All imagery lost since yesterday's update

[The Governor 1]

Hi all,

 

I reported this in the Alpha section, Luke suggested I start a new thread.

 

I've spent the last week or so tidying up my media for MB3 Server to scrape all my TV Shows and Movies. I'm also an XBMC user and all my media works perfectly through that.

 

Having got all my shows etc identified and all the poster imagery sorted out where the scraper had got it wrong etc, my server was automatically updated this AM to version 3.0.5271.29451.

 

At which point all of the imagery has disappeared, screen shots attached of what I'm left with, yesterday those views were all fully populated correctly

 

In most cases the content is recognised, i.e. has the right info about the movie/tv show, but no imagery whatsoever.

 

Oddly, as you can see, some shows are being recognised, but with no apparent pattern.

 

I've restarted the server, rebooted the PC, kicked off a few Library scans and also removed my "Movies" source and re-added it, all with the same result.

 

I also just realised that any videos that have external subtitles (SRT) files won't play, I think I read something about this issue, is it still awaiting a fix?

 

I've attached pics of what I see in library view and also my logs in case they help?

 

The only thing I've not done is uninstalled and reinstalled the software, which I'm tempted to do...

server-63537839123.txt

transcode-3cd71d63-0460-48e3-ab9d-e2e5ad93e7ef.txt

[Luke 42078]

since you're using a custom metadata path, is it possible the server was started at a point in which that path was unavailable? it's possible the server detected that, removed the links to the images, and has not reconstructed them since. it should reconstruct, but it's possible there's an issue there.

 

In any event, also if you refresh a single title using the metadata editor, what happens there?

[The Governor 1]

Thanks for the reply Luke,

 

It isn't impossible Luke, although the external source is a USB attached hard drive, so if the PC is on the device is available (I wonder if it just didn't spin up quickly enough, but the update seemed to happen very shortly after the PC automatically starts so the HDD is likely to have been as ready as it ever is

 

If I do a manual refresh in the editor that does actually seem to work now you mentioned, so it looks like if I did that for each object it would work (that';s a lot of clicking the refresh button )

 

Odd that removing/re-adding the source doesn't do the same thing though..?

[Luke 42078]

taking the custom metadata path offline and then bringing it back online hasn't been heavily tested. i'm guessing that's what happened. we need to do more testing to make sure the images that have already been downloaded are rediscovered properly.

[The Governor 1]

Ah, I just realised it's possible to do a refresh at the top level, so in the metadata editor I selected "Movies" and hit refresh and that seems to be pulling all the imagery in now, your suggestion inspired me to have another look at the editor Luke, so thank you

 

I suspect you're right about the drive not being immediately available...

[The Governor 1]

Update : I just restarted the server software and all the imagery is gone again, so it looks like it is something to do with it being on external storage... I'm not sure how to get around that, as I have about 3TB of media so there's no way I could practically keep it inside the PC...

 

I can either host it on a USB connected drive (as now) or on my NAS, which is on the network, so either way the storage is external and I guess I might always have this issue? I can't be the only person hosting stuff on an external source though I'd imagine, as we're talking a lot of data for this type of stuff?

 

Any thoughts Luke on way I could find around this?

 

For example is it possible to force a refresh after every reboot to save having to remember doing it manually?

Edited June 8, 2014 by The Governor

[Luke 42078]

no the real solution is to make sure the missing images can be discovered when the drive comes back online. i'll look at it for the next server release.

[The Governor 1]

Okay thanks Luke, you're a star

 

In the meantime I'll have a play, I might stick another HDD in the PC to store the imagery/transcode rather than via USB. I don't really want to use my SSD as constant writing to SSD's reduces their life, so I use min purely as an OS boot device, anything volatile is stored elsewhere...

[ebr 16184]

Look into delaying the start up of the server on a re-boot so that the USB drive has time to come on line.  There are threads out here about how to do that.

[The Governor 1]

Thanks ebr, I'll try to track them down.

 

One other thing I was noticing was that after a full refresh, when everything is populated my MB3 Cache is about 1.6GB, but after a restart (when the imagery is gone) it is around 14Mb.

 

If, after a refresh all the content for the library is downloaded, where does it go when this happens after a reboot? Surely if it has been downloaded it is all on the HDD ready to referenced by the server? That almost implies the content is downloaded each time the server restarts?

[Luke 42078]

No that's not true, but it does recycle cache files older than 30 days

[The Governor 1]

No that's not true, but it does recycle cache files older than 30 days

Interesting... having switched off for the night, I've come back this morning to find most (but not all) imagery gone again, I looked at my external cache folder and it is 789k as opposed to last nights 1.6GB... so for some reason not only are the files not being read by the server, but somehow they're also being deleted..?

[The Governor 1]

Small update: I've added a new SATA drive into my PC and shifted all the caching stuff to that. I'll keep an eye on it and see how it behaves compared to the USB3 connected storage.

[The Governor 1]

I suspect I've reached the point where I'm talking to myself here but I put the SATA drive in and after the overnight switch off, all my imagery is still intact, so it's obviously due to the USB3 connected drive...

[ebr 16184]

So, you had your cache re-located to an external USB drive?