Continue Watching, libraries show two entries for same video when it is included in multiple libraries

[nmalinoski 3]

Emby Server 4.9.5.0 installed via Apps on TrueNAS Scale 25.10.4.

The initial problem I was trying to solve was addressing TV movies. I wanted a TV movie to show up both in my Movies library as a movie, as well as in my TV Shows library as a special attached to the relevant TV series as defined in TVDB, without duplicating the video file and while maintaining watch progress regardless of which library it was accessed from.

I have Movies and TV Shows directories to match the aforementioned libraries, so I got the bright idea to create a separate TV Movies directory for these files, added the TV movie into the same parent directory as the TV show (`The X-Files (1993)/Specials`) with the requisite naming to get it to show up as a special for the TV series, and then added this directory to both the Movies and TV Shows libraries.

While it does show up in the TV Shows library, it's unfortunately showing two entries in the TV Shows library (one has the unwatched episode count, the other just read 1, for the TV Movie file), and Continue Watching shows two separate entries for the same file with the same progress.

It does not show up in the Movies library, even though it shows up when digging into the Movies library in the metadata manager; and, there, it picks up the same automatic "Special - " prefix from the TV Shows library.

What I was expecting was that the TV movie would be correctly identified and given the correct IMDB/TVDB IDs (it is), and then show up in the Movies library the same was any any non-TV movie, show up in the TV Shows library as a TV special, and the system treat the same file, with the same path, existing in both libraries, as the same piece of media, so it only shows up once in Continue Watching.

Replication instructions:

• Create separate Movies, TV Movies, and TV Shows folders
• Create a Movies library containing the Movies and TV Movies folders
• Create a TV Shows library containing the TV Movies and TV Shows folders
• Add episodes from a TV show that has a movie as a special to a folder in the TV Shows folder (I use `TV Show Name (year)/Season 1/{episodes}`)
• Add the TV movie for the TV Show to the TV Movies directory (I use `TV Show Name (year)/Specials/{TV movie}`), named as you would for a TV special (`TV.Show.Name.S00E01.*`)
• Play the TV movie long enough for the progress to display in Continue Watching 

[Luke 42912]

Hi, what you're doing is not really supported. It's not supported to use the same path in more than one library unless the content type is the same for all libraries. And even then, the library options should match as well, otherwise, which options get used ?

If you follow those requirements then you should not see the same file appear more than once in continue watching.

[pwhodges 2086]

On the somewhat rare occasions that I want a movie to appear both as a series extra and in its own right, I simply duplicate the file in the two libraries with appropriate naming.  In my case the waste of space is trivial, but if it concerns you, you could use a link for the second instance.  I don't recall getting duplicated Continue Watching entries.

Paul