TV shows issues - duplicate series + series poster randomly not read

[buiz]

I've decided to go exclusively .nfo on my collection to ensure I get a neat database, using EMM. While I'm almost there on my movie collection, I have two problems with series/shows:

1) Duplicate TV shows - episodes are split over two identical series entries with one showing poster and info and the other just a grey box. The problem is described in a support entry on the support site (http://support.boxee.tv/entries/2048...icate-tv-shows), but it has not been answered. I have .nfos for all episodes and all .nfos are identical and correct in structure. There's therefore no obvious reason the series should be split in two. Anybody tried this and know of a fix? Manually re-identifying basis .nfo like the poster suggests works on only one of the series entries and if it happens to only work on the grey box it means even this manual workaround would not achieve the desired result.

2) Some series don't display its poster randomly, ie some series show the poster properly and others just show a grey box with the series name in the top left corner despite the presence of a poster in the folder that is properly named and formatted. There are no differences between the size or resolution between the posters of the various series and all .nfos are correct. The behaviour therefore seems entirely random. Anybody know of a fix for this?

I have attached the tvshow.nfo for 24 and an example episode.nfo file, both renamed .txt only for the purposes of uploading to this post.

Any help would be appreciated!!

[darcilicious]

Two things that might be worth looking into:

If you have all the info you need locally in your own NFO files, you might want to remove the <id> tags from your NFO files. If you have <id> tags then Boxee will do some kind of merge of the data in your NFO files and what it has in its own lookup server based on the <id> numbe3r.

Also, how are you naming your episode video files. Is the Season 1 Episode 1 video file really named "24 Season 1 Episode 01 - 12AM -1AM" ?

I'm not entirely sure, but that might be enough to confuse Boxee...

(normally it would still be "24 S01E01 - 12AM-1AM")

From the support page regarding NFO files:

The *.nfo must be named exactly as the episode file name (i.e. episodename.avi and episodename.nfo) and in the same folder, allowing multiple episode and *.nfo files within the same folder. Episode names must still follow the naming conventions even though you are using a custom NFO file.

[eug7]

When nfo was first introduced it took a couple of updates to get it dialed in. There were no dups or unidentified (provided you properly nfo'd). Now the bb interacts with boxee servers even if an nfo exists. This interaction is causing the problems. You have to remove id's.

Now there are problems on the move side. You used to be able to stack the movie with a multi part movie set Using a common I'd. Now it's whacked for the same reason. I have no solution. Very frustrating.

[buiz]

Thanks for your input, I'll definitely check my naming standard, meanwhile the problem has disappeared on all but one series (in terms of splitting), proving the seemingly random nature of the problem. The issue of some TV series - again randomly - not displaying poster persists and I'll see if removing the ID from the .nfo will help. I'll post my results later so that others with the same issues may benefit.

[buiz]

after a bit more testing, I've established the following:

1) Splitting shows is entirely random and is not affected by presence or not of ID in the tvshow.nfo.
2) Showing of poster is not affected by presence or not of ID in the tvshow.nfo file. Offhand it appears to be scraping the poster basis the name of the series from thetvdb.com regardless of the ID number or the presence of a .tbn file in the series' directory

Unless anyone has more to add I can only conclude that that TV shows is bugged and cross my fingers for a future fix.

[Ronald]

after a bit more testing, I've established the following:

1) Splitting shows is entirely random and is not affected by presence or not of ID in the tvshow.nfo.

Splitting of shows inevitably means that different episodes of the show have been interpreted as belonging to different registered shows. Unfortunately it is a definite fact that some shows have duplicate entries in the main online database, with usually only one of those entries being complete with posters and episode descriptions etc, with its duplicate(s) being much more rudimentary (though definitely intended for the same broadcast TV show).

The main reason for episodes being identified as 'belonging' to one or the other of such duplicate show entries seems to be the presence of a show identifier substring at the start of each filename, both for each episode video and for its NFO file if such is used.

Normally there are minor differences between the name strings for a 'correct' show entry and its duplicates. So the precise spelling and even interpunctuation can make a big difference (it has done so for me).

So I try to always include the proper show name into the start of each video filename, sometimes also with the production year in parenthesis (for shows with non-unique names anyway). And when this is consistently done it should at least ensure consistent sorting of the files as belonging to a single show entry (though that might still not be the one entry you wanted )

For identification without NFO files I use a substring as close as possible to the correct alternative show name string shown when making a manual search for the show. And for identification with NFO files I think the substring used should be the same as used in the '<title>' tagline of the "tvshow.nfo" file.

2) Showing of poster is not affected by presence or not of ID in the tvshow.nfo file.

I disagree. Presence of an ID in that NFO file reduces the chance of using most of your own entries of the NFO significantly, especially if the ID appears early in the NFO file (the chance for entries below it is reduced to zero).

The effects may seem to be random, as they vary depending on what entry fields exist in the database, for each specific episode. Another random effect is that pictures from the database sometimes fail to be downloaded, due to quite normal request timeouts.

Offhand it appears to be scraping the poster basis the name of the series from thetvdb.com

As stated elsewhere, I don't think there is any one database we can reach with normal web browsers that perfectly matches the Boxee database. (Definitely not that one as it has support for some shows that Boxee can't find even in a manual search.)

regardless of the ID number or the presence of a .tbn file in the series' directory

Again I have to disagree. With an ID number in the main NFO file, all my .tbn files are always ignored, but without such an ID the .tbn files do work for me. This is of course provided that each such ".tbn" file has a file name that perfectly matches that of the episode video file and nfo file, so that these three filenames differ only in the filetype extension.

Unless anyone has more to add I can only conclude that that TV shows is bugged and cross my fingers for a future fix.

I do agree that there are some bugs in how the online database info can override info from an NFO file when an ID is used.

But I do not agree that the NFO methods are so useless for TV shows as you imply. When properly used they do allow correct inclusion of a TV show in the library, even for cases where the online database has no entries at all...

Best regards: Ronald

[darcilicious]

When properly used they do allow correct inclusion of a TV show in the library, even for cases where the online database has no entries at all...

I would say especially for cases where the online database has not entries at all...

@buiz are you sure that your local database is getting cleared properly during testing?

After making changes to the NFO file you need to either remove the source that contains the media with the changed NFO file or clear the media database via Settings>>System

[Ronald]

I would say especially for cases where the online database has not entries at all...

Well, yes, as that is the main case where a full NFO setup is the only way to get that show into the library at all.

But I also find them quite useful for shows that the online database has no poster pictures for (without any NFO file, my folder.jpg files are just ignored). And also for a few shows that the database returns incorrect information for.

After making changes to the NFO file you need to either remove the source that contains the media with the changed NFO file or clear the media database via Settings>>System

For major changes with added or removed files, I agree that this may be needed, but for minor changes of an existing NFO setup I have found that another method also works, without having to remove and then rescan an entire source.

I just remove all episode entries for that one show from the library (using the 'Remove' command in the search popup for each episode). Then I go into the unidentified files list and find the first episode of the show and open its search popup, and choose to identify by NFO. When the result screen appears (with the description for that episode) I set the flag for having the season details applied to all the files in the folder, and if I have many season folders for that show I just repeat this for each of them.

Your method may be better for a fairly small source, for which rescanning it completely may be a quick operation. But with a large source that would take many hours to scan (and I have several of those), I prefer the method I described here, though I know it is not applicable with major changes of video files or their naming, either of which requires a rescan like you said.

For some minor changes in an episode NFO file I've even had success at re-identifying just that one episode from NFO, without doing anything about the other files of that show.

Best regards: Ronald