Images from one movie are randomly propagated to other movies after updating artwork

[eMoOak 8]

Hi,

I'm experiencing a reproducible issue with Emby Server where updating the artwork of one movie causes other unrelated movies to display the same artwork.

Environment

• Emby Server 4.9.5.0
• Windows 10
• Local artwork enabled (images saved alongside media)
• Issue was already present on 4.9.3.0 a couple of days ago
• This is an existing Emby installation that has been upgraded through multiple server versions over several years (not a fresh installation)
• Libraries are stored on multiple drives

Steps to reproduce

• Select any movie.
• Replace one or more artwork images (poster, logo, backdrop, landscape, etc.).
• Save the changes.

Expected behavior

Only the selected movie should have its artwork updated.

Actual behavior

The selected movie keeps the correct artwork.

However, immediately after saving, several unrelated movies start displaying the newly assigned artwork.

The affected movies appear to be random, but the issue is reproducible every time I update artwork.

Server logs

Every time artwork is updated, Emby writes the new images into:

programdata\metadata\library\00\00000000000000000000000000000000\imagecache\

This happens every time I replace artwork.

Troubleshooting already performed

• Cleared browser cache.
• Tested with Chrome, Chrome Incognito and Microsoft Edge.
• Tested on Android.
• Disabled the EmbyIcons plugin.
• Upgraded from 4.9.3.0 to 4.9.5.0.
• Verified that local artwork files (poster.png, fanart.jpg, etc.) are correct.
• Checked library.db and did not find duplicate image paths.

The issue persists.

If necessary, I can provide the complete server logs and any additional information required to help diagnose the issue.

Has anyone experienced this before, or is there any additional logging I can enable to help troubleshoot it?

Edited 3 hours ago by eMoOak

[ebr 16570]

20 minutes ago, eMoOak said:

Disabled the EmbyIcons plugin.

Hi.  Exactly how and did you do a full metadata refresh or clear your cache files after that?

I think it is likely that is related:

 

[yocker 1760]

1 minute ago, ebr said:

Hi.  Exactly how and did you do a full metadata refresh or clear your cache files after that?

I think it is likely that is related:

 

They tried disabling EmbyIcons and the problem persists.
They mention it's a problem with logos and fanart as well and EmbyIcons do not draw on those.

I am looking into it just in case but i'm fairly sure that it's not a problem with the plugin.

[ebr 16570]

Just now, yocker said:

I am looking into it just in case but i'm fairly sure that it's not a problem with the plugin.

Okay.  Not trying to call you out but two users of the plugin have now reported this issue.

[yocker 1760]

9 minutes ago, ebr said:

Okay.  Not trying to call you out but two users of the plugin have now reported this issue.

No problem, it's an obvious starting point for troubleshooting.  

I'm not trowing the ball to you either but to me it looks like a problem in Emby.
I am, as i said before, looking into it now if it might be my plugin just in case.

Edited 3 hours ago by yocker

[eMoOak 8]

37 minutes ago, ebr said:

Hi.  Exactly how and did you do a full metadata refresh or clear your cache files after that?

I think it is likely that is related:

 

I deleted the entire programdata\cache directory while Emby Server was stopped, then restarted the server.

I also refreshed the metadata for several movies after that, but the issue still occurs.

[yocker 1760]

I *might* have identified something that could cause movies to be misidentified because of some guardrails I made. 

Looking into it.

[eMoOak 8]

3 minutes ago, yocker said:

I *might* have identified something that could cause movies to be misidentified because of some guardrails I made. 

Looking into it.

That's interesting. I did completely uninstall EmbyIcons and was still able to reproduce the issue afterwards.

If EmbyIcons created some persistent state that isn't removed when the plugin is uninstalled, that could explain it. Otherwise, I'm still able to reproduce the behavior without the plugin installed.

[yocker 1760]

5 minutes ago, eMoOak said:

That's interesting. I did completely uninstall EmbyIcons and was still able to reproduce the issue afterwards.

If EmbyIcons created some persistent state that isn't removed when the plugin is uninstalled, that could explain it. Otherwise, I'm still able to reproduce the behavior without the plugin installed.

Without embyicons installed, have you tried doing a metadata refresh on one of the affected videos?

Embyicons should not create anything persistent that can't be fixed with a metadata refresh

Edited 2 hours ago by yocker

[eMoOak 8]

8 minutes ago, yocker said:

Without embyicons installed, have you tried doing a metadata refresh on one of the affected videos?

Embyicons should not create anything persistent that can't be fixed with a metadata refresh

Yes, I did.

It didn't change anything. The displayed artwork remained incorrect after the metadata refresh.

What's even stranger is that when I open Edit Images, I still see the incorrect artwork, even though the local artwork files in the movie folder (poster.png, fanart.jpg, logo.png, etc.) are the correct ones.

So Emby doesn't seem to be using the local artwork files for the affected movies.

[yocker 1760]

8 minutes ago, eMoOak said:

Yes, I did.

It didn't change anything. The displayed artwork remained incorrect after the metadata refresh.

What's even stranger is that when I open Edit Images, I still see the incorrect artwork, even though the local artwork files in the movie folder (poster.png, fanart.jpg, logo.png, etc.) are the correct ones.

So Emby doesn't seem to be using the local artwork files for the affected movies.

Strange, I still can't say it isn't embyicons but it sure doesn't look like it too me. 

I will keep working on the issue I found and upload it asap so at least that is fixed. 

For now I suggest giving ebr some logs so he can look into it there is a problem with Emby or embarrassingly Embyicons

[yocker 1760]

@eMoOakI made a quick and dirty little change to how EmbyIcons handles video IDs.

Can i get you to test it out and see if anything changed?
You will find it in the catalog, it's beta version 5.56.5.0.

Install it and do a metadata refresh on an affected video.
Make sure to enable replacing images.

Edited 1 hour ago by yocker

[eMoOak 8]

47 minutes ago, yocker said:

@eMoOakI made a quick and dirty little change to how EmbyIcons handles video IDs.

Can i get you to test it out and see if anything changed?
You will find it in the catalog, it's beta version 5.56.5.0.

Install it and do a metadata refresh on an affected video.

I installed the beta (5.56.5.0) and tested it. Unfortunately, the behavior is unchanged.

A metadata refresh does not update the incorrect artwork.

Additionally, the movie I refreshed still ends up randomly propagating its artwork to other unrelated movies.

When I open Edit Images, I still see the incorrect artwork, even though the local artwork files in the movie folder (poster.png, fanart.jpg, logo.png, etc.) are correct.

[yocker 1760]

4 minutes ago, eMoOak said:

I installed the beta (5.56.5.0) and tested it. Unfortunately, the behavior is unchanged.

A metadata refresh does not update the incorrect artwork.

Additionally, the movie I refreshed still ends up randomly propagating its artwork to other unrelated movies.

When I open Edit Images, I still see the incorrect artwork, even though the local artwork files in the movie folder (poster.png, fanart.jpg, logo.png, etc.) are correct.

Please send me another log file and i will look at it.

Edit: Just noticed that the icons them self are correct, so that again tells me that it's Emby handing over the wrong posters to EmbyIcons.

Edited 53 minutes ago by yocker

[roaku 847]

28 minutes ago, yocker said:

Please send me another log file and i will look at it.

Edit: Just noticed that the icons them self are correct, so that again tells me that it's Emby handing over the wrong posters to EmbyIcons.

Speaking from personal experience, the Emby image pipeline does a lot of things in parallel, so you have to be very careful how you handle class level caching, variables, parameter passing, etc. or you'll see weirdness like this as requests for separate images collide during their respective processing.

Edited 25 minutes ago by roaku

[yocker 1760]

3 minutes ago, roaku said:

Speaking from personal experience, the Emby image pipeline does a lot of things in parallel, so you have to be very careful how you handle class level caching, variables, parameter passing, etc. or you'll see weirdness like this as requests for separate images collide.

Yeah, had a problem like it before but it shouldn't happen now.
Specially not when they have uninstalled EmbyIcons and it still happens.

I'm thinking there might be a conflict with CoverArt i need to fix, i just can't replicate anything like it my self.