How are symlinks handled?

[tymanthius 18]

For my current set up I use symlinks so that it's easier for me to limit who sees what shows.

 

There is /media/video/tv/ which has all my tv shows except little kids stuff.

 

 

Then there is /media/video/tv.personal/<name>

 

So for say . . . Arrow I'll have 

 

/media/video/tv/Arrow/SeasonXX/EpisodeSXXEXX.mkv

 

I'll then symlink /media/video/tv/Arrow into /media/video/tv.personal/<name1>; <name2>; <name3>

 

So my questions are:

 

A) does Emby only scan the Arrow eps once, or does it do it 4 times (once for each name, plus once for All TV)?

 

B ) What would be a more efficient way to accomplish this?

Edited November 6, 2015 by tymanthius

[tymanthius 18]

24 hrs & 28 views, and no one has anything to say?

 

I keep hearing how the Emby community is great, but honestly I'm not seeing it. 

 

It's not awful, by any means.  It's just not great either.

[geaves 13]

24 hrs & 28 views, and no one has anything to say?

 

I keep hearing how the Emby community is great, but honestly I'm not seeing it. 

 

It's not awful, by any means.  It's just not great either.

TBH I was just reading and trying to understand what you are trying to achieve and why would you use symlinks, as you don't say if your data is stored locally or a on say a NAS.

 

Surely creating a folder structure for specific users is easier to maintain......but Emby will use the folder you point the media library too....at least that's my understanding.

Edited November 6, 2015 by geaves

[tymanthius 18]

Thanks!  I can give information.

 

I'm currently using plex, and what I do is create a library for each user I share with, but all data is stored in one place (local to the server).  The symlinks just make it so I can point plex at /media/video/tv.personal/<username> and they only see what they WANT to see, no clutter.

 

For instance, I have one user that only watches about 3 shows. So all she sees is her 3, not the 75 or so I have total.  And I don't have to see all the junk my teens watch.  And my wife doesn't have to see my wierd shows.

 

Make sense?

 

My question, tho, is  how does Emby see this?  

 

Lets say I have 8 users, and all 8 watch ShowX.  There is only one 'real' folder for ShowX.  But there are 8 symlinks to it.  I do have an 'all tv' library that shows EVERYTHING. So does Emby see the episodes from ShowX once, or 9 times?

 

If it only sees it once, I don't need to make any changes. If Emby sees it 9 times, I need to adjust something, but I'm not sure what, or how, to keep the same idea of 'each user only sees what they want'.

[geaves 13]

Thanks!  I can give information.

 

I'm currently using plex, and what I do is create a library for each user I share with, but all data is stored in one place (local to the server).  The symlinks just make it so I can point plex at /media/video/tv.personal/<username> and they only see what they WANT to see, no clutter.

 

For instance, I have one user that only watches about 3 shows. So all she sees is her 3, not the 75 or so I have total.  And I don't have to see all the junk my teens watch.  And my wife doesn't have to see my wierd shows.

 

Make sense?

 

My question, tho, is  how does Emby see this?  

 

Lets say I have 8 users, and all 8 watch ShowX.  There is only one 'real' folder for ShowX.  But there are 8 symlinks to it.  I do have an 'all tv' library that shows EVERYTHING. So does Emby see the episodes from ShowX once, or 9 times?

 

If it only sees it once, I don't need to make any changes. If Emby sees it 9 times, I need to adjust something, but I'm not sure what, or how, to keep the same idea of 'each user only sees what they want'.

Wow, that's a lot of work  Ok, this is coming from someone who doesn't have that necessity, however, I'll give it a shot on how I would do this.

 

Emby library will see the folder you point it too, so lets say you create a media library called Show X Tv you would then select the folder where that content is stored and then select the media type in that instant TV.

 

You have a personal TV folder...so add Media...call it Personal TV point that to the folder where that is stored and select media type TV.

 

You would need to do that for each folder where your media is stored, Emby would only see the folder you are pointing to, but the simplest thing to do is to try it, create a media library from within and point it to folder with the data in it and see what happens.

 

If this were me I would do something like,

 

/media/tv as the root

/media/tv/Show X

/media/tv/Personal

 

etc....give a go, it should work....

[tymanthius 18]

It is a lot of work to initially set up.  But maint is easy, and it's made my life so much easier b/c ppl are BLIND.

 

I completely do not understand your suggestion . . . . 

 

Are you saying to revamp the LIBRARIES so that for User1 instead of pointing to my folder for user1 that's full of symlinks I would instead just point to each 'original' tv show's folders?

 

I can do that.  Again, intial set up will be a pain, beyond that, not too bad.

[geaves 13]

To obviously save time reorganising everything, and keep what you have....under manage server/library click on add media library, from the content drop down box select the type of media, type in a display name (such as Personal TV) then Folders/Add.....browse to the folder where the content is stored based upon the display name i.e. Personal TV.

 

Once you have done that, then create your users, then give access to libraries you have created that you want that user to see.

Edited November 6, 2015 by geaves

[tymanthius 18]

To obviously save time reorganising everything, and keep what you have....under manage server/library click on add media library, from the content drop down box select the type of media, type in a display name (such as Personal TV) then Folders/Add.....browse to the folder where the content is stored based upon the display name i.e. Personal TV.

 

Once you have done that, then create your users, then give access to libraries you have created that you want that user to see.

 

That's what I originally did - and it takes FOREVER to scan.

 

I just tried the other way I outlined and that doesn't work - loses all the eps. 

 

going to try adding lib's back just 1 at a time.  

[geaves 13]

That's what I originally did - and it takes FOREVER to scan.

 

I just tried the other way I outlined and that doesn't work - loses all the eps. 

 

going to try adding lib's back just 1 at a time.  

It will take forever to scan, but once it's done, it should only scan for new content....

[tymanthius 18]

That's the thing - it was taking forever to scan EVERY time.  So I thought maybe it was the symlinks causing it to step all over itself as it scanned the same files multiple times.

 

I mean, ideally, it should either hash the files, or realize it's following symlinks and go 'ok, I've scanned that'. Or even just put a hidden file saying 'scanned.filename' in the dir so it knows.

 

If I scan /media/video/tv 100% it shouldn't take but a few moments to then scan ALL my personal folders b/c they are all symlinked back to /media/video/tv.  And I store all the meta data w/ the vid files.

[geaves 13]

It could be because of the symlinks, mine never seems to take very long, and mine is symlinked back to the NAS.

[tymanthius 18]

Right, but it's not several symlinks pointing to the same files like mine. 

[geaves 13]

No their not, and that is probably why the scan doesn't take very long.

 

Perhaps see how it goes, and a restructure just might be the answer.... to reduce the scan time.

[tymanthius 18]

That's kinda what I"m thinking, but not sure how, to accomplish what I want.

 

I refuse to copy the files - no reason to duplicate space.

 

So how do I build libraries that only have tv shows that each individual wants to see?  If I tell it to add folder /media/video/tv/TVSHOW to a lib, it won't recognize it as a show b/c it apparently draws the show name from the folder name.  That makes sense.

 

I could nest folders so that each show is in /media/video/tv/TVSHOW/TVSHOW.  Add the upper level to a library.  Might work. Clunky as hell and would likely break how sonarr adds new shows.

[geaves 13]

I think the clunky option probably not a good idea....but a restructure would be more beneficial....

 

would this help https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/TV%20naming from the wiki.

 

Because I don't need to separate things mine are /media/tvshows, then a folder for each tv show, then appropriate season folder/s.

 

 

 

[tymanthius 18]

That's what I have.  But the issue is how I want libraries for each user with only their tv's shows in them.

 

Mine is an edge case that is rarely thought of. Which seems silly to me. One of the huge benefits of multi-user is seeing only what you want.

 

 

EDIT:

 

What I really would love is a 'Add all tv shows to one library' then the ability to show ONLY certain tv shows from that library to each user.

 

Somewhat like the 'access to all libraries' check box vs each individual library.

Edited November 6, 2015 by tymanthius

[tymanthius 18]

It seems the trick may be to add each library, let it fully scan & finish, then add the next.

 

That way, each scan takes less than 15 mins (still stupidly long as it's already seen the files).  But even a 'full scan' after doesn't take more than 15 mins.

[thefirstofthe300 292]

I think that you both are missing the most obvious solution, to use tags within the Emby metadata manager.  If you create a tag called "unwanted-tymathius" or something like that and tag the root folder of the TV shows you don't want to see with that tag, you can then block the content in the "User->Parental Control" section of the dashboard.  Like all of the other solutions, it is a bit difficult to set up but fairly easy to maintain afterwards.  Also, it prevents Emby from having to scan somethihng 5 or six times.

[tymanthius 18]

I think that you both are missing the most obvious solution, to use tags within the Emby metadata manager. If you create a tag called "unwanted-tymathius" or something like that and tag the root folder of the TV shows you don't want to see with that tag, you can then block the content in the "User->Parental Control" section of the dashboard. Like all of the other solutions, it is a bit difficult to set up but fairly easy to maintain afterwards. Also, it prevents Emby from having to scan somethihng 5 or six times.

Thank you. I will look into this after I repair my server.

 

Thinking just name tags would be best and only show things with that tag per user. If possible

[thefirstofthe300 292]

Thank you. I will look into this after I repair my server.

 

Thinking just name tags would be best and only show things with that tag per user. If possible

Right now, I believe that Emby on has blacklist tags which is why I suggested you use a "blocked" tag.

 

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