Issues bulk editing images in metadata, TV shows.

[emby-newb 2]

Hey everyone, spent a couple of hours reading multiple (older) threads on how to batch edit images. I am downloading 6 seasons of Tom&Jerry, and each season has different covers. I dont want to edit 166 episodes by hand, so how can I select a season and apply it?

I went to "metadata manager" and added the cover there for each folder depending on what season I was editing. But the covers somehow are not being updated.

Also, I edited the 1st season by hand, and after saving all that work, navigated away to the main screen and my changes were undone. Its very frustrating because I need to do this to 4 seasons of looney tunes, so another couple hundred items. For whatever reason, I am not getting metadata from imdb or tvdb...

Suggestions are greatly appreciated. 
Thanks

[Luke 42077]

Hi I think the easiest thing to do is just set the image at the season level. Then leave the image for the episode empty and it will inherit from the season.

[emby-newb 2]

On 12/8/2025 at 5:23 PM, Luke said:

Hi I think the easiest thing to do is just set the image at the season level. Then leave the image for the episode empty and it will inherit from the season.

Thank you Luke, ended up doing this. The individual thumbnail images for each episode doesnt populate, but I can live with that. Not sure if its an issue with emby not reading imdb/tvdb/etc properly.

[Luke 42077]

Quote

The individual thumbnail images for each episode doesnt populate,

What do you want it to populate with?

[emby-newb 2]

Luke, it'll show a frame of the episode, something like this but without the repetition. I honestly dont know how that happened, it hasnt populated at all anywhere else in the series of videos.

 

 

[Luke 42077]

What image fetchers are enabled on the library?

[emby-newb 2]

Luke,

sorry for the horrendous delay in my reply. All are enabled.  Also, here's another snapshot of it partially working on another show. Notice how the actual shows have a thumb image of it. I also noticed that emby server is downloading extra folders and saving them on the NAS in their corresponding folders. I just noticed this as I was uploading new video files. The files are ****-thumb.jpg files you see on the second screenshot.

I honestly dont know what I did or how I did it to get these partially working on the pink panther folder.

Edited December 28, 2025 by emby-newb

[Luke 42077]

Hi, what do you mean by downloading extra folders?

[emby-newb 2]

Also, just realized I am not getting notifications, I'll check that shortly.

[emby-newb 2]

4 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, what do you mean by downloading extra folders?

Sorry, meant to say files. The extra thumb.jpg files. And another thing I just noticed. Even though I am manually setting the seasons/episode numbers, it's still re-arranging them oddly, in this example below, its just organizing it in two seasons when there are 6.

[Luke 42077]

3 hours ago, emby-newb said:

Sorry, meant to say files. The extra thumb.jpg files. And another thing I just noticed. Even though I am manually setting the seasons/episode numbers, it's still re-arranging them oddly, in this example below, its just organizing it in two seasons when there are 6.

What episode is in season 1 or 2 that should be in season 6?

[Luke 42077]

By the way, if the files were named S01E01 instead of V01E01, then the season and episode numbers would be detected from the file names and you wouldn't have to enter them manually.

[emby-newb 2]

Yep, I changed all the files to follow convention of "S##E##". If you look at the snapshot, you'll see season 1 episode 2, 6 etc,  listed under the season 2 folder that emby dropped it in. 

[emby-newb 2]

And like before, it rewrote ALL the changes I made over the past 3 hours, renaming and sorting everything. This is extremely frustrating and has to be a better way of doing this.

 

[emby-newb 2]

1st is what emby defaulted everything to. Second pic are the actual file names on the nas.

[Luke 42077]

20 minutes ago, emby-newb said:

Yep, I changed all the files to follow convention of "S##E##". If you look at the snapshot, you'll see season 1 episode 2, 6 etc,  listed under the season 2 folder that emby dropped it in. 

OK but 4 hours ago you posted screenshots containing files named V01E01, etc...

Quote

If you look at the snapshot, you'll see season 1 episode 2, 6 etc,  listed under the season 2 folder that emby dropped it in. 

Which specific episode is wrong?

[emby-newb 2]

10 hours ago, Luke said:

OK but 4 hours ago you posted screenshots containing files named V01E01, etc...

Which specific episode is wrong?

Correct, I realized my mistake and corrected all the names.

All the episodes are wrong, and all were renamed to that generic name after I had manually renamed them and added the imdb/thetvdb tags as well as cover art.

[Happy2Play 9780]

11 hours ago, emby-newb said:

1st is what emby defaulted everything to. Second pic are the actual file names on the nas.

There is a metadata issue here if filename and Emby Titles do not match (usually embedded metadata) and/or you are not using online providers.  But Emby doesn't really use filename titles for episodes.

Note locked metadata will have a effect on making changes to any existing imported information also.

As this Carton Collection will be problematic per one's organization and enabled provider order as TVDB and TMDB do not list them the same and possible alternate orders per provider.

 

 

This Title also looks third party plugin related.

Other topic on Looney Tunes as TVDB lists Seasons by YEAR

 

On 12/6/2025 at 7:16 PM, emby-newb said:

For whatever reason, I am not getting metadata from imdb or tvdb..

My guess would be Emby can't query provider per exact naming scheme as these don't exist but logs showing the actual api queries should show this.

  

Note IMDB is never used directly do to their high annual fees to use their api.

[Luke 42077]

4 hours ago, emby-newb said:

 

All the episodes are wrong, and all were renamed to that generic name after I had manually renamed them and added the imdb/thetvdb tags as well as cover art.

Yes but I'm looking to learn what is going on, so can you please show us one example of a wrong episode? What is the file name? What do you see in Emby Server? What did you expect to see?

[emby-newb 2]

On 12/29/2025 at 12:45 PM, Luke said:

Yes but I'm looking to learn what is going on, so can you please show us one example of a wrong episode? What is the file name? What do you see in Emby Server? What did you expect to see?

Luke, let me see if I can explain better. Downloaded the files, I sorted them by season based on IMDBs info. I then renamed all the files from V01xxxx to SxEx i.e. S1E05.

So now all files are labeled SxxExx. Under metadata manager in emby, i manually added the poster for the entire series, then for each season. I also added the IMDB id and TheTVDB IDs to the series information.

After 3 hrs or so of doing this (and there are over 100 episodes) emby refreshed (I guess?) and changed everything to the screenshot showing the "mpeg-4 avc video..." filenames, and deleted all the changes I made.

I grabbed a handful of video files used a tag editor to look at the metadata. There is no mention of that cryptic filename anywhere.

 

[emby-newb 2]

I'll hold off on doing any manual corrections until something is figured out, because it'll just undo all the work I did. Appreciate your help and patience.

 

EDIT: let me know if you want me to get logs

Edited December 31, 2025 by emby-newb

[pwhodges 2012]

Those names could be embedded titles, I guess.  What's the (advanced) library setting controlling the use of embedded titles set to for that library?

Paul

[Happy2Play 9780]

That would be one guess without knowing what ffprobe -i is providing per episode as there can be no internet info per name/structure without intervention.

[emby-newb 2]

6 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

That would be one guess without knowing what ffprobe -i is providing per episode as there can be no internet info per name/structure without intervention.

Here's mine. I'll uncheck it and rescan

[Happy2Play 9780]

2 minutes ago, emby-newb said:

Here's mine. I'll uncheck it and rescan

Yes so next we would need to see the embedded info of the files

ffprobe -i "pathtofile"

You should see the command in your server log when  you Refresh the Metadata also after you change this option.