Kodi Community Forum

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I haven't had any luck tracking down the answer.

I'm in the midst of an update / rebuild of Kodi, that I will be putting on several HTPCs throughout the house.

All my movies and tv shows are stored on my QNAP server, and I'm wanting to keep the metadata consistent on all the PCs going forward.  To that end, I've started using MediaCenter Master to gather and store the metadata / art in the same folder as the video.  I intend to do that for new movies, from now on, which is simple enough, but, for ongoing tv shows, it's not quite so cut and dry, as I'll be adding new episodes, and I don't see a way to update the metadata for the new ones that easily.

My thought was that, after everything was loaded from local information, I would then configure Kodi to use the TVDB scraper, telling to to not wipe the database... and the new episodes would be handled automatically.  However, it's not pulling the new info for new episodes like I thought it should / would.

Am I missing something stupid / simple?  If I just set it to use TVDB initially, will it pull from the local info files first?   Is there a way to configure it to do so?

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Hello @RobbieWilkes

Just to make sure I understand correctly... You have existing TV Shows saved and scraped into your library via nfo files. You want to add new episodes as they are released but not sure how to scrape them.

There are two ways to scrape into the library after you have saved the files to your qnap server...
1. Select Update Library from the sideblade menu
2. Navigate to Videos>Files, locate your episode and press the Info button. It should start a scrape of the episode.

What have you tried doing?

Thanks for responding @Karellen,

As I described, I created the metadata for all the TV shows, using an external program (MediaCenter Master or Ember), and then I configured the Kodi Information Provider with "Local Information Only".  After the library was created, I then went back and configured the Information Provider as The TVDB.  When I was prompted with "Change content?", I chose "No"... which did not clear the library.   My hope was that it would keep the information it pulled from the local metadata, and then use The TVDB scraper for future additions.

I've actually got the Watchdog service setup to monitor additions, and I've also configured Kodi to scan on startup.  As you suggested, I had also tried to manually add the new episodes, within Kodi, but still had no luck.  The only way I can add the new episodes is to scrape using an external program again (MediaCenter Master or Ember), which creates the metadata, and then they'll be added to Kodi.

It's like the TVDB scraper will only work if it is used to create the database from the get-go, but, if you already have the library created, then it does not scrape / add going forward.

I guess what I want to know is if I set it to the TVDB scraper, and answer "Yes" to "Change content?", will it look at the local metadata FIRST and only scrape if no information is found, so that my PCs remain consistent and updated?

Robbie

Ok, with your additional information, I now think you might be suffering the effects of a required API upgrade we were forced to implement a few months ago.

Due to some required changes at TVDB outside of our control, a scraper upgrade was required. You should have TVDB API v1.8.5 installed. The result of those changes at TVDB meant that the new scraper may not recognise an existing TV Show when adding new episodes. The fix is to delete the TV show from the library, and re-scrape it. Once done, it will scrape normally.

I initially thought you might be suffering trying to scrape individual episodes by navigating to the episode via Video>Files, and selecting the Information button to initiate a single scrape. This is broken in v17.4, but is fixed in the latest v17.5 nightlies. Maybe it was a combination of both issues...

Kodi will always look for the local NFO file and artwork first. If it does not find them, then Kodi will connect to the scraper site. You can check that in your log if you are game enough...
If Kodi finds an nfo file, you will see...
VideoInfoScanner: Found matching full NFO file: F:\My Movies 1\Blade Runner 2036 Nexus Dawn (2017)\movie.nfo

If Kodi finds no nfo file, you will see...
VideoInfoScanner: No NFO file found. Using title search for 'F:\Movies- Test - Scraped\Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)\Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989).mp4'

In my signature, is a link to NFO Files and Import-Export. You may find more useful information in there.

Fantastic!  Thanks for the info Karellen!

I'll create the library using the TVDB addon, and, hopefully it will do the trick.