[godefroi]

Judging from the google results, this is a common question, but none of the existing really matched my symptoms, and none of the suggested resolutions solved my issues, so here's my exact details:

My television episodes are all in a single folder, which I've added as a source in XBMC. Under this folder are folders for each show that I have episodes for; one of these is Firefly. Under Firefly I have a folder called "Season 1" and under that are 16 files; 14 episodes and 2 files containing DVD extras. The files were originally named like this:

Television\Firefly\Season 1\[01x01] Serenity.avi

This is my preferred naming scheme, and I gather that the [01x01] piece is nowdays included in the default scanner regexes. Certainly, the episode numbers were recognized (even though they were wrong, as I later discovered, because thetvdb.com and the scraper require one to use AIRED order instead of DVD order. That's fine, I understand.

This situation lead to having every episode show up twice in the library. Cleaning the library, scanning for new content, nothing would remove the duplicate episodes. As a wild shot in the dark, I switched my naming scheme a couple nights ago to this:

Television\Firefly\Season 1\Firefly.S01E01.The Train Job.avi

(Along the way I'd fixed the episode numbers to match the aired order instead of DVD order) The first time I ran XBMC with this scheme, everything was beautiful. I went into the "set content type" settings and switched it to DVD order. Life was great. Unfortunately, it was not to last. The second time I ran XBMC (I have it set to auto-update the library on startup), some of the episodes were duplicated. Odd, I know, only some of them. The "extra" episodes were also out-of-order, i.e. listed in the wrong place in the library. Maybe they were where they would have been in the aired order, I'm not sure.

Then, I decided to post here, and figured that I ought to have a debug log of a scan when I did. I therefore moved the Firefly folder out of the source folder, cleaned my library, put it back in, and restarted XBMC with the log on. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that all the episodes were duplicated, not only some of them.

Either way, now I'm back to where I started, with 28 episodes instead of 14. I'd love to work this out, and I'm at a loss on how to do it. Help!

[sialivi]

Then, I decided to post here, and figured that I ought to have a debug log of a scan when I did. I therefore moved the Firefly folder out of the source folder, cleaned my library, put it back in, and restarted XBMC with the log on. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that all the episodes were duplicated, not only some of them.

Ironically you forgot to include said debug log.

I'm just guessing here, but could it be that you have some rogue .nfo files in the source folder?

[Hudson_Hawk04]

I am guessing that one is playable and the other is the legit file as something similar happens to me from time to time. The other will most likley try to play and come back with something along the lines of cannot play item not in library would you like to remove it? choose yes and just go through and manually delete those files. and that should work for you, i know its a pain but it is a fairly quick solution. let me know how this works out for you.

[sialivi]

He already said he cleaned the library and they returned when rescanning so that wouldn't solve anything

[sialivi]

(Along the way I'd fixed the episode numbers to match the aired order instead of DVD order) The first time I ran XBMC with this scheme, everything was beautiful. I went into the "set content type" settings and switched it to DVD order.

You renamed your files to match the Aired order but set the scraper to use DVD order? Why would you do that? It makes no sense. The scraper should be set to match the order your files are in.

Maybe it's the scanning the source twice but with different orders set that's messing things up.

Try:
1) Set the scrapers order to "Aired" again
2) Remove the show from the library (select the show, press 'c' and select "Remove from library")
3) Re-scan the source
4) Restart XBMC
5) Check if there are still dublicates

[godefroi]

You renamed your files to match the Aired order but set the scraper to use DVD order? Why would you do that? It makes no sense. The scraper should be set to match the order your files are in.

I did that because one of the responses in another thread directed the poster there to do that. It was my understanding from his explanation that "Use DVD Order" only affected the display, not the scraping. That could be entirely wrong.

I'm just guessing here, but could it be that you have some rogue .nfo files in the source folder?

No, I don't use .nfo files anywhere. To me, they don't seem to add much over the built-in scraping, which tends to be excellent.

I am guessing that one is playable and the other is the legit file as something similar happens to me from time to time. The other will most likley try to play and come back with something along the lines of cannot play item not in library would you like to remove it? choose yes and just go through and manually delete those files. and that should work for you, i know its a pain but it is a fairly quick solution. let me know how this works out for you.

No, they both play, oddly enough. When I watch one only it is marked as "watched" and not both.

[godefroi]

Try:
1) Set the scrapers order to "Aired" again
2) Remove the show from the library (select the show, press 'c' and select "Remove from library")
3) Re-scan the source
4) Restart XBMC
5) Check if there are still dublicates

OK, did that. Well, I did part of it. VERY interesting results.

The order was already set to "Aired", I assume because I'd removed it from the library again attempting to duplicate the "some-duplicated-episodes" issue. So, I removed the show from the library, and oddly enough, it stayed there, except without the duplicate episodes. Just the 14 that should be there. I removed it again, and it disappeared. Rescanned, and it showed back up, duplicated. Removed it, and now it's sitting there without the duplicate episodes. I'm confident that if I rescan, I'll get the duplicate episodes back. Would you like a debug log of that?

[sialivi]

I don't suppose you have an sqlite database browser installed so you could tell us what the database entries says?

[godefroi]

I don't suppose you have an sqlite database browser installed so you could tell us what the database entries says?

Sure, what would you like to know out of the database?

[sialivi]

The content of the "c18" column in the "episode" table in the MyVideos__.db for one of the episodes and it's duplicate

[godefroi]

the c18 columns are the same for both rows... they're empty.

Here's what I dug up, though:

Code:

sqlite> select * from episode where c00 like '%train%' limit 5;
idEpisode = 1030
   idFile = 1380
      c00 = The Train Job
      c01 = Serenity continues to travel through space conducting illegal runs across the star system, which is under the control of The Alliance. A powerful and fearsome mobster named Adelei Niska demands that the crew of Serenity pull a train robbery. The train is carrying medical supplies for a community, and Reynolds and Zoe get held on suspicion. They get free with Inara's help but realize they were tricked and try to return Niska's money. His henchman isn't too happy, but Mal "persuades" the next guy to take the money back. Meanwhile, two blue-handed, black-suited operatives close in on River.
      c02 =
      c03 = 8.100000
      c04 = Tim Minear / Joss Whedon
      c05 = 2002-09-20
      c06 = <thumb>http://thetvdb.com/banners/episodes/78874/297989.jpg</thumb>
      c07 =
      c08 =
      c09 = 60
      c10 = Joss Whedon
      c11 =
      c12 = 1
      c13 = 1
      c14 =
      c15 = -1
      c16 = -1
      c17 = -1
      c18 =
      c19 =
      c20 =
      c21 =

idEpisode = 1044
   idFile = 1366
      c00 = The Train Job
      c01 = Serenity continues to travel through space conducting illegal runs across the star system, which is under the control of The Alliance. A powerful and fearsome mobster named Adelei Niska demands that the crew of Serenity pull a train robbery. The train is carrying medical supplies for a community, and Reynolds and Zoe get held on suspicion. They get free with Inara's help but realize they were tricked and try to return Niska's money. His henchman isn't too happy, but Mal "persuades" the next guy to take the money back. Meanwhile, two blue-handed, black-suited operatives close in on River.
      c02 =
      c03 = 8.100000
      c04 = Tim Minear / Joss Whedon
      c05 = 2002-09-20
      c06 = <thumb>http://thetvdb.com/banners/episodes/78874/297989.jpg</thumb>
      c07 =
      c08 =
      c09 = 60
      c10 = Joss Whedon
      c11 =
      c12 = 1
      c13 = 1
      c14 =
      c15 = -1
      c16 = -1
      c17 = -1
      c18 =
      c19 =
      c20 =
      c21 =
sqlite> select * from files where idfile in (1380,1366);
     idFile = 1366
     idPath = 108
strFilename = Firefly.S01E01.The Train Job.avi
  playCount =
lastPlayed =

     idFile = 1380
     idPath = 111
strFilename = Firefly.S01E01.The Train Job.avi
  playCount =
lastPlayed =
sqlite> select * from path where idpath in (108,111);
        idPath = 108
       strPath = smb://serverhostname.domain.org/Media/Television/Firefly/Season 01/
    strContent =
    strScraper =
       strHash =
scanRecursive =
useFolderNames =
   strSettings =
      noUpdate =
       exclude =

        idPath = 111
       strPath = smb://serverhostname/Media/Television/Firefly/Season 01/
    strContent =
    strScraper =
       strHash =
scanRecursive =
useFolderNames =
   strSettings =
      noUpdate =
       exclude =

I've replaced the hostnames above, but one of the paths has the full domain name in it, and the other doesn't. Odd.