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Using MCM for metadata management - MB3 not showing description and rating


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chjohans
Posted

That was the entire log. I deleted the log before I did that refresh and posted what the refresh created, just like I was asked to do. So that's the only thing in the log after the "refresh".

 

I did try and post the entire log earlier but too big, and was told this is what was wanted.

 

I'll post whatever you want, just tell me exactly what. :)

Posted

try doing it again and changing the dropdown on the edit page to "add missing data only". let me know if you get a different result. thanks.

Posted

yea try refreshing an effected title from the edit page, and then post the log from that.

Tim Hobbs
Posted

I attached a movie.xml file generated by MB3. There are subtle differences, but it may be why things do not work as expected. For example:

 

* MB3 Description is CDATA, MCM is not

* MB3 stores TMDbId, MCM doesn't - it has TMDB/TMBD_ID but it looks to be a "fake" vale (-2)

 

MB3 data also has an Overview value (it happens to match the Description value) that the MCM data does not have, while MCM has Synopsis and Plot values.

 

I would recommend manually editing an example movie.xml file to see if you can get it working. That may help determine what is going wrong.

movie.zip

chjohans
Posted

Bingo! Thanks a lot for that discovery, and for posting an movie.xml generated by MB3. I'll do some experiments and get back with the results. I have a feeling you're on to something here.

 

Pete over at mediacentermaster.com claimed in a post that MCM is fully compatible with MB3, but no I'm not so sure about that.

 

But if it's really the case that the format of movie.xml is incompatible with MB3 then the devs for MB3 need to look seriously into their logging of errors (or rather lack of logging of errors). If this really is the case then it would have made it soooooo much easier to spot this if MB3 would log something in the server log if it found an incompatible movie.xml or if some of the tags were incompatible. Not saying this is the problem, just saying that *if* it is then this should have been logged.

 

Will do some more testing and get back with my findings. Thanks for all the help so far!  :)

Posted

that isn't a discovery, because even though we save the values to different fields, we support reading from the same ones that mcm writes to.

chjohans
Posted

that isn't a discovery, because even though we save the values to different fields, we support reading from the same ones that mcm writes to.

 

Ok, then there is no need for me to experiment further with that. What do you suggest I do, if anything, to find the problem then?

chjohans
Posted (edited)

To make it easier to debug I removed most of my "Media Folders" under the "Library" section, I just left one of my two media shares, tnhe smallest one with only 3D movies. I then stopped the server, deleted all logfiles and the .db files, restarted the server and rescanned the library. I also tried to "Refresh" the metadata for one movie, both "Refresh All Data" and "Add Missing Data Only".

 

The same problem persists, my movies are added and all backdrops and other graphics are shown but MB3 does not seem to read my movie.xml files because it has no idea what movies they are.

 

Attaching the now much shorter server log.

 

Any suggestion on what to do next?

 

server-63533517214.zip

Edited by chjohans
Posted

Do your movies have "folder.xml" files in them?  From the log it looks like they do and they should not.

 

Perhaps posting a screen shot of an explorer window of the content of one of your movie folders would be helpful (make sure show hidden files is turned on).

Tolerant
Posted

Try going into MCM for a movie and "Remove Metadata", re-fetch it using MCM. Rescan your MB3 Database if it does not auto scan, then check the movie and see if it reads the info in MB3. If MB3 did write your metadata before you turned it off then you would need to fully rescan from MCM to rebuild the original metadata otherwise description and other info will be missing because it is written with MB3 tags not MCM tags.

chjohans
Posted

MB3 has never written the metadata, and I have tried to re-fetch all metadata through MCM several times. And I have deleted and rebuilt MB3 database several times. Nothing seems to help.

 

And my movies folders does not have any "folder.xml" in them. They do however have some other metadata files generated by MCM that is meant for other "players" besides MB3. Take note of the hidden folder .mediacentermaster, it contains one file "vidinfo_primary.xml". This is a new "feature" of MCM, it stores it's own metadata there. But I've tried to remove that directory and deleted and rebuilt the MB3 database and that made no difference at all.

 

See the attached screenshot for an example of a movie folder.

 

 

post-3090-0-52886400-1397920453_thumb.jpg

  • Solution
Posted

you have an xml file whose name matches the movie. since that is more specific than movie.xml, it takes precedence. so the server is reading that file.

  • Like 1
Posted

Yup, that's definitely it.

chjohans
Posted

Thank you very much, finally this is fixed. I temporarily deleted all the <moviename>.xml files and now MB3 reads my metadata just perfect. Thank you very much, this was such a relief! :)

 

But, this actually introduces another problem as I didn't have the <moviename>.xml files there for no reason. The <moviename>.xml files are read and used my WDTV devices, and I have a couple of them which are using the same movie fileshare. This "conflict" was not present in MB2.

 

Could you please change the MB3 behaviour so that it reads movie.xml *first* if it exists, and then falls back to <moviename>.xml if it can't find a movie.xml? Or maybe make that a configurable option?

 

The way it is now it is impossible to use WDTV devices against the same movie fileshare if I want metadata for both (which I do, and which is why I'm using MCM in the first place).

 

I'm sure I'm not the only one who will ever want to run both MB3 and WDTV devices so this should benefit mothers besides me as well  :D

 

Or if this is not the right place to make such an request, can someone please point me in the right direction?

  • Like 1
Posted

the default behavior will remain, but a setting is reasonable.

Tolerant
Posted (edited)

But, this actually introduces another problem as I didn't have the <moviename>.xml files there for no reason. The <moviename>.xml files are read and used my WDTV devices, and I have a couple of them which are using the same movie fileshare. This "conflict" was not present in MB2.

 

Could you please change the MB3 behaviour so that it reads movie.xml *first* if it exists, and then falls back to <moviename>.xml if it can't find a movie.xml? Or maybe make that a configurable option?

 

The way it is now it is impossible to use WDTV devices against the same movie fileshare if I want metadata for both (which I do, and which is why I'm using MCM in the first place).

 

I'm sure I'm not the only one who will ever want to run both MB3 and WDTV devices so this should benefit mothers besides me as well  :D

 

I also have a WDTVLive SMP, use MCM and MB3 and like MCM for my fetching / series handling. ;)

Edited by Tolerant
chjohans
Posted

the default behavior will remain, but a setting is reasonable.

 

Yes please, that would solve my issue just fine. Do I need to request for a configurable setting somewhere or will it just magically appear in a future build? :=)

  • Like 1
Posted

the default behavior will remain, but a setting is reasonable.

 

i also share media folders between (gen3)WDTV and MB3...and use MCM to manage my .xml's (thought i was only one!).  i too would welcome this change. 

 

...i searched high and low for the last week before stumbling onto this thread, which not only describes exactly what and why this was happening, but also gives hope for the fix...  i'm excited!  though i imagine it's pretty low priority, is there an ETA?

Posted

To chjohans : thanks to your persistance we are indeed very close to the solution of the problem.

 

I indeed have the same problem with my MB3 db ...

 

re my topic http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/5416-server-not-reading-local-metadata/page-5 (which seemed to be very popular)

 

I did a new test on an empty MB3 db with only 1 folder containing about 25 movies (all in their own folder) and removed previously all MOVIENAME.xml files (originally created by MCM).

and indeed ... all movies were read correctly now by MB3!

 

Please note that this problem is new. I am still using version 31685 which has not this problem.

 

All is indeed a matter of priority and it would be nice to have the option to force MB3 to read the movie.xml file if there is one in the movie folder.

Also would it be great to turn off fetching movies on the internet for certain mediatypes (or is that already the case?). This would avoid the problem of reading in data from movies that have a title which resembles to the one presented.

Posted

 

 

Also would it be great to turn off fetching movies on the internet for certain mediatypes (or is that already the case?)

 

That is already possible.  Look at metadata settings.

Posted

Where can I find that switch? Sorry but i don't see it...

 

post-2758-0-16230600-1398094530_thumb.jpg

Posted

Home Videos don't have any internet fetchers so there is nothing to turn off.

Tolerant
Posted

I indeed have the same problem with my MB3 db ...

 

re my topic http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/5416-server-not-reading-local-metadata/page-5 (which seemed to be very popular)

 

I did a new test on an empty MB3 db with only 1 folder containing about 25 movies (all in their own folder) and removed previously all MOVIENAME.xml files (originally created by MCM).

and indeed ... all movies were read correctly now by MB3!

 

So with a fresh fetch without pre-existing metadata, MB3 fetches the correct information and displays it in MB3... BUT.. can you then go back into MCM and view all the details for those same movies or do you find you are missing metadata that normally would be displaying in MCM?

Posted

Information within MCM is still valid indeed.

 

I presume MB3 is now reading the only xml.file that is in the movie folders (= movie.xml).

 

I did a small test too and changed some information (movie description and some other metadata), than did a rescan in MB3 and everything went fine... changes to the metadata are correct...

 

Does anyone know how to remove all moviename.xml files in one run? I have more than 2000 titles in my db.

 

I am familiar with Total Commander but could not figure it out...

Happy2Play
Posted

I see what you are saying now.  MBS is reading the metadata provided by MCM but a Refresh in MBS make field incompatible/missing with MCM.

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