Boxee Box not scanning all files

**regntina** · January 15th, 2012, 10:05 PM

I just recently purchased a Boxee Box and did all the recent firmware updates. It is connected to a WD My Book Live NAS. My media is connected via SMB and all the videos play fine without complications. My only issue is that Boxee Box doesn't scan all files. For example I have 200 .mkv video files in 1 folder, 80 are found, 6 unidentified. How do I get Boxee to scan the other 114 files? I created a NFO in the root folder because anime generally isn't found on IMDB or theTVDB. I can play the remaining 114 files from the root directory but would like to see those files in the correct tv show and movie folders with the correct thumbnails. Any help is appreciated. Thank You

**Ronald** · January 15th, 2012, 10:41 PM

Originally Posted by regntina

I just recently purchased a Boxee Box and did all the recent firmware updates. It is connected to a WD My Book Live NAS. My media is connected via SMB and all the videos play fine without complications. My only issue is that Boxee Box doesn't scan all files. For example I have 200 .mkv video files in 1 folder, 80 are found, 6 unidentified. How do I get Boxee to scan the other 114 files? I created a NFO in the root folder because anime generally isn't found on IMDB or theTVDB. I can play the remaining 114 files from the root directory but would like to see those files in the correct tv show and movie folders with the correct thumbnails. Any help is appreciated. Thank You

Your description is a bit unclear as to whether all of those 200 files belong to the same anime show, or if there are several shows/movies involved here. In the latter case, then it is probably the placement of the NFO file which messes up the identification.

Since you placed an NFO file in the root folder, all files in all subfolders beneath that root will be considered to 'belong' to the same show/movie as specified in that NFO file. So if other shows are also involved, then their episodes will either be ignored or misidentified as episodes of the NFO-specified show.

Another possible problem is if your episode filenames don't use a syntax which Boxee can recognize. (The s01e01 format is recommended, though the 01x01 format is also supported.)

Please describe your file and folder organisation in better detail, including some filename examples, so we can better judge what may be causing your problems. It would also be useful if you could ZIP the NFO file you're using and attach this to your next post, so we can check it for possible errors.

Best regards: Ronald

**regntina** · January 16th, 2012, 02:31 AM

All episodes belong to the same anime. The root folder is titled "Yu-Gi-Oh" and there are 264 .mkv episodes to be exact. "S00E01 - Violent Battle, The Game of Darkness" is an example of the 1st file and all others follow suit. The NFO "tvshow.nfo" is placed in the root folder and works fine for 122 of the 291 files. I tried to scan only that folder and still the same 122 files are being found. This is the same case for several folders I have. I can still play the other files through the file directory so I guess I'm just being anal with this. Zipped NFO is attached. Thanks in advance.

**Ronald** · January 16th, 2012, 06:10 AM

The "tvshow.nfo" file in your ZIP is not valid, as it uses normal ASCII/ANSI encoding.
Boxee requires all NFO files to use UTF-8 text encoding.

This means that the file is ignored, and Boxee attempts to do the identification entirely through its online show/movie database, and this is then done by individual testing and resolving of each filename.

Because of the individual resolving, it's quite possible that some of the seemingly 'lost' episodes may have been added as falsely identified episodes (even duplicates) of unrelated shows (assuming you have some others scanned too).

You can simply load that NFO file into a decent text editor (Notepad will do), and re-save the file in UTF-8 format.

But to make things real easy for you I'm attaching a UTF-8 version of your NFO in a ZIP attachment, so unpack that and rename it (to remove my "fixed " prefix) and you should be good to go. But later you should make sure how to force UTF-8 format using your own tools.

With that NFO file installed you should then remove the source (as added in your last scan), and then re-add the source from scratch again.

With the NFO file in UTF-8 format the new scan should give different results than those you got before.

Best regards: Ronald

**regntina** · January 16th, 2012, 11:07 AM

I switched the nfo files, removed the folder and readded it. After the scan it still only read the same 122 files found. I think its unrelated to the nfo file becuase I also did a scan with no nfo file and still the same 122 were found but most of them became unidentified. The only pattern I noticed was that it was doing this to only .mkv files as it finds all the other file types just fine.

**Ronald** · January 16th, 2012, 06:28 PM

Originally Posted by regntina

I switched the nfo files, removed the folder and readded it. After the scan it still only read the same 122 files found.

So you're telling me that a scan made with a valid NFO file (like the one I posted) gives exactly the same result as a scan made with an invalid NFO file (like the one you posted). Right ?

But to me that seems impossible...

The file name example you gave did not contain any TV show name, and for such cases the online search of Boxee should produce no hits for the correct TV show. With such filenames used a valid NFO file is the only way to get correct TV show recognition. And I did give you such an NFO file (same content as yours, but with UTF-8 encoding to make it valid for Boxee use).

Something doesn't add up here, as it's impossible for those two NFO files to give the same result.

The only chances I see of that happening is if you somehow edited the file I gave you before using it, and then re-saved it into the same useless ASCII/ANSI encoding as your original file, or if you forgot to rename it from "fixed tvshow.nfo" to the correct "tvshow.nfo" before using it. (Such a misnamed file would of course be ignored too, just as one with incorrect encoding.)

I think its unrelated to the nfo file becuase I also did a scan with no nfo file and still the same 122 were found but most of them became unidentified.

Since your example episode filename did not contain any TV show name, all episodes should either be unidentified or misidentified when no NFO file is used. To my knowledge Boxee has no other way of identifying the show an episode belongs to, than by either seeing its name in each individual episode filename or by getting the show name from an NFO file either in the same folder as the episode file or in a superior folder containing that folder. AFAIK Boxee never uses a show name just because that name was used as a folder name. It must be defined either in an NFO file, or as a leading part of each episode filename.

Also, I assume you don't mean exactly what you say when stating that you just "did a scan", because for cases like this simply ordering a new scan is never sufficient. You must remove the failed source entirely, and then re-add it again just like you did the first time. Otherwise some previous faulty recognition may not be corrected.

The only pattern I noticed was that it was doing this to only .mkv files as it finds all the other file types just fine.

I don't quite understand what you're saying here...

You already said that all filenames followed the same pattern, but now you speak of different groups of files with several different file types.

Please give specific examples of full filenames (including extension) for each such 'file type'. (PC directory screenshots would do nicely.)

Btw:
Your example was "S00E01 - Violent Battle, The Game of Darkness", but according to TheTVDB.com the first episode should be "s01e01 The Furious Battle - A Shadow Game". I suppose both texts may be reasonable translations from a Japanese original title, but it may be more important that you chose to start your season count from zero, whereas the standard method is to always designate the first season as s01, with s00 being reserved for preair pilots or DVD release 'extras' and other such material which is not part of the normal story sequence.

Such abnormal season numbering should still not affect the recognition of episodes as belonging to a show specified in a valid NFO. But it may cause incorrect episode descriptions to be displayed for any episodes scanned and accepted as part of the show. (if you add in the ID tagline to take advantage of info in the online database)

Best regards: Ronald

**regntina** · January 16th, 2012, 09:46 PM

I really don't know how else to put it. You hit the nail on the head when you said "Since your example episode filename did not contain any TV show name, all episodes should either be unidentified or misidentified when no NFO file is used." There are 263 .mkv files in the folder plus the nfo you created which makes a total of 264. Still only 122 are files are scanned not 263. I attached screen shots of the top and bottom of the PC folder and one of Boxee only scanning 122 files. I deleted the source and re-added it but still 122 files found. It doesn't make any sense to me either. If you need more screen shots please let me know and thank you for taking the time help out.

FYI I didn't associate an ID becuase I didn't follow thetvdb.com database as mine follows the Japanese. I'd prefer to just keep it as the file name and hope that Boxee would recognize the syntax and would automatically organize it. My only reason for the NFO was to place the episodes in the main Boxee menu "Shows" and create a thumbnail. Re-scanning without the NFO just makes the 122 files unidentified.

**Ronald** · January 17th, 2012, 02:51 PM

This is indeed a mystery, and I think we need to get to the bottom of it. But unfortunately the pictures you attached will be no help in this, as the directory snapshots are merely 'thumbnails' with completely unreadable text. (That text just looks like 'squiggly lines' even in magnification.)

Please use the PC's built-in snapshot ability to save screenshots with full resolution, and then pack those into a ZIP which you attach, instead of attaching the kind of picture files you did in your latest post.

In case you didn't know, the built-in screenshot ability of Windows is used simply by pressing the 'PrintScreen' key at any time. This places a copy of the entire current screen content in the clipboard buffer, whence you can paste it into any picture editor (I use IrfanView for this), and then use that to save the picture as a normal JPG, with the full resolution of your desktop.

And with such pictures stored inside a ZIP archive we can be sure that the site software doesn't interfere with the picture quality like it can do with attachments made as simple image files.

Best regards: Ronald