Yet another Collections Reappearing problem

[PaulE123 20]

Hi all,

Running the latest stable Emby docker (4.6.4.0). I want to set up some custom collections, which I've done. However, movies within this custom collection are also generating their own individual collections, & no matter what I do, I can't stop them from reappearing any time I do a metadata refresh. The "Import Collection Information" button is turned OFF, I've tried editing the metadata through the GUI and deleting the imdb and tmdb id's and then locking the file, yet it still regenerates its own collection. I've tried deleting the relevant nfo files, rescraping, and still the collections come back. The nfo's in question have a <set> tag within them, because I need them as part of a custom collection. Help please  

Edit - there's no 'Collection ID' that's editable from within each of the offending movies metadata (GUI method). I'm confused and annoyed as to how to solve this. Where is Emby pulling the collection info from? The nfo beside each movie? The collections folder within the Metadata folder itself? I've deleted them both, yet the collection continues to reappear. I've removed the movies from my custom collection, removed them from the generated collection, wiped their movie id's from metadata, readded them to the custom collection, refreshed metadata, and of course the generated collection returns. So frustrating!

Edited July 3, 2021 by PaulE123

[Carlo 4560]

Hi, use the GUI to remove the movies from the collections you don't want them to be part of.  When you do this the SET tag will get removed from the NFO.

Since you have the option turned off for the library it should not pull new collection info from the meta-data providers but only use what currently exists or what you add in the future.

[PaulE123 20]

27 minutes ago, cayars said:

Hi, use the GUI to remove the movies from the collections you don't want them to be part of.  When you do this the SET tag will get removed from the NFO.

Since you have the option turned off for the library it should not pull new collection info from the meta-data providers but only use what currently exists or what you add in the future.

Ok so I've gone into the auto-generated collection, and removed the two movies I don't want to be there from it. This causes the auto-generated collection to disappear from the library screen - good!

From the home screen, I then click the three dots beside the library in question, refresh metadata (choosing to search for missing metadata only) as this is something on occasion users might have to do. Boom, the auto-generated collection is back - not good!

[Carlo 4560]

Did you disable "Import collection information from metadata downloaders" for each library?

[PaulE123 20]

14 minutes ago, cayars said:

Did you disable "Import collection information from metadata downloaders" for each library?

I've disabled it for the Animation library only, which is the library I'm working on at the moment. This is the "import collection information" setting I'm speaking of. 

I've just checked in the Collections library for the same setting, it's not there. What is there though, is "Metadata readers - NFO (on/off), and "Collection Metadata downloaders - TheMovieDb (on/off) - currently both of these are turned ON (nfo readers and tmdb for collection Metadata downloads) 

Should I be turning these off? 

EDIT - just tried the same steps above, but with these two settings turned off in the Collections library, same result. The moment the metadata is refreshed, the collection is re-generated again.

Edited July 3, 2021 by PaulE123

[Carlo 4560]

What I would try is NFO on TheMovieDB off.

This should make Emby read the SET info from the NFO file.
Try removing the media from the collections again only leaving it for the collection you want it in.  Assuming the media is only part of one collection you manually created.

Now check the NFO file and see if it only has the SET line for your manual creation.

Assuming everything is good at this point, try refreshing the meta-data for that item again and let's see if the problem is fixed now.

Let us know how it goes for each step.

[PaulE123 20]

9 minutes ago, cayars said:

What I would try is NFO on TheMovieDB off.

This should make Emby read the SET info from the NFO file.
Try removing the media from the collections again only leaving it for the collection you want it in.  Assuming the media is only part of one collection you manually created.

Now check the NFO file and see if it only has the SET line for your manual creation.

Assuming everything is good at this point, try refreshing the meta-data for that item again and let's see if the problem is fixed now.

Let us know how it goes for each step.

Ok thanks very much, I'll try the above now. I'm confused already though, when you say try NFO on TheMovieDb off, which setting here are you talking about?

 

[Carlo 4560]

Keep first green check mark for NFO.
Turn off 2nd green check mark for TheMovieDb

[PaulE123 20]

Ok in my Collections library settings, "Collection metadata downloaders" for TheMovieDb is now OFF.

Similarly, "Import collection information" is turned OFF in my Animated Movies library.

Ok so now I'm removing the three Aladdin films from the auto-generated "Aladdin Collection", via the GUI (entering the collection, three dots for each film, and "remove from collection". I go back out of the collection, refresh the page, and yes, the Aladdin Collection listing is now gone. The three films are correctly only listed in my "Disney Animation" collection. 

I now check the Aladdin .nfo file in the movie library, and look for the <set> information. Here's what I found:

<set tmdbcolid="91657">
    <name>Disney Collection</name>
  </set>
  <set tmdbcolid="86027">
    <name>Aladdin Collection</name>
  </set>

As can be seen, the old "Aladdin Collection" reference is NOT being removed. Further, the collection ID for my custom created "Disney Collection" is 91657, which points to the Disney Buddies Collection - https://www.themoviedb.org/collection/91657 (I've no idea why this is, because I've got a custom collection, not a TMDB one.)

Anyway, I leave the library and from my home screen I refresh the metadata for the Animated Movies library, and yes, the Aladdin Collection is auto-generated once again. Presumably because when I remove the films via the GUI, these changes are NOT being reflected in the nfo files.

I went one step further and deleted all nfo files from this particular movie library, just incase they were old files causing some incompatibilities....same result.

[PaulE123 20]

Ok, I just tried turning OFF "metadata readers" for my Animated Movies library, then removing each of the Aladdin films from the auto-generated Aladdin Collection.....then refreshing the metadata, and the Aladdin Collection did NOT return this time! Can anyone explain what this setting is doing?

I know it's probably making Emby ignore the nfo file altogether is it? I checked for <set> info in the nfo's this time, and only the <set> info for my custom collection remains...

[Carlo 4560]

Undo that change you just made for the metadata readers as you need to read from the NFO (only that) for collections.

Go back to this library and make sure Metadata savers is enabled for NFO.  I'm guessing you turned this off.  This needs to be on for Emby to remove the SET from the NFO when you remove the items from the collection.

[PaulE123 20]

36 minutes ago, cayars said:

Undo that change you just made for the metadata readers as you need to read from the NFO (only that) for collections.

Go back to this library and make sure Metadata savers is enabled for NFO.  I'm guessing you turned this off.  This needs to be on for Emby to remove the SET from the NFO when you remove the items from the collection.

Metadata Savers was enabled already

[Carlo 4560]

Would you like to do a remote session?  I could take a look at the setup and we could test it together this way.
Send me a PM if you would like to do this.

[PaulE123 20]

22 minutes ago, cayars said:

Would you like to do a remote session?  I could take a look at the setup and we could test it together this way.
Send me a PM if you would like to do this.

Pm'd for remote support assistance. 

EDIT - however, after turning Metadata Readers back ON and expecting the problem to return, it didn't! I'm not sure what's going on at this stage! Here's my current settings:

Animated Movies library - Metadata Readers (ON nfo), Import Collection Information (OFF), Metadata Savers (ON)

Collections Liibrary - Metadata Readers (ON nfo), Collection Metadata Downloaders (Off TheMovieDb), Metadata Savers (ON nfo)

 

Everything appears to be working correctly now. Perhaps it was when I changed the Metadata Readers setting from ON, to OFF, rescanned, and then turned it back on again? Anyway, thank you for your help cayars, I just wish we found something more conclusive!

[Luke 42077]

@PaulE123 has this reoccurred?

[PaulE123 20]

On 7/18/2021 at 6:46 AM, Luke said:

@PaulE123 has this reoccurred?

@Luke Sorry for the late reply, I'm only seeing it now! No it hasn't reoccurred as of yet, but the caveat is that with NFO reading turned off, adding in movies with sequels no longer creates a collection automatically. I can manually create the collection itself, then punch in the TMDB collection ID and it'll pull the metadata. A small headache, but far less stressful than Emby creating collections from movies that I've told it not to do this for.

[Luke 42077]

54 minutes ago, PaulE123 said:

@Luke Sorry for the late reply, I'm only seeing it now! No it hasn't reoccurred as of yet, but the caveat is that with NFO reading turned off, adding in movies with sequels no longer creates a collection automatically. I can manually create the collection itself, then punch in the TMDB collection ID and it'll pull the metadata. A small headache, but far less stressful than Emby creating collections from movies that I've told it not to do this for.

Hi @PaulE123 that's not true. You can still have collections created automatically without nfo. Just enable it in your library options and set MovieDb enabled as well.

But of course, the downside of not allowing Emby Server to save the changes to nfo means that they could be lost later if you ever refresh metadata.

Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.

[PaulE123 20]

On 7/28/2021 at 5:13 PM, Luke said:

Hi @PaulE123 that's not true. You can still have collections created automatically without nfo. Just enable it in your library options and set MovieDb enabled as well.

But of course, the downside of not allowing Emby Server to save the changes to nfo means that they could be lost later if you ever refresh metadata.

Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.

Thanks Luke, I think I'd prefer have the convenience of nfo's, to preserve the work gone into making custom collections etc (I absolutely hate having to redo them). I get how and why Emby generates collections (it pulls the info from metadata), but in an ideal world, it would be great to have it somehow acknowledge if the user manually removes that collection, and doesn't recreate it. I think it's supposed to do this? It just isn't for me, so I've turned off NFO reading as above which has fixed auto generation of manually removed collections. 

[Luke 42077]

We'll do some testing on it. Thanks for the feedback.

[Carlo 4560]

From my testing on this there doesn't seem to be a way to have auto collections generated but allow a user to remove/alter them as a refresh will pull the collection again.
Don't know what you think of this @Luke but could we track this in the database (auto/manual) and/or NFO by using the SET and a new SETREMOVED or similar?

We need someway to know the user has removed the movie from a collection that was auto generated and not to add to add it back again automatically.

[Happy2Play 9780]

The set field needs to be exposed in the UI and then be able to lock that field as blank so it can not be readded to a collection.

Or when removing a item from a collection it sets that fields as locked, but to me we still need a visual indicator.