TV library randomly missing shows and metadata

[byusinger84 1]

Hi there. Starting my own thread here, though this was discussed in another topic with no solution. 

Really strange issue that just started happening out of the blue sometime around the 6th or 7th of October. TV shows appear to be missing even though they've been working perfectly fine for a long time. I have a single folder for all TV shows. My Emby server config really hasn't been touched since I setup this new server in March 2025, however, I have been using Emby since it was MB (Mediabrowser) way back in the mid to late 2000s. Emby has generally always been set it and forget it, so I was surprised when a user on my server showed me the behavior seen in this screenshot:

 

When I try to run a manual library scan, it does not resolve the issue. I did try to remove the library and recreate it, but the behavior persisted. I'd rather not do it again as it takes days and days, and I'm unsure if folks will lose their watched status, though I guess if that was the case it's probably too late. 

Server logs attached. 

Server is running Server 2025 Standard. Files are stored on a TrueNAS server and shared via SMB. The server account that runs Emby has full access to the folder/files. I can confirm all files play just fine if I go to the folder and run manually. File structure has not changed in over a decade, but just so we're clear it's D:\Shares\TV\Name of Show\Season X\Episode Name - SxxExx.xyz. 

embyserver.zip

Edited October 25, 2025 by byusinger84

[byusinger84 1]

Any thoughts? 

[byusinger84 1]

Interesting. Thing is, I don't use tinymediamanager or any other external collections managers. 

Oddly enough, today I logged in and everything appears to be normal. Which doesn't make any sense because I haven't touched anything. I'll pull the logs and attach, but I have a sneaky suspicion this isn't going to stay fixed for long. I seem to remember when I was doing initial troubleshooting that when I did the initial library rebuild, everything worked but then it broke again either that day or the next day. Will monitor and report back. 

embyserver.txt

[byusinger84 1]

I took the liberty of running my logs (prior logs plus today's) through ChatGPT. It noted that The TVDB appeared to have some kind of issue/outage as it was returning hundreds of "Error App: Error in TheTVDB … MediaBrowser.Model.Net.HttpException: BadRequest" over and over and over as well as "Error ImageService… System.NullReferenceException at Emby.Api.Images.ImageService.GetImage(...)." 

Moreover it noted looking between the logs: 

• TheTVDB responses switched from frequent 400 errors to almost all 200 OKs, meaning their API endpoint recovered.

• The same image fetches (api4.thetvdb.com/v4/series/...) are now returning successfully with valid JPEGs being saved

 

Not sure what to make of all this as it's over my head other than maybe there has been some issues with The TVDB causing this behavior? But then again, why would this have occurred with all my metadata saved to the folders where my media is stored? I would assume it would just cache what's there first and then fill in missing data? Very strange. 

Edited October 27, 2025 by byusinger84

[Luke 42077]

HI, how does your TV folder and file naming compare to our tv naming guide?

TV Naming

[byusinger84 1]

Hi @Lukeplease see my first post. It follows the recommendations from the linked guide. 

[Luke 42077]

On 11/2/2025 at 1:54 PM, byusinger84 said:

Hi @Lukeplease see my first post. It follows the recommendations from the linked guide. 

HI, i only see a screenshot of Emby. Can you please show us the file system?

[byusinger84 1]

It's described at the bottom, but sure, here's a screenshot:

 

[Luke 42077]

@byusinger84and what exactly is missing from the big bang theory?

[byusinger84 1]

Hi @Luke. 

Nothing is missing. The files play just fine when I go direct to the source. 

That said, I found out the issue. Turns out, TrueNAS, which is where I host my data, has a major bug on the latest 25.10.0 release. (see this forum post: https://forums.truenas.com/t/nfs-and-smb-share-lag-on-connect-since-25-10-upgrade-from-linux-windows-clients/57692/76)

They are working on a fix, but by downgrading I was able to resolve my issue. This is NOT an Emby problem. And I will now mark this as resolved. Thank you! 

[Luke 42077]

Thanks for following up ! 

Please keep us posted on that.