Music folders have been deleted

[basset 6]

I deleted a few music albums via EMBY, I think the last one was called "Train".  I then watched a TV recording and noticed some strange error messages appearing. Saying "Access to the path '06 - Shark Food.mp3' is denied". After watching my tv recorging I
I went back to my music libary. most of it was deleted.embyserver.txt Ive attached the server log

Hope you can help

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

Well I cannot help you as I never delete anything through Emby. If things need deleting I do it through the operating system. It is not that I don't trust Emby it is that interactions between Emby and the various operating systems are somewhat unpredictable and the results of using Emby to modify the file system is also not predictable. 

I actually wish Emby had not put that ability in their app as two of the people I helped install Emby lost larage chunks of their files because Emby, sometime, just screws up what it deletes when it is allowed to do that. One of the cases was the person wanted to delete all the files in a directory but not the files that were is sub directories and Emby wiped out the directory involved and all the sub directories.

I trust Emby to do a lot of things but file maintenance is not something I trust Emby to do correctly or well at all. 
I know this seems to be a knock on Emby but it is not. It is just that I believe that you should use the correct tool for any job and using Emby for file maintenance is using the wrong tool for the job. 

Edited November 10, 2025 by Gilgamesh_48

[basset 6]

I guess you're right, deleting stuff through the operating system would be safer. I've deleted stuff in the past using EMBY and had no problems, but this time I've lost my entire music libary,

[basset 6]

Fortunately for me, all my music was backed up.

Looking at the server log I see lots of lines similar to the following:

"Removing item from database, Type: Audio, Name: 06. Karma police, Path: Y:\Shared Music\Music\Radiohead\Radiohead - OK Computer\06. Karma police.mp3, Id: 6437056"

Has anyone had chance to review this log?

Thanks James

 

 

[Luke 42077]

Hi, when you deleted the album Blurred Lines (Feat T.I. & Pharrell) - Single,

Where are the tracks for that album located?

[basset 6]

19 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, when you deleted the album Blurred Lines (Feat T.I. & Pharrell) - Single,

Where are the tracks for that album located?

They were under the route directory called "music". This directory contains all my music. They were not in a sub directory

[basset 6]

"Blurred Lines (Feat T.I. & Pharrell).mp3"

was under the route directory called "music".

This directory contains all my music. It was not in a sub directory

[Luke 42077]

34 minutes ago, basset said:

"Blurred Lines (Feat T.I. & Pharrell).mp3"

was under the route directory called "music".

This directory contains all my music. It was not in a sub directory

How have you configured the music folder structure option on the library?

[basset 6]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

How have you configured the music folder structure option on the library?

folder called "music" contains the following

/artist/album

See attached image:

 

 

Unfortunately there are a handful of files (MP3's) directly under the folder Music including "Blurred Lines (Feat T.I. & Pharrell).mp3"

And I'm guessing that I delete "Blurred Lines (Feat T.I. & Pharrell).mp3" and EMBY thought "Music" was the album and deleted it.

Not a real problem for me as I had my music backed up.

 

[Luke 42077]

Right exactly so you configured that in a way that doesn’t actually match. Based on how you configured it the expectation is that the parent folder corresponds to the album.

[basset 6]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

Right exactly so you configured that in a way that doesn’t actually match. Based on how you configured it the expectation is that the parent folder corresponds to the album.

Agreed

But I guess there needs to be something in the Emby to stop this from happening, as I unknowingly must have put a handful of mp3's under the main folder "music"

[Luke 42077]

5 hours ago, basset said:

Agreed

But I guess there needs to be something in the Emby to stop this from happening, as I unknowingly must have put a handful of mp3's under the main folder "music"

When you click delete you get a dialog confirmation that shows the folder path that will be deleted. Did you not see that?

[basset 6]

Yes the delete dialog did appear and I confirmed the deletion.

But... from a user point of view, when you are deleting a few songs and albums, after a while you tend not to read the deletion dialogs and I accept there may have been a chance I could of deleted a wrong album. But I would never have thought there would be a chance to delete my entire music collection. I just dont think EMBY should have the ability to delete your entire music collection. Just one click of the button and its all gone.

Can I request you add a piece of code that checks for this:

----------------------------

If "the deletion folder" = "Library folder"

     display message "unable to delete this file"

otherwise 

    Delete folder

-----------------------------

In my case the code would look like this and would follow the green highted code and therefore safeguard my entire music collection

If "/Shared Musc/Music" = "/Shared Musc/Music"

    Display message "unable to delete this file"

    end of process

otherwise 

    Delete folder

-----------------------------

Hope this all makes sense

FYI - I'm thrilled to be able to use EMBY, its the best Media server out there by far, beautiful screens and a powerful server. I truely appreciate all the teams hard work that goes into it.

 

 

 

 

 

[basset 6]

I do think people need to be aware of this scenario. I wouldn't like to see anyone lose their entire music library

[basset 6]

On 11/13/2025 at 4:59 AM, Luke said:

When you click delete you get a dialog confirmation that shows the folder path that will be deleted. Did you not see that?

Yes the delete dialog did appear and I confirmed the deletion.

[Luke 42077]

On 11/14/2025 at 7:32 PM, basset said:

Yes the delete dialog did appear and I confirmed the deletion.

OK so were you just moving too quickly that you missed what it said?

[basset 6]

I guess I did

 

But... from a user point of view, when you are deleting a few songs and albums, after a while you tend not to read the deletion dialogs and I accept there may have been a chance I could of deleted a wrong album. But I would never have thought there would be a chance to delete my entire music collection. I just dont think EMBY should have the ability to delete your entire music collection. Just one click of the button and its all gone.

Can I request you add a piece of code that checks for this:

----------------------------

If "the deletion folder" = "Library folder"

     display message "unable to delete this file"

otherwise 

    Delete folder

-----------------------------

In my case the code would look like this and would follow the green highted code and therefore safeguard my entire music collection

If "/Shared Musc/Music" = "/Shared Musc/Music"

    Display message "unable to delete this file"

    end of process

otherwise 

    Delete folder

-----------------------------

Hope this all makes sense

FYI - I'm thrilled to be able to use EMBY, its the best Media server out there by far, beautiful screens and a powerful server. I truely appreciate all the teams hard work that goes into it.

 

[basset 6]

shame this issue isnt getting resolved. My music library is back in place and I have removed all mp3's from the Library folder. I wont use EMBY to delete any music again incase I accidently delete my entire music library again.

[Luke 42077]

Hi, yes a check has been added for the next release. But you may want to set your music folder structure option to Other since your files don't actually match that. It may cause other quirks beyond this.

[basset 6]

Thanks Luke.

I'm currently going through my music structure to ensure it meets EMBY's requirements

Thanks again for all your hard work

[RanmaCanada 494]

20 hours ago, basset said:

shame this issue isnt getting resolved. My music library is back in place and I have removed all mp3's from the Library folder. I wont use EMBY to delete any music again incase I accidently delete my entire music library again.

This is a user error issue more than an Emby issue. Emby is not smart, and you need to have everything in the correct paths for it to work at its best. The devs probably thought no one would host their music so haphazzardly.

[Luke 42077]

12 minutes ago, basset said:

Thanks Luke.

I'm currently going through my music structure to ensure it meets EMBY's requirements

Thanks again for all your hard work

It's only a requirement if you set the folder structure option that way. If you just leave it at Other, then your files can be organized however you wish.

There will just be no correlation to folders anymore so you will lose some features related to that.