Emby changing information in specials folders

[Psychoticinsane 7]

so im having this problem where emby is changing all the metadata and title information for all of my content in season 0 / specials folders. and its making it extremely hard to find the correct episodes. 

 

for example here in the first screenshot, it has 3 different naming conventions within the first 4 episodes. 

Special - impractical jokers - S00E00 misisoin uncomfortale pilot

Special - Jokers Choice

2. the stoop sessions.

 

first off. im looking to remove the "special" portion completely from all instances. Ideally i would like it to jus say the episode number and episode name as with every other normal season of a tv series

however not only is it giving three different naming conventions, its also entirely renaming episodes and placing them out of order such as....

here in this example the episode is supposed to be episode 41, but emby has it displayed as episode 4, and numbered as episode 2.

 

 

is there something im doing wrong or a setting that needs changed as i cannot figure out how to normalize it 

this is also not the only series it happens to but one of the most extreme cases ive noticed.

 

and as a smaller issue on a side note, i know there used to be an option to not allow specials to be shown within other season folders, only in their own dedicates specials folder but i cannot find where that setting went and i heard it was removed?  please let me know if this is or is not the case and if not where that setting may be or have been moved to.

[GrimReaper 4739]

9 minutes ago, psycoticinsane said:

so im having this problem where emby is changing all the metadata and title information for all of my content in season 0 / specials folders. and its making it extremely hard to find the correct episodes. 

 

for example here in the first screenshot, it has 3 different naming conventions within the first 4 episodes. 

Special - impractical jokers - S00E00 misisoin uncomfortale pilot

Special - Jokers Choice

2. the stoop sessions.

First, you need to make sure your file naming corresponds to your preferred meta-downloader; assuming it is TVDB (commonly):

1. "Special - impractical jokers - S00E00 misisoin uncomfortale pilot" - S00E00 doesn't exist with the TVDB (or any other provider AFAIK) and it can't be matched, so you're getting title as-is, i.e. your filename

2. "Special - Jokers Choice" is matched and correct metadata downloaded

3.  "Impractical Jokers - S00E41 - The Stoop Session Part 1" - S00E41 also doesn't exist, but The Stoop Session Part 1 title does as S02E02, so Emby is likely (erroneously) identifying it as:

14 minutes ago, psycoticinsane said:

here in this example the episode is supposed to be episode 41, but emby has it displayed as episode 4, and numbered as episode 2.

In any case, Emby "knows" only what online providers know - you need to conform with whatever is your provider of choice.

[GrimReaper 4739]

18 minutes ago, psycoticinsane said:

and as a smaller issue on a side note, i know there used to be an option to not allow specials to be shown within other season folders, only in their own dedicates specials folder but i cannot find where that setting went and i heard it was removed?  please let me know if this is or is not the case and if not where that setting may be or have been moved to.

That has been removed for some time now, Special episode placement is strictly (and only) controlled by its metadata, "Airs during season" and "Airs before episode" fields.

[Psychoticinsane 7]

3 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

That has been removed for some time now, Special episode placement is strictly (and only) controlled by its metadata, "Airs during season" and "Airs before episode" fields.

is there a specific reason it was removed? and can it be added back? ive come across many forums and posts of many people upset about its removal. as far as i can tell there wasnt really a good reason for removal. just because essentially. 

so now i have to go through and manually edit every single special episode. so that it airs in season 0 and in the proper order. i guess i fail to see why its removal is better for end users. (it isnt)

[GrimReaper 4739]

There was a long discussion about it during 4.8 beta cycle:

[Psychoticinsane 7]

11 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

First, you need to make sure your file naming corresponds to your preferred meta-downloader; assuming it is TVDB (commonly):

1. "Special - impractical jokers - S00E00 misisoin uncomfortale pilot" - S00E00 doesn't exist with the TVDB (or any other provider AFAIK) and it can't be matched, so you're getting title as-is, i.e. your filename

2. "Special - Jokers Choice" is matched and correct metadata downloaded

3.  "Impractical Jokers - S00E41 - The Stoop Session Part 1" - S00E41 also doesn't exist, but The Stoop Session Part 1 title does as S02E02, so Emby is likely (erroneously) identifying it as:

In any case, Emby "knows" only what online providers know - you need to conform with whatever is your provider of choice.

i use naming that corresponds with sonarr, which uses TVDB. i also have emby set to pull from TVDB. 

 

i understand some things dont exist in the episode numbering but in the past ive had no issues with it displaying correctly.  

as a user i should have retained the option of where special episodes are displayed and how they are displayed

[GrimReaper 4739]

1 minute ago, psycoticinsane said:

i use naming that corresponds with sonarr, which uses TVDB. i also have emby set to pull from TVDB. 

And neither Sonarr nor TVDB list S00E00, so there's nothing to identify it with.

Keep in mind that both Specials and Season episodes lists might change over time (and they do, in particular Specials) as users intervene, what was once there might not be there any more - or it might change episode number, still be there but as a different episode, there's no bulletproof solution there.

[Psychoticinsane 7]

4 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

There was a long discussion about it during 4.8 beta cycle:

and it seems like ZERO people were happy about it, it makes emby much harder to use, it removes capabilities that there were no problems with for vanity reasons

i have over 1300 tv series in my emby library, nearly 80% with special episodes , and more than one for each as well. i would have to go through and change hundreds if not thousands of metradata entries, when all i needed to do in the past was flip ONE toggle

[Psychoticinsane 7]

3 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

And neither Sonarr nor TVDB list S00E00, so there's nothing to identify it with.

Keep in mind that both Specials and Season episodes lists might change over time (and they do, in particular Specials) as users intervene, what was once there might not be there any more - or it might change episode number, still be there but as a different episode, there's no bulletproof solution there.

i understand that fully well. the main issue is not the unlisted episodes. its the ones that are listed. i can no longer remove them from seasons without hours of manual labor. in the past unlisted things would appear in order within the listed items. such as if sonarr were to skip from 12 to 20 (random example) and i had episodes named 13-19 they would properly show up in that gap in emby. now with it being controlled by the metadata it moves epiodes around places them in season AND specials folder. essentially negates the reason of a seperate specials folder to begin with

[Psychoticinsane 7]

can you please explain to me this situation with emby? because i cant figure it out.....

here you see IJ Season 10. Episode 13, and episode 14 seem to have been named the same by emby, yet one has just the title and no information and the other has all the information.

now you might think its how the files are named. but thats not the case.... 

you can clearly see the first screenshot says impractical.jokers.S10E13.1080p.WEB.H264-Bae and the second  impractical.jokers.S10E14.1080p.WEB.H264-Bae. so which episode is right, and which one is wrong? how am i supposed to tell when emby cant do it right?  

 

essentially, we have two episodes both named properly, one may be correctly identified, and one is definitely not. 

[GrimReaper 4739]

I can only guess that those episodes were added shortly after airing, i.e. TVDB cache didn't catch up yet (it can take up to 24 hrs for that), so you've got incomplete/erroneous data at the time.

Episodes 12, 13 and 15 (from the screenshot) all have incomplete data (i.e. no plot, erroneous air date) indicating above.

Also, they were modified on March 20, 2024 - about a month after you imported them (02/23/2024), so that data might've been added at that time - or episode titles/air dates/order changed.

Anyway, if you Refresh Metadata on those blank/no-plot/partially filled episodes, you should get proper metadata.

Edit: IIRC there was a community-made plugin that addressed those TBD/TBA episodes added when no/incomplete metadata existed at the time, to refresh those titles, gimme a minute to find it.

Edit2: Here. Have no idea whether the plugin still works, is it developed further or in hiatus.

 

Edited January 20 by GrimReaper
Link

[Psychoticinsane 7]

10 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

I can only guess that those episodes were added shortly after airing, i.e. TVDB cache didn't catch up yet (it can take up to 24 hrs for that), so you've got incomplete/erroneous data at the time.

Episodes 12, 13 and 15 (from the screenshot) all have incomplete data (i.e. no plot, erroneous air date) indicating above.

Also, they were modified on March 20, 2024 - about a month after you imported them (02/23/2024), so that data might've been added at that time - or episode titles/air dates/order changed.

Anyway, if you Refresh Metadata on those blank/no-plot/partially filled episodes, you should get proper metadata.

Edit: IIRC there was a community-made plugin that addressed those TBD/TBA episodes added when no/incomplete metadata existed at the time, to refresh those titles, gimme a minute to find it.

 

so i refreshed the metadata on the entirety of season 10, instead of doing each episode individually, and it seems to have removed S10E13 completely now.

[Psychoticinsane 7]

and other episodes disappeared as well, all missing episodes are episodes 6, and 13

and episode 9 now is shown as episode 21and is appearing before episode 1

Edited January 20 by Psychoticinsane

[Psychoticinsane 7]

i think if i remember correctly i locked the metadata because emby wasnt importing correctly, and now after refreshing it seems to have grenaded the work i had to manually do

Edited January 20 by Psychoticinsane

[GrimReaper 4739]

12 minutes ago, Psychoticinsane said:

so i refreshed the metadata on the entirety of season 10, instead of doing each episode individually, and it seems to have removed S10E13 completely now.

It is more likely that it has been identified as some other season/episode.

8 minutes ago, Psychoticinsane said:

i think if i remember correctly i locked the metadata because emby wasnt importing correctly

Not knowing what you did and did not lock, I'd say at this point it would be best to remove Season 10 folder out of TV show folder, run Scan media library to clear the db, delete episodes/season NFOs (if any) from Season 10 folder, move it back to TV show folder, Scan media library again. 

Post server log afterwards if you're still encountering issues.

[pwhodges 2012]

2 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

There was a long discussion about it during 4.8 beta cycle:

Not really a discussion, as I recall - people kept complaining, and the devs kept not taking their complaints on board.

Paul

[Luke 42077]

5 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

It is more likely that it has been identified as some other season/episode.

Not knowing what you did and did not lock, I'd say at this point it would be best to remove Season 10 folder out of TV show folder, run Scan media library to clear the db, delete episodes/season NFOs (if any) from Season 10 folder, move it back to TV show folder, Scan media library again. 

Post server log afterwards if you're still encountering issues.

Yes I think this is good advice. Thanks.