[ThePowerTool]

My system details:

Code:

]# cat /etc/redhat-release
Fedora release 25 (Twenty Five)
]# rpm -qa | grep -i kodi
kodi-17.1-1.fc25.x86_64

I have most of my videos organized into a heirarchy. All my TV shows are in a directory ./TVShows except for the comics which are under ./TVShows/Comics and organized:
./TVShows/Comics/DC
./TVShows/Comics/Marvel

I also have a source pointed to my ./TVShows directory with the content set as "TV Shows".

TV shows that are peers of ./Comics are properly identified in via the DB scan:
./TVShows/tv-show-1
./TVShows/tv-show-2

The problem:
./TVShows/Comics is identified as "Comic's Choice". I could ignore this because I can just navigate Video - Files - TVShows (the directory) - Comics - DC - etc.

The problem is that KODI identifies all my S01E01 shows under DC and Marvel as "S01E01 Alan Davies" (the 1st episode of Comic's Choice season 1) and there doesn't appear to be any way to correct this problem. When I access the context menu it doesn't offer me the "Information" option to correctly identify anything (e.g. ./Comics/DC/show-1 or ./Comics/DC/show-1/file1.wmv).

Is there a way I can get KODI to correctly identify my videos using a hierarchical directory sturcture to keep what I consider an easy order of directories?

Thanks!

_________________________
For clarity, here's an example of what I see:

./TVShows (context menu - selecting edit displays content set to "TV Shows")
./TVShows/BarneyMiller (correctly identified)
./TVShows/HappyDays (correctly identified)
./TVShows/Comics (incorrectly identified as "Comic's Choice")
./TVShows/DC (not identified, context menu only offers options to "set content")
./TVShows/DC/Arrow (unidentified)
./TVShows/DC/Arrow/Arrow.S01E01/1x1 Alan Davies

the last entry (in this example) would actually hold
./TVShows/DC/Arrow/Arrow.S01E01/Arrow.S01E01.wmv (actual file name vs incorrect display name, above)
but appears in KODI as 1x1 Alan Davies (as shown, above)

[Karellen]

I am reading that you know what the problem is. You just want a workaround??

Without modifying code (which is outside my ability), I would have to answer no. The three methods I can think of break your hierarchical structure.

Why not just do the following...

./TVShows/tv-show-1
./TVShows/tv-show-2

./TVComics/DC
./TVComics/Marvel

So you have three sources. - TVShows, DC & Marvel

[nickr]

Your problem is that there is no TV Show called Comics, so it chooses Comic's Choice as the closest thing.

Set up your shows as Kodi expects, ie get rid of the "Comics" directory and have the show name as the directory level directly under "TV Shows"

There is no need to have stuff divided up into sub directories, Kodi has plenty of sorting options once the shows are in the database.

[ThePowerTool]

Why not just do the following...

./TVShows/tv-show-1
./TVShows/tv-show-2

./TVComics/DC
./TVComics/Marvel

So you have three sources. - TVShows, DC & Marvel

Karellen,

You helped me get a better grasp on the problem. I should have seen this but it just didn't click for me until I read your post. While your suggestion does break my current heirarchy it is still similar. I may go with this solution but have a question for nickr.

Thank you very much!

[ThePowerTool]

There is no need to have stuff divided up into sub directories, Kodi has plenty of sorting options once the shows are in the database.

If I just have a ./TVShows directory (with all TV shows) can Kodi sort and just show me DC or Marvel? I really don't understand how that would work or where to read up on it.

Thanks!

[ponkotsu]

There is no need to have stuff divided up into sub directories, Kodi has plenty of sorting options once the shows are in the database.

If I just have a ./TVShows directory (with all TV shows) can Kodi sort and just show me DC or Marvel? I really don't understand how that would work or where to read up on it.

Thanks!

You might be able to use smart playlists (wiki) to sort them, creating a rule based on the path -- ./TVComics/DC vs ./TVComics/Marvel (from the above suggestion).

[zerocool_ie]

Here's my DC Arrowverse episode smart playlist, sorted on airdate, ascending

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="episodes">
    <name>DC Arrowverse</name>
    <match>any</match>
    <rule field="tvshow" operator="is">
        <value>Arrow</value>
        <value>The Flash (2014)</value>
        <value>Supergirl</value>
        <value>DC's Legends of Tomorrow</value>
    </rule>
    <order direction="ascending">date</order>
</smartplaylist>

[ThePowerTool]

runningnaked, zerocool_ie,

That's a lot closer to what I was looking for as a solution. My only wish was that it could pick up the variables from the directory structure. I do see that with the above solution directory structure isn't required (beyond having a "tv shows" directory) because it will match based upon the provided variables.

Thanks!

[DarrenHill]

As long as you insure that only the lowest level of your folder tree has "selected folder contains a single TV show" set then you can have as many genre folders as you like.

Kodi by default will set this for the level down from the main source for folder. In some cases above it's right (Barney Miller and Happy Days) but the others (Comics and DC) it's wrong. There your need to go to the context menu for the folder, select change content and deselect the folder contains a single TV show setting.

If you only set that for folders which actually do contain a single show (as defined by the scraper database) then it will work. Note that you can still have sub folders with individual sessions etc if you want without issues, as the whole lot are still from the same show.

[Raza]

I'm currently having a similar issue which does not to appear to have an obvious fix, but more of a work around.  I have about 80 series in my tv shows collection that range from seinfeld, to game of thrones, to saturday morning cartoons, etc...  it's all over the place.  Normally if all of these shows are just thrown into a single folder everything will scrape fine.  However being the anal/pedantic person I am I decided to organize my shows into genre subfolders which now means in order for kodi to scrape anything I will have to make a new source for each genre folder I made (about 10).   Which is worse?  10 tv show sources or all shows in a single folder?   probably the sources...  i may just put it back the way it was.  i honestly don't care that much about the folder structures other than I have made custom software to tag the genres the way I like them (based on the folder structure) which I can still get around other ways...

Would just be nice if I could have subfolders of tv shows in genres directories like I do with movies and it still scrape fine.  but it's not a huge deal

[DarrenHill]

As long as each individual series (as defined by the scraper database) is in its own folder and they're the only ones with the "selected folder contains a single TV show" flag set then it should work.

If you have all shows in one big folder then Kodi won't be able to do any scraping of them, as the thetvdb database isn't set up that way and not is the standard scraper that uses it. You will only be able to see them under files mode, without metadata (your library will be empty).