How to prevent Emby remove Cover.jpg when editing primary image?

[somy 25]

Hi,

I have some movies with Cover.jpg, and Emby displays them as primary image without any issue.

Today I tried to update some of the primary image by searching online, after replacing primary image, I noticed Emby also deletes Cover.jpg. 

Besides the image, I noticed the nfo file is also re-created - not sure why Emby touches nfo file but the content seems to be the same.

I checked my library settings and I don't select "Save artwork into media folders".

My question is: is it possible to "prefer" internet image and ignore local image without deleting the local image? I'd like to keep the files in my movie library untouched by Emby if possible.

 

Thank you in advance!

 

Edited December 23, 2020 by somy

[Happy2Play 9782]

Currently no,  all local images and metadata will take priority over any setting in Emby.  Only workaround would be a unsupported naming scheme.

Per the KB, snippet only showing primary image.

Image Type	Supported file names
Primary	{name}.ext
	{name}-poster.ext
	{name}-cover.ext
	{name}-default.ext
	{name}-movie.ext
	folder.ext
	poster.ext
	cover.ext
	default.ext
	movie.ext

[somy 25]

Hi, ok thanks for confirming!

Why does Emby re-create nfo file?

Would be nice to allow setting priority for local images (same way as for different sources)

Or maybe some simple filter to ignore certain files in the file system. In my case all .nfo files and .jpg files which I don't want emby to touch.

Edited December 23, 2020 by somy

[Carlo 4561]

It updates the NFO as good practice any time something for that video is changed.

[somy 25]

Hi @cayars and @Happy2Play

Sorry but I have to say the logic doesn't make any sense to me. Emby has it's own metadata database and cover art folder, and it doesn't have to change the content of my movie folder.

Today I tried one thing: I added back the cover.jpg after Emby removed it when I edited the cover, looks to me the local cover.jpg is not used by Emby after replaced by a downloaded version (Emby remembers to read from downloaded image instead of local file). So in essence, Emby could work w/o touching the local files (*.jpg and nfo) -  please consider to fix this.

Thank you

 

[Carlo 4561]

Emby will read in the cover info at the time of loading the media for that option.  Once in Emby and you want to make a change like this try using the tools built into Emby to to change the graphic.

If you plan to make lots of graphic changes you could remove the items, scan then add them back with the new graphics and scan again.

[somy 25]

1 minute ago, cayars said:

Emby will read in the cover info at the time of loading the media for that option.  Once in Emby and you want to make a change like this try using the tools built into Emby to to change the graphic.

If you plan to make lots of graphic changes you could remove the items, scan then add them back with the new graphics and scan again.

Hi,

I see how Emby handles local files. I’d like to request a feature to protect local images/nfo etc. from being updated/removed by Emby - at least as an option. Emby has its own dB/image cache, there is no reason why it should update local file. None of the Media Center I have used (Kodi Plex) does this.

 

 

 

[PenkethBoy 2068]

the point you are missing is that the "image" cache expires after 30 days so its not permanent and the metadata folder or files within could be deleted or removed

emby will recover gracefully from either a metadata or cache folder - deletion/error etc - as essentially they are both ephemeral

[somy 25]

6 minutes ago, PenkethBoy said:

the point you are missing is that the "image" cache expires after 30 days so its not permanent and the metadata folder or files within could be deleted or removed

emby will recover gracefully from either a metadata or cache folder - deletion/error etc - as essentially they are both ephemeral

Well if emby’s metadata and cover art are based on files in local folder, it is a bad design I’m afraid. IMO the metadata and images should be stored somewhere else and user files should be kept untouched. Still it doesn’t make sense when Emby replaced local art with downloaded one, why should it delete the local file? In that case, it won’t be able to recover if the cache expires, correct?

 

[PenkethBoy 2068]

its a valid methodology - not a bad design

replacing art YOU asked it to replace is also valid

you will be able to recover as emby will use the local file when it scans the folder - or use online metadata providers should the file not exist - when you rebuild a database, or the cache gets deleted or the metadata folder gets deleted - all bases covered already - nothing needs changing IMO

[somy 25]

2 hours ago, PenkethBoy said:

its a valid methodology - not a bad design

replacing art YOU asked it to replace is also valid

you will be able to recover as emby will use the local file when it scans the folder - or use online metadata providers should the file not exist - when you rebuild a database, or the cache gets deleted or the metadata folder gets deleted - all bases covered already - nothing needs changing IMO

I get your logic, however in my scenario Emby didn’t “replace” the local image, but simply deleted it. That’s why I’m annoyed - looks to me keeping the local cover.jpg has no impact on Emby’s preference of image source (I added it back and emby still uses the online image), and keeping the local file also makes it more resilient. 
 

Edited December 26, 2020 by somy

[ebr 16185]

5 minutes ago, somy said:

Emby didn’t “replace” the local image, but simply deleted it.

If it hadn't deleted it, then the image you asked us to use never would be because, if a local image exists, it will always take priority.  The specific combination of options you are using are going to cause issues like this because you have local images but say you don't want us to save image changes to the local folders.

[somy 25]

39 minutes ago, ebr said:

If it hadn't deleted it, then the image you asked us to use never would be because, if a local image exists, it will always take priority.  The specific combination of options you are using are going to cause issues like this because you have local images but say you don't want us to save image changes to the local folders.

Hi @ebr,

I did the test below:

1) Copy the cover.jpg to desktop

2) Replace local cover.jpg with online cover art, Emby deletes covers.jpg

3) Copy the cover.jpg back, rescan the library

4) Clear cache in my browser,

5) Emby still shows the online image 

Basically the local image can co-exists with online image, so why does Emby delete the local image?

Ok, to make things more generic (and cater for users who do want Emby to modify local files), Emby could provide an option for "local images" when setting priorities of image fetchers:

I'd always treat the local image the last fallback source if nothing can be found online, and hence I'd like to keep them UNTOUCHED as other software can potentially use it (for example folder.jpg in file browser). 

In Plex there is an option to skip the local images, and it works pretty well.

 In my view, when running several media centres, it is important that none of them modifies the underlying files. All metadata/images should be managed by the MC. Kodi and Plex allow this, I really hope Emby team can consider a feature disallow modifying local files. 

[ebr 16185]

1 hour ago, somy said:

Copy the cover.jpg to desktop

2) Replace local cover.jpg with online cover art, Emby deletes covers.jpg

3) Copy the cover.jpg back, rescan the library

What happens if you refresh metadata on that item instead of a library scan?

[somy 25]

31 minutes ago, ebr said:

What happens if you refresh metadata on that item instead of a library scan?

Just did a refresh and the local image is back  Good thing is I don't need to refresh it very often so can still workaround with both downloaded and local images.

If Emby could allow online image takes precedence to local image that would be really nice. (I think the best way is to include local img fetcher and let user to decide what priority it should be)

[ebr 16185]

6 minutes ago, somy said:

If Emby could allow online image takes precedence to local image that would be really nice.

Possible, i guess, but in what circumstance would you have a local image and NOT want to use it?

[somy 25]

On 12/26/2020 at 10:54 PM, ebr said:

Possible, i guess, but in what circumstance would you have a local image and NOT want to use it?

Well in my case I just prefer the local cover image with box art for folder display, and in Emby I don't want the box art.

[somy 25]

Hi again,

Just want to check if local image can be treated as another source and users can set priority just like other sources? Thanks