lately more and more tv series episodes wrongly classed as specials

[alexrw 13]

I almost never used to have this problem, but with latest releases, I'm seeing more and more episodes of TV series classed as specials instead of their designated S<NN>E<MM> episode number.

Emby seems to now be getting confused with names that contains dots instead of spaces, as well as episode title in the file name

American.Gods.S03E05.Sister.Rising.1080p.10bit[...]

vs

American Gods S03E05 Sister Rising 1080p 10bit [...]

It's got pretty annoying as it's not consistent, and I end up hunting for episodes.

Anyone else?

[Luke 42086]

Hi there, please go over the complete file and folder organization of an example. thanks.

[Carlo 4561]

@alexr You could of course make use of a util like FileBot to rename files for you automatically and never have to worry about things like this.

[alexrw 13]

This problem only started recently, a few weeks back. At first I thought it was a fluke with a few file names, but now pretty much every single TV series has a lot of episodes into specials.

@Luke Unfortunately I can't provide the clear names as it would reveal info that I don't wish to be displayed in a public forums.

I can say that dots don't seem to be the cause -- the entire set of files 9 for WandaVision Season 1 has dots in every file name, every file has the same naming structure WandaVision.S01E0n.Episode.Title.1080p....mkv

All files are in a folder called "Wandavision" under "TV" as are all my other TV series.

8 out of 9 files are specials. The only which isn't is E09. There is nothing special about it compared to other files, except different "Episode.Title" string.

There must be something that changes in some recent release - can you think of anything please? It's pretty annoying at this stage.

I've been using Emby for years, never had this problem. I've not done anything different, yet yow it's all over the place with all new TV series that I add.

14 hours ago, cayars said:

@alexr You could of course make use of a util like FileBot to rename files for you automatically and never have to worry about things like this.

Not if the files are kept open. I also don't wish to do that as the original file names are important for other apps.

Edited March 6, 2021 by alexr

[alexrw 13]

Great - shortly after watching the 9th episode of Wandavision, Emby made that one a "Special" too. They are specials now (EMby shows just titles, no empisode numbers, and the order is scrambled).

The NFOs that were added look like:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<episodedetails>
    <title>Previously On</title>
    <showtitle>WandaVision</showtitle>
    <plot>Wanda embarks on a troubling journey revisiting her past for insight into her present and future.</plot>
    <director>Matt Shakman</director>
    <isuserfavorite>false</isuserfavorite>
    <ratings>
        <rating default="true" max="10" name="default">
            <value>9.5</value>
            <votes>0</votes>
        </rating>
    </ratings>
    <rating>9.5</rating>
    <votes>0</votes>
    <uniqueid type="tvdb">8105218</uniqueid>
    <uniqueid type="imdb">tt13776714</uniqueid>
    <imdbid>tt13776714</imdbid>
    <tvdbid>8105218</tvdbid>
    <imdb_id>tt13776714</imdb_id>
    <aired>2021-02-26</aired>
    <dateadded>2021-03-04 23:50:31</dateadded>
    <playcount>1</playcount>
    <watched>true</watched>
    <lastplayed>2021-03-05 03:31:33</lastplayed>
</episodedetails>

 

[alexrw 13]

I had a look at my American Gods folder and I noticed that all files which have a "nfo" appear as Special and all the files which lack a "nfo" appear correctly as a episode of their season ... I have no clue why some have a "nfo" and some don't. Again, the file naming is consistent - no difference between those with a "nfo" and those without a "nfo".

I note that I have the option "Metadata savers: Nfo" unchecked ... I never wanted "nfo" files (i hate them). Looking in my older TV series, none of them have "nfo" files.

Seem the culprit is here somewhere. Any suggestions? Also, how do I prevent it from adding "nfo" files? I thought that unchecking that box would do it but it seems they are back.

I normally use Kodi to watch, but I checked the web interface in the browser and they are all specials there as well with "Season unknown".

p.s. In Kodi I use the Emby server plugin and the Embuary skin. Could the skin or emby plugin cause things like this? It never used to - I've been using this combo for a long time without issues. 

Edited March 6, 2021 by alexr

[GrimReaper 4762]

10 minutes ago, alexr said:

I had a look at my American Gods folder and I noticed that all files which have a "nfo" appear as Special and all the files which lack a "nfo" appear correctly as a episode of their season ... I have no clue why some have a "nfo" and some don't. Again, the file naming is consistent - no difference between those with a "nfo" and those without a "nfo".

Seem the culprit is here somewhere. Any suggestions?

I don't think that's Emby creating those nfos. What other app you have accessing those folders? External metadata manager maybe? Or Sonarr? Some other? Since there is no Season/Episode identifier inside, Emby reads it and presents as such, without that data. Season subfolders in your folder structure would surely help there. But regardless, those nfos are creating havoc in that form. 

Edit: In your Library setting, do you have nfo enabled as Metadata saver? 

Edited March 6, 2021 by GrimReaper76
Append

[alexrw 13]

Well, i think it's the Embuary skin, actually a script it installs -- at some point during one of its recent updates (*) it added or reconfigured another plugin (it's a script) called "Metadata editor" which has an option to create nfo files and poll for updates from OMDB. Screenshots below. This may also explain why at first episodes appeared fine but after a short while they were turning into specials.

(*) either it's new or its settings changed recently, or it was always there but started malfunctioning recently.

I now disabled that plugin, then refreshed all metadata from the Emby Server settings. TV series are now back to normal.

I might give up on the Embuary skin; it has quite a few annoying (and "hard coded") settings (which the author refuses to change or provide an option for), but this was the last straw. It annoyed me for the past month. First world problems and all ...

I'll post if the problem reappears.

Edited March 6, 2021 by alexr

[GrimReaper 4762]

2 minutes ago, alexr said:

Well, i think it's the Embuary skin, actually a script it installs -- at some point during one of its recent updates it added or reconfigured another plugin (it's a script) called "Metadata editor" which has an option to create nfo files and poll for updates from OMDB. Screenshots below. This may also explain why at first episodes appeared fine but after a short while they were turning into specials.

I now disabled that plugin, then refreshed all metadata from the Emby Server settings. TV series are now back to normal.

I might give up on the Embuary skin; the skin author is also somewhat "resistant" to suggestions/reports and the skin has quite a few annoying (and "hard coded") settings, but this was the last straw. It annoyed me for the past month. First world problems and all ...

I'll post if the problem reappears.

There, sorted.

[CharleyVarrick 283]

I was scratching my head looking at those screen captures, never seen anything like that before

It looked a little liked Emby (top menu Home and Favorites), but everything below I never seen before, and to add to my confusion I see the Kodi logo on top left.

Reread the post and I kind of figured it is the famous Embuary skin (?)

It sure looks nice, I never tried it myself because of the disclaimer about mouse incompatibility.

Since latest Kodi v19 update, I switched from the very tame default Kodi skin to Rapier, IMO it looks like a million bucks, although wife holler once in a while she can't find feature x or y but we always manage in the end

Edited March 6, 2021 by CharleyVarrick

[Happy2Play 9785]

4 hours ago, alexr said:

Great - shortly after watching the 9th episode of Wandavision, Emby made that one a "Special" too. They are specials now (EMby shows just titles, no empisode numbers, and the order is scrambled).

The NFOs that were added look like:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<episodedetails>
    <title>Previously On</title>
    <showtitle>WandaVision</showtitle>
    <plot>Wanda embarks on a troubling journey revisiting her past for insight into her present and future.</plot>
    <director>Matt Shakman</director>
    <isuserfavorite>false</isuserfavorite>
    <ratings>
        <rating default="true" max="10" name="default">
            <value>9.5</value>
            <votes>0</votes>
        </rating>
    </ratings>
    <rating>9.5</rating>
    <votes>0</votes>
    <uniqueid type="tvdb">8105218</uniqueid>
    <uniqueid type="imdb">tt13776714</uniqueid>
    <imdbid>tt13776714</imdbid>
    <tvdbid>8105218</tvdbid>
    <imdb_id>tt13776714</imdb_id>
    <aired>2021-02-26</aired>
    <dateadded>2021-03-04 23:50:31</dateadded>
    <playcount>1</playcount>
    <watched>true</watched>
    <lastplayed>2021-03-05 03:31:33</lastplayed>
</episodedetails>

 

Emby needs to be making the metadata not something else as this is a incomplete nfo file to Emby.

But this would appear to be a skin/Kodi issue not a Emby Server issue and may belong in a different section.