folder structure in shows, the rules after the upgrade to 4.9.1.80

[Normunds 1]

I've got a library of type "TV Shows" and source T:\_anime and below is some additional structure like 2020-2025\A, 2020-2025\B, 2020-2025\C or structure of more than one additional level.

Up till now Emby treated only bottom level entries A, B And C as series (and allowed single season entries to be straight under A, or A/Season 1, A/Season 2)

However now I end up with a single show named "2020" that contains a single season from all the entries from the hierachy below. Moreover all of them were already resolved and contain tvshow.nfo and season.nfo. It seems updating one entry in one series ended up destroying all the structure.

Any way to return to the previous behaviour? I do not find any library settings that would let me do this. Apart from fixing the broken lib using many multiple library entries like T:\_anime\2020-2025, T:\_anime\2010-2020 etc

[Luke 42077]

Hi, this is a little hard to visualize. Can you please show us with screenshots of both your file and folder structure as well as what you see in Emby? Thanks !

[Normunds 1]

I tried many things, but each time the intermediate folder between _anime (that is library entry) and the real series, get recognized as series itself. And all the actual episodes and extras are under it - if I search for any of them by name I find them under _this-is-not-a-show-2020 entry.
I'm keeping nfo files in filesystem, so now there is one under _this-is-not-a-show-2020, if I delete it comes back.

Now looking at this - maybe dash in the name makes it jump and say it is a show with single season 2029(?) - but no, I removed dashes and still got:

Edited October 6, 2025 by Normunds

[Normunds 1]

I found the culprit. I just had added had series folder "lets go karaoke s01 (2025)" - this triggered to recognize this series as a season (even if it contains folder s01 itself) that forced the parent being recognized as a show. 

Though, it would be cool if we had a control over this - that I could have a parent folder that collects related series and that I could find in search along with the contained series. Say to be able to have a folder Monogatari, that contains Bakemonogatari and other related series, that each might have seasons. So when I search for monogatari, I find all the set. But I guess I could just use a collection.

Edited October 6, 2025 by Normunds

[Luke 42077]

Have you compared your file and folder naming to our TV naming guide?

TV Naming

[Normunds 1]

Something does not look right? I've been using this schema a lot (yes, I read the guide) and never had problems.

What I think has changed is that pattern "S number" or "Season number" (S 123 or Season 890) in folder name triggers interpretation of the parent folder as show and child as a season even if both cannot be recognized. I think before I could add such a name and in the worst case it stayed unresolved.

So if today I add a legit show "Wedding Season" and call the folder "Wedding Season 2022" not "Wedding Season (2022)" this will cause parent to become a show containing "Season 2022" and pulling everything under it (maybe already resolved shows) as episodes.

Say I create a structure with random names T:\_anime\A5\ABC S 15 ABCD (2000) - guess what - A5 gets recognized as Game of Thrones that has Season 15. This example is GIGO of course, but I think a folder that contains resolved show(s) so is definitely a grouping element, should not be changed to show (especially if it cannot be resolved)

[Luke 42077]

HI there, can you please provide a specific example?

How to Report a Problem

Thanks !

 

[Normunds 1]

Not sure what exactly are you asking. In this thread I already provided 5 examples of names that break the library. Lets take the example from help. A legal structure:

 \TV
     \A-M
       \Glee (2009)
          \Season 1
             Glee S01E01.mp4
     \N-Z
       \Seinfeld (1989)
          \Season 1
             Seinfeld S01E01.mp4

We get a new show and put it under folder A-M (parent name does not seem to matter). In case the show is called one of: lets go karaoke s01 (2025), Wedding Season 2022, ABC S 15 ABCD (2000), S 123 or Season 890, A-M folder will become a show (maybe resolved to something incorrect, or just unknown). Glee will not be a library entry anymore and A-M will contain episodes of the new show and Glee.

Or, what was the question?

And if I remove nfo file from A-M and rename the new show to "lets go karaoke (2025)", or "Wedding Season (2022)", I get back Glee and see the new show as a library entry.

 

 

 

[Luke 42077]

Hi, can you please show what those folders and files looked like before renaming? Thanks.