest .dll & see what happens. 

 

I have a 2023-24 M1 Pro 16GB. I reinstalled emby, didn't add my media and went straight to installing the stream plugin. I checked off all the logging and it finished in 19 minutes. I'm going to try it with my M4 16GB mini, that is what I was using originally before I switched to win11 because it wasn't finishing on macos.

[sundevil67 28]

22 hours ago, goin3d said:

Yes, the whole stream structure for that provider is horrible.  Getting any solid support is just as bad!  If you’re set on them you may want to checkout something like IPTVBoss where you can consume the feeds and output m3u files with just the content of your choosing on a schedule.  I do not know if it’s still the case but Apollo used to have multiple links for VOD because it was broken up as you’re finding.  

I've been using them for a lot of years now, and while the service has definitely been slipping, for now I'm sticking with the devil I know. Anyway, I figure that once I get all of the <2023 TV shows in there (still not 100% sure certain shows aren't missing), I can use that "latest" URL & hope for the best ... but it's kind of wonky trying to download each & paste everything into a single XML file, so my plan is to run the plugin on each file in groups of 3 overnight for a week or so, that should do it. 

One question - that box that says "ignore if already in Emby library" - does that apply to the specific library the plugin exports the STRM files to, or does this mean if the content appears in any library on the server? 

[mickle026 650]

58 minutes ago, sundevil67 said:

One question - that box that says "ignore if already in Emby library" - does that apply to the specific library the plugin exports the STRM files to, or does this mean if the content appears in any library on the server? 

if its in your m3u AND in ANY Emby library, it shouldn't output it if selected because its a duplicate.

[Jekaboom 4]

Is there an easy way to group multiple versions of a VOD under the same emby library entry? E.g. I have in my m3u where "Movie 1" is under the category "English 4k" and the same "Movie 1" under the category "German NEW". So far I think I get two emby library entries. It would be nice if I could see only one entry and then emby asks which version (in this case language) i like to play. I think emby supports this but is very picky on how the structure needs to look like for it to work.

[goin3d 4]

More data for ya!

Now that i'm past running files for the first time, i'm seeing what happens when the same files are processed multiple times and am not 100% sure what to expect.  For example I have a file that when run net new for the very first time takes 6 minutes which is great.  Running the same file a 2nd time with the "Remove obsolete files and folders" option set takes 45 minutes.  That seems like a lot?  From what i can see in the logs there are periods where CPU usage goes through the roof after the initial write tasks are done and there are large time gaps:  

22.Apr.2025 - 14:06:13 -----------------------[ Updating Output Folder ]-------------------------------
22.Apr.2025 - 14:23:24 Using; 4 cores/threads.

And then:

22.Apr.2025 - 14:23:25 All write tasks completed.
22.Apr.2025 - 14:23:25 Debugging: Fetch Images: False.
22.Apr.2025 - 14:43:07 Starting FileRemover: 1111 Items to delete.
22.Apr.2025 - 14:43:08 Item [1] I/O Queued for deletion: /share/STRM/STRMFiles/TV Shows/KIDS/ENDaft.planet/Season 01/ENDaft.planet S01 E01.strm.

Additionally, Each of these runs contained 337082 items.  each file was identical.  That being the case you you think of a reason why on the second run 2041 items would be deleted and then 1000 added?

[mickle026 650]

2 hours ago, goin3d said:

More data for ya!

Now that i'm past running files for the first time, i'm seeing what happens when the same files are processed multiple times and am not 100% sure what to expect.  For example I have a file that when run net new for the very first time takes 6 minutes which is great.  Running the same file a 2nd time with the "Remove obsolete files and folders" option set takes 45 minutes.  That seems like a lot?  From what i can see in the logs there are periods where CPU usage goes through the roof after the initial write tasks are done and there are large time gaps:  

22.Apr.2025 - 14:06:13 -----------------------[ Updating Output Folder ]-------------------------------
22.Apr.2025 - 14:23:24 Using; 4 cores/threads.

And then:

22.Apr.2025 - 14:23:25 All write tasks completed.
22.Apr.2025 - 14:23:25 Debugging: Fetch Images: False.
22.Apr.2025 - 14:43:07 Starting FileRemover: 1111 Items to delete.
22.Apr.2025 - 14:43:08 Item [1] I/O Queued for deletion: /share/STRM/STRMFiles/TV Shows/KIDS/ENDaft.planet/Season 01/ENDaft.planet S01 E01.strm.

Additionally, Each of these runs contained 337082 items.  each file was identical.  That being the case you you think of a reason why on the second run 2041 items would be deleted and then 1000 added?

No idea why unless you logged it.

 

Could be failed write/delete tasks from a previous run.  You'll only know if you logged it.

Also if you did change something such as add a removal strings or change ignore/include that might trigger it.

If you run it again and nothing changes then it's one of the above.

If it does it again then I would need logs.

The only reason for a delete is it's not in the current m3u, the name has changed or the URL has changed.

The only reason for a write is it doesn't exist or it has changed.

 

[sundevil67 28]

On 4/20/2025 at 7:56 PM, mickle026 said:

Can you access the m3u files you are describing?

Yes - all of the URLs are working from the browser. It looks like they go up to 30.

On 4/20/2025 at 7:56 PM, mickle026 said:

I could modify the plugin so that instead of 3 inputs boxes it can have a textarea and put multiple URLs in a list and then process the whole list regardless of how many m3u files there are. 

Is this something that would solve your issues?

That would definitely allow me to handle this in one shot - with 30 URLS, doing it in 3s will take a while, but I shouldn't need it more than once, so it may not be worth adding unless others have an ongoing need. The more pressing issue though is that it doesn't work at all now. It runs for 1-2 seconds & quits. I'm using version 1.0.0.161. Strange though that it was working & now it isn't without having updating the DLL

 

[goin3d 4]

1 hour ago, mickle026 said:

No idea why unless you logged it.

 

Could be failed write/delete tasks from a previous run.  You'll only know if you logged it.

Also if you did change something such as add a removal strings or change ignore/include that might trigger it.

If you run it again and nothing changes then it's one of the above.

If it does it again then I would need logs.

The only reason for a delete is it's not in the current m3u, the name has changed or the URL has changed.

The only reason for a write is it doesn't exist or it has changed.

 

No settings have changed, no strings added, etc.  just running the same file 3 times in a row.  This is a file where the first run takes about a minute.  the 2nd and 3rd runs take around 6 minutes.  that doesn't sound bad, but as i run larger files the two example logs below grow and grow.  It looks like with each consecutive run some of the exact same items show up over and over again to be written to disk.  For these examples i do not have remove obsolete files checked.  If i do check it the run takes longer but i also see removals in the log over and over, very similar to the additions i attached.  I hope that helps!

FileWriteDebugLogging [M3UToStrm]22.Apr.2025 3rd Run.txt FileWriteDebugLogging [M3UToStrm]22.Apr.2025 2nd Run.txt

[mickle026 650]

3 hours ago, sundevil67 said:

 

Do you have one URL that downloads a master file with all the other URLs in it, or are they all separate?.  It sounds like a very odd setup....

[mickle026 650]

1 hour ago, goin3d said:

No settings have changed, no strings added, etc.  just running the same file 3 times in a row.  This is a file where the first run takes about a minute.  the 2nd and 3rd runs take around 6 minutes.  that doesn't sound bad, but as i run larger files the two example logs below grow and grow.  It looks like with each consecutive run some of the exact same items show up over and over again to be written to disk.  For these examples i do not have remove obsolete files checked.  If i do check it the run takes longer but i also see removals in the log over and over, very similar to the additions i attached.  I hope that helps!

FileWriteDebugLogging [M3UToStrm]22.Apr.2025 3rd Run.txt 74.02 kB · 0 downloads FileWriteDebugLogging [M3UToStrm]22.Apr.2025 2nd Run.txt 74.88 kB · 0 downloads

Thanks , I will look as soon as I can.

[goin3d 4]

2 minutes ago, mickle026 said:

Thanks , I will look as soon as I can.

Ty!!  i hope the data helps.  When you run a file for the 2nd time what really happens when you don't have remove obsolete files checked?  does the plugin still compare the current run to what's on disk to determine what to write?  trying to figure out why the run times and cpu usage increase 10x from the first run with an empty output folder to the subsequent runs.