[Windza]

So I've searched high and low and haven't yet found a solution to the following problem (plenty of references but no step through solution).

Hardware
1x 4TB MyBook WE2 NAS (all media stored on this)
3x Notebook based HTPC's

Software
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 on each HTPC
XBMC 10.1 running (in library mode) on each HTPC
1x HTPC running MySQL and MediaCompanion to generate nfo's, fanart and thumbnails.

All instances of XBMC are using MySQL to sync the library (nothing fancy - just a single profile).
Library works just fine amongst all HTPC's except for movie thumbnails which are simply a curse.
Despite the folder structure being very tidy and consistent (following MediaCompanion recommendation) each XBMC instance is seemingly random in how it applies thumbnails... e.g. one might use about 20% of the locally stored tbn files and generate the rest from the video file, another might not show any of the locally stored thumbnails or randomly scrape from the internet?

I've tried deleting the thumbnails cache on different HTPC's and allow them to rescan to no avail (just generates the same again). The only avenue that works is to manually refresh each item and select 'No' when it asks to ignore local information; this is unacceptable though due to the sheer number of files.

Is there any way to have XBMC reliably use ONLY locally stored information?
I upgraded from v10.0 in the hope this may have been corrected but behaviour is unchanged... starting to really get under my skin... I'm hoping that I'm doing something stupidly wrong and there's an easy fix.

Would appreciate any suggestions or confirmation that I'm not the only one with this issue...

[PatK]

This may be a matter of Win/7 protections on these shared files. Do you have 'folder.jpg' in each, or just thumbs? Exported as single files? If you have a thumb at all.... is it the wrong thumb or just no thumb?

[Windza]

PatK - appreciate your input...
I'm fairly confident it's not a permissions issue (manually refreshing the item will subsequently display the local thumb and fanart just fine).
When I do get a thumb, it's generally just a basic video clip thumbnail...

I've tried various naming structures to get this to work (e.g. folder.jpg, <filename>.tbn etc) but it's always the same.

I have wondered previously about the library/source relationship within XBMC (i.e. no source is required when in library mode using MySQL) and whether this could be the issue but adding the source hasn't resolved it either?

[Windza]

UPDATE:
Running XBMC disconnected from the shared MySQL library, I added the media source (from a mapped drive) and proceeded to scan the content in locally... on switching to Library Mode - VOILA! All thumbnails displaying correctly...

Connecting XBMC back to MySQL (after deleting the thumbnail cache)... NADA! Thumbnails display as a clip from the video files...

Can we call this a bug yet?

[rocketpants]

I think that the thumbnail hash is causing your problems. Even when you are using local sources as the data for the library it is still scraped into the database. If you have scraped the media on XBMC#1 the thumbnail will not appear on XBMC#2 as it is not in the thumbnail directory and the database reference cannot find it.

Try syncing the thumbnails between all machines. Or get one of them working the way you want it to and copying the thumbnails from that one to the other machines. I use freefilesync to do this. Its got quite customisable options to do the syncing

[Windza]

If you have scraped the media on XBMC#1 the thumbnail will not appear on XBMC#2 as it is not in the thumbnail directory and the database reference cannot find it.

Rocketpants... I'm possibly picking up what you're putting down but I'm not sure it fits 100%.

I was under the impression that because thumbnails are cached locally (and not in MySQL) then so too, would their reference path (i.e. unique to each XBMC instance)... based on what you're saying, am I correct in assuming in a MySQL connected instance, XBMC is storing the thumbnail path in the database?

What I was expecting is each XBMC instance to use the single MySQL database but still establish it's own local thumbnail cache (and reference path) from the media source.
Instead I'm seeing XBMC#2 try to locate XBMC#1's thumbnail path and spitting the dummy?

Hope that makes sense... rather long-winded to explain sorry...

[rocketpants]

I'm not entirely sure I know how this works so this is a bit of an educated guess.

When you choose an image the image is saved in the thumbnails directory, which will always be \userdata\thumbnails no matter what system you are using. The relative path (i.e. \userdata\thumbnails\) to that image is hashed and stored in the database. Therefore you need the same image in the thumbnails directory and thats why syncing the thumbnail directory works. The absolute path is not hashed.

Each XBMC is generating its own thumbnails directory but as each references the local thumbnail directory, thumbnails created on XBMC#1 will only exist on the XBMC#1 even though the mySQL db is using the relative path to the location of the image.

I dont know if this helps. I've confused myself a bit.

[Windza]

I dont know if this helps. I've confused myself a bit.

Actually, your first post is the first of many that I've read that provided some insight into what was going on... if it's not how you've described it's very close.

What has had me thrown off course is that I've dug around in the database and never found any thumbnail path so I assumed that was local... when you mentioned it possibly being hashed it kinda clicked.

However it goes, it'd be nice to have this whole thumbnail dilemma put aside (i.e. provide the option to cache thumbnails in the database)... I'm assuming performance is the likely reason this hasn't yet occurred but I'm hoping it will still be considered at some point.

For now I'll just rely on syncing... and thanks heaps for your contribution - much appreciated.

[rocketpants]

Don't get too excited. Like I say, I'm just making a guess based on how I think it works. I could be well off the mark

BTW, if you browse your db using something like HeidiSQL and go to your music DB you will see that there is a thumb table which shows you the thumb file name and path and those are linked to the music files and artist details in the respective tables. I can't find similar for the video database but I assume it does the same sort of thing.