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

[sundevil67 28]

On 6/13/2025 at 6:11 PM, imnotsane said:

I had this happen as well, but not due to the plugin, its best to put all the TV shows in one folder and not sub folders.
Main Folder being added to Emby
                                                           |
                                                            Show 1,Show2,show3

Its detecting one of the entries as an episode and turning the main folder into 1 show. do the above for the least troubleshooting.

You can also remove and add them back in groups till you find the folder name being identified as an episode, then change the name.

Also heard you can add the root folder and change the metadata to not update, then add the shows back in.

Ok so I decided to point the plugin to the root directory of my drive. Bad move. It mucked up everything real good. My primary folders were /VOD/Movies & /VOD/TV Shows. Now they are both empty. My "Continue Watching" items (they are all ancient now; like what I've been watching for the last few months are missing). My favorites are 90% gone.

The directory the plugin is pointing to now contains EVERYTHING that was in my libraries. All of my movies, TV series, home video, music, etc. - are now all scattered in that one library, and ALL of the others are empty!!

I don't currently have direct access to the machine - Teamviewer is krunked all of a sudden, so for now I can only make adjustments through Emby, and I really need it while I'm away. What a mess. Any suggestions appreciated.

[imnotsane 2]

3 hours ago, sundevil67 said:

Ok so I decided to point the plugin to the root directory of my drive. Bad move. It mucked up everything real good. My primary folders were /VOD/Movies & /VOD/TV Shows. Now they are both empty. My "Continue Watching" items (they are all ancient now; like what I've been watching for the last few months are missing). My favorites are 90% gone.

The directory the plugin is pointing to now contains EVERYTHING that was in my libraries. All of my movies, TV series, home video, music, etc. - are now all scattered in that one library, and ALL of the others are empty!!

I don't currently have direct access to the machine - Teamviewer is krunked all of a sudden, so for now I can only make adjustments through Emby, and I really need it while I'm away. What a mess. Any suggestions appreciated.

So if you pointed this plugin at the your main folder its deleted I'm pretty sure.
From what I gather it deletes all the files in the output directory, processes the
input m3u and moves the converted files to the output directory. Using the plugin
you would have had to manually move the converted directories to the main directory
to avoid this. I used this at first but ended up creating a script to convert the files as this
was one of the features that caused issues for me as well.

[sundevil67 28]

22 hours ago, imnotsane said:

So if you pointed this plugin at the your main folder its deleted I'm pretty sure.
From what I gather it deletes all the files in the output directory, processes the
input m3u and moves the converted files to the output directory. Using the plugin
you would have had to manually move the converted directories to the main directory
to avoid this. I used this at first but ended up creating a script to convert the files as this
was one of the features that caused issues for me as well.

I guess I followed some bad advice. i guess I wob't find out for sure unless I can get Teamviewer running , but i don't think it deleted any of my personal content; ist still being picked up by emby, just all out of order & dumped in the same library. I can probably roll it back with Time Machine if I have to I suppose. I was really hoping to be able to make this plugin work, but it looks like I should have just kept the STRMs I was able to create & forget about keeping the tv shows up to date.

[thomaspapin 0]

Another question please: I added some words to remove in "Custom Strings to Remove from Titles" section, but it seems it doesn't replace existing folders already in place when I launch a new scan (folders and in emby); do I forget something ? Is there a way to force a new scan in an empty folder ? Seems the prog does keep in mind former scans...

Thanks

[gillmacca01 211]

I have the latest version installed and when it finishes, Emby crashes. 

Has anyone come up with a solution for this, or can post the last version that did not crash?

Thank you

[sundevil67 28]

On 6/28/2025 at 12:00 AM, imnotsane said:

So if you pointed this plugin at the your main folder its deleted I'm pretty sure.
From what I gather it deletes all the files in the output directory, processes the
input m3u and moves the converted files to the output directory. Using the plugin
you would have had to manually move the converted directories to the main directory
to avoid this. I used this at first but ended up creating a script to convert the files as this
was one of the features that caused issues for me as well.

I updated the path back to how it was before, wondering if I can still solve that issue with the weird Fiakala Norwegian titles, but now my server is unreachable since I last ran the operation. I can't tell if my remote computer has crashed or shut down.

[imnotsane 2]

57 minutes ago, sundevil67 said:

I updated the path back to how it was before, wondering if I can still solve that issue with the weird Fiakala Norwegian titles, but now my server is unreachable since I last ran the operation. I can't tell if my remote computer has crashed or shut down.

 

So the best way to avoid issues, is to add in its own directory and have separate
directories for Movies and TV Shows.

For a Movie library it will identify everything as its own movie, so you won't have much issues
using sub directories in a movie Library.

For a TV Show Library its more complicated, using this library will search the folder and identify
based on the title. If a title in the directory is interpreted as an episode for having a number in the title
the whole directory will display as one show and reflect that in Emby. To best work around is to add all
the TV Shows to one Directory of its own, then add that directory to the TV Show Library.

If you wanted to add more directories for either you would follow the same format and add them as
a separate folder. You can add multiple to a library in Emby, Hopefully all this makes sense.

Sample Directory
Library_____________________
            |                                      |
            Movie LIB                      TV Shows
                        |                                         |
                       Movie1,Movie2,etc          TVShows1______TVShow2___TVShow3
                                                                                     |                           |                        |
                                                                                      Show1EPs        Show2EPS      Show3EPS

Emby Setup
Movies
Folder to add in Emby - Library\Movie LIB

TV Shows
Folder to add in Emby - Library\TV Shows

[gillmacca01 211]

On 6/29/2025 at 5:54 PM, gillmacca01 said:

I have the latest version installed and when it finishes, Emby crashes. 

Has anyone come up with a solution for this, or can post the last version that did not crash?

Thank you

Is this still being supported or do I need to look elsewhere 

[mickle026 650]

2 hours ago, gillmacca01 said:

Is this still being supported or do I need to look elsewhere 

I simply don't have time at the moment.

 

Is the crash in the logs, to tell me what it is because I have not been able to reproduce it.

[gillmacca01 211]

I'm going to do further testing, as I have now run it 3 times - twice completed successfully, the other crashed

[mickle026 650]

5 hours ago, gillmacca01 said:

I'm going to do further testing, as I have now run it 3 times - twice completed successfully, the other crashed

Does it crash if you set the memory limiter?

I am asking this because if you have the library task trigger in emby to re-scan the library, I am wondering if the system gets out of memory?

Emby itself on "some" but not all machines during a library scan runs away with memory.  On my older server, it takes all 32gb of memory until it becomes unresponsive and crashes, but on my newer one stays within 2gb...

[gillmacca01 211]

I did have real-time monitoring enabled, but now have it disabled. Will see what happens 

[gillmacca01 211]

Think I'm going to give up until more progress has been done on the plugin. I have run it 5 days in a row, and each time it took 17 hrs to complete...way to long for me

[Apotropaic 41]

On 19/07/2025 at 11:23, gillmacca01 said:

Think I'm going to give up until more progress has been done on the plugin. I have run it 5 days in a row, and each time it took 17 hrs to complete...way to long for me

What version is the latest one you are currently using? I forget which one it is.

.176 is working for me in windows but I don’t have the strm update selected.

On my Ubuntu machine I think it was .170 or .171 that last worked fine. Anything newer would take forever and consume all my RAM.

The plugin for me seems more stable on windows, however when it’s on Linux and working it’s a lot faster.

[gillmacca01 211]

1.0.0.74. Thought I had downloaded the latest.

Not sure which version, but there was one that would complete within 4 hrs, then some improvements were made to the plugin, but somewhere it caused it to take longer

[gillmacca01 211]

Latest version on first page dated 4th May, is version 174. 

[gillmacca01 211]

Found version 176, but much worse for me. 

Started running at 19:21. At 10:17, it saved the m3u files, and it is still running now (19:23), over 24 hours now

[Apotropaic 41]

On 20/07/2025 at 18:48, gillmacca01 said:

1.0.0.74. Thought I had downloaded the latest.

Not sure which version, but there was one that would complete within 4 hrs, then some improvements were made to the plugin, but somewhere it caused it to take longer

For me it was version .170 and maybe .171. Those on my previous server were fast and reliable and was just before the code for updating strm’s came in and went though lots of development.

Some of these code changes introduced after this made it impossible for me to use on Linux. But yet on windows it seems to work fine.

[gillmacca01 211]

Well I've just reinstalled version 130. Trawling through the forum, thus is the last one that I can see, that worked well for me. I have run it and it has completed in 47 mins, vod files are created. Not sure if they are all there, but will have to live with it, and without the extra features that were added afterwards, until the issue can be resolved 

[gillmacca01 211]

Next step is to run this for a few days to confirm it is still running fast, and then move up to the next version, test, next version, until I hit the point where it jumped to 4 hrs

[gillmacca01 211]

Weird. Just ran it this morning, no setting changed and still on same version.

This time took 2 hrs 47 mins

Nothing different happening on server, and no one watching Emby

[goin3d 4]

1 hour ago, gillmacca01 said:

Weird. Just ran it this morning, no setting changed and still on same version.

This time took 2 hrs 47 mins

Nothing different happening on server, and no one watching Emby

It’s been a while but if I remember correctly one of the challenges with some of the versions was not having the exact same results each time.  Not sure if that’s contributing to your time difference?  This cleared up in the latest version, but at the expense of processsing time.

[gillmacca01 211]

49 minutes ago, goin3d said:

It’s been a while but if I remember correctly one of the challenges with some of the versions was not having the exact same results each time.  Not sure if that’s contributing to your time difference?  This cleared up in the latest version, but at the expense of processsing time.

I can still live with under 4 hrs.

Weird that if it is doing exactly the same thing each time and such a big time difference.

I am running a older version, so you are probably right

[Apotropaic 41]

12 hours ago, gillmacca01 said:

Weird. Just ran it this morning, no setting changed and still on same version.

This time took 2 hrs 47 mins

Nothing different happening on server, and no one watching Emby

I don’t know for sure which version does what so this is just my casual observations from following the plugin development progress.

The first time you run it the plugin is just exporting the strms to your file system. This is the quickest it will ever. In some of my tests I can get mine to complete in a few minutes.

The subsequent launches of the plugin are doing a comparison of what’s already there and whether to delete it or whether to add something new. In effect it’s checking for new and stale content. This will always take longer and will depend on your cpu, memory and filesystem.

The latest versions were trying to improve the logic of checking what’s already there (as @goin3d mentioned) as well as being able to just update the content of the strms in case they change.

[sundevil67 28]

I recently returned from being away from my server & tried to run the plugin, but it's not working for me. Can anyone confirm the latest version& where to get it?