[drfahrenheit]

I'm using the built in scraper for tv shows, which has served me well for years. But after updating Kodi from 16 to 17.1 I started getting problems: When I update library, the scraper no longer finds new files in my tv shows folder. Movies are added like before so far that I can tell, but 9 out of 10 times it ignores new episodes.

I changed nothing in my hierarchy, and there doesn't seem to be a correlation between file formats and whether its added to the library. I've googled a lot to no avail; I can't find a thread describing the same issue I have. There are no error messages, nothing like "failed to blahblah". Scanning the library appears to work as it should; it looks through the folders and concludes with there being no new episodes to scrape.

So here are the details I can think, please ask what else I may provide to figure it out. I know one often add certain logs to these posts, but I have never done that before so I'll have to look up some instructables if thats necessary. Though, with no errors and everything appearing fine, I would guess that the logs would only show what appears to happen: "scanning...no new files...finished"

HIERARCHY:
TV SERIES FOLDER
-[SERIES NAME]
--SEASON 1
---[SERIES NAME] S01E01
----[ACTUAL FILE] (MKV/HEVC/ACHIVES)

I always kept tv shows stored like this, and it never caused any problems at all. Some times the episodes will be placed directly in season folder. Other shows may have separate folders for each episodes due to multiple achive files or organizing of subtitles. Extracting archives does not help, files are still not found. Moving episodes out of their separate folders and storing them directly in season 1 folder, makes no difference. All formats listed over are ignored equally by the scraper, though on a rare occasion files are found and added like they should. Now I have to add episodes manually, and even that doesn't always work.

SCRAPER
The TVDB built in 1.8.4: Always used this one, found no reason to replace it, neither are there good alternatives that I know of.
The TVDB 1.8.4.1: Shows up as an alternative, no idea why the built-in one wont update itself sinse theres apparently a newer version. Downloading this causes two separate addons with its own versions; neither can be disabled or removed. But choosing one or the other in "change content" windows, makes no difference.
XEM: Tried it for the hell of it, though if I understand correctly, it scrapes via TVDB like the others anyway and shouldn't make a difference besides numerating of episodes. Results are the same.

TRIED WITHOUT RESULTS:
1: Clearing out my library, scanning it all over, with all 3 scrapers listed over. A majority of old shows are added, eventhough info has been deleted. New files are however still not added.
2: Extracting archives
3: Moving files out of their separate episode-folders
4: Changing season folders names to "season 1" or "showname season 1"
5: Different file formats are treated the same, I tried other common formats

THE ONLY FIX SO FAR:
1: Via video\files\showname: I tried "scan for new content" on specific shows that had new files added. This doesn't work.
2: Via video\files\showname\seasonfolder: Scanned season folder for new content, doesn't help, no matter if the episodes are archives, mkv, hevc, or if they are placed directly in the season folder or in separate folder.
3: Via video\files\showname\seasonfolder\episodefolder: Scanning episode files or folders directly, will work SOME times, if not the option "add to library" works here.

[blossom24]

Hi drfahrenheit,

Nice post. Lots of relevant detail. If only more people posted like you...

Anyway, can you give me names of the shows that aren't scraping. TV show directory name and Episode name. Just copy and paste the names into the post. Not all the shows, just a couple.

[drfahrenheit]

Thank you for the quick response and for taking the time, much appreciated!

Below are two examples of recently added files that the scraper/scanner can't find for some reason:

D:\Video\Series\The Flash 2014\Season 3\The.Flash.2014.S03E17\the.flash.2014.s03e17.rar
D:\Video\Series\The Expanse\Season 2\The.Expanse.S02E09\The.Expanse.S02E09.mkv

The first one is stored as multiple rar-archives, the other as a single .mkv file: Both are ignored.
Extracting makes no difference, and other formats are also ignored.
Moving the file out of its episode-folder, into the "season" directory, doesn't make any difference.
Previous episodes, named and stored the same way, was found, scanned and added to the library without any issues before updating kodi from 16 to 17.1.
Scanning season folder for new content doesn't work.
Choosing the actual file, or the episode folder, and choosing "add to library", is the only thing I've found that works.
Also, cleaning/deleting all scraped info in my library and scanning it all over, leaves a lot of holes. Files that were scraped fine before are being ignored now, so its not just me doing something differently I think.

Was this that you had in mind or should I provide other details?

[blossom24]

Moving the file out of its episode-folder, into the "season" directory, doesn't make any difference.

I was going to suggest that maybe the playable file was buried too deep, but seems as if you already tried bringing it up one level.

The other two issues I notice is the year is missing brackets and your directory naming and episode naming are different. You have The Flash 2014 as directory, then you have The.Flash.2014.s03e17 which is very different to the directory. And I still think the playable file is buried too deep.

Can you try the following...
D:\Video\Series\The Flash (2014)\Season 3\The Flash (2014) S03E17.rar

If that works, then try adding back the episode directory and see if that works.

As for The Expanse (what a great show) same issue. Make sure the names are exactly the same across the TV Show directory and episodes. Try...
D:\Video\Series\The Expanse\Season 2\The Expanse S02E09\The Expanse S02E09.mkv

[drfahrenheit]

So I tried what you said, wich solved it (thanks so far). Then I tried to narrow it down. The following also works:

D:\Video\Series\The Flash (2014)\Season 3\The Flash 2014 S03E17\the.flash.317.720p.rar

Without clamps in episode name, with separate episode folders, even though the actual files name is nothing like the folder names. So it doesn't seem to be the amount of levels in my hierarchy, or the files name, as long as its in a recognizable folder like below.
Removing all the dots in the episode folders name makes no difference, still can't find it.
Removing clamps in the series folders name however, that messes it up apparently. As long as its (2014) I can name the episodes or its separate folders quite freely it seems. This was never a problem before, but its an easy fix, no need to rename all the episodes or their folders.

And now for the strange thing: The Expanse episode was found immediately once I added 2015 to the shows folder, without clamps! "The Expanse" as main directly no longer works after upgrading to 17.1, but "Expanse 2015" makes it recognize all the episodes inside, being archives or video files, in subfolders or not, names weirdly or not. But for The Flash, the year needs clamps to work..

Does this make any sense?? It seems I'll have to do some guessing every time theres something missing. I haven't been able to find a way to list unscraped files yet, perhaps there ain't no such function, but it would be very useful being able to get an overview of what needs sorting out. Now theres movies and episodes here and there I forgot I had as they never showed up in my library. Always a bonus when I discover them by accident, but its rather inefficient.

[blossom24]

So I tried what you said, wich solved it (thanks so far). Then I tried to narrow it down. The following also works:

D:\Video\Series\The Flash (2014)\Season 3\The Flash 2014 S03E17\the.flash.317.720p.rar

Without clamps in episode name, with separate episode folders, even though the actual files name is nothing like the folder names. So it doesn't seem to be the amount of levels in my hierarchy, or the files name, as long as its in a recognizable folder like below.
Removing all the dots in the episode folders name makes no difference, still can't find it.
Removing clamps in the series folders name however, that messes it up apparently. As long as its (2014) I can name the episodes or its separate folders quite freely it seems. This was never a problem before, but its an easy fix, no need to rename all the episodes or their folders.

There is a simple fix. Just simplify what you are doing and stop over-analysing it. Do you really need to hide your playable file three directories deep? Just simplify it as follows:
...\The Flash (2014)\The Flash (2014) S01E01.mkv
What are you achieving doing it your convoluted way? You are asking for problems, as there are just so many more places where errors creep in.

And now for the strange thing: The Expanse episode was found immediately once I added 2015 to the shows folder, without clamps! "The Expanse" as main directly no longer works after upgrading to 17.1, but "Expanse 2015" makes it recognize all the episodes inside, being archives or video files, in subfolders or not, names weirdly or not. But for The Flash, the year needs clamps to work..

Does this make any sense?? It seems I'll have to do some guessing every time theres something missing. I haven't been able to find a way to list unscraped files yet, perhaps there ain't no such function, but it would be very useful being able to get an overview of what needs sorting out. Now theres movies and episodes here and there I forgot I had as they never showed up in my library. Always a bonus when I discover them by accident, but its rather inefficient.

No, it make no sense. I have this show as well, and experience no problems scraping it as The Expanse. When you add the year, it needs to be in brackets (2015), otherwise Kodi picks it up as part of the title and looks for a show called The Expanse 2015 instead of The Expanse (which was released in 2015)

There is no guessing needed. Just simplify what you are doing. Seriously. As for your movies that don't scrape, if they don't match the listing at TMDB, then they wont scrape. So choose a movie that wont scrape and compare your movie name to that listed at TMDB- are they the same or different?

[Boozon]

I found this thread because I hade a similar problem. Kodi did not find a TV show that I put in my file structure.

Ok, so here are my findings:

The TV show in question was Wallander (the Swedish TV series from 2005, not the Branagh one).

In my root folder for TV shows (where other shows have been found before), I had a folder called Wallander.

In this folder, I had files named Wallander SxxExx - <Episode Name>.

None of them were found when scraping with the Movie Database plugin for TV shows. The TV show did not appear in Kodi at all.

So, I looked at themoviedb.org to see if it existed, and it did. There were a number of Wallanders, actually. One series with Branagh, one series with Henriksson, and several episodes with Lassgård.

And when I looked on the details for "my" series, it said Wallander (2005).

Thus i renamed the folder from Wallander to Wallander (2005).

This was the only change I made, and then it worked. I did not change the name of the individual files. It worked anyway.

So, I guess my tip is to check what the website that is being scraped says, and try to follow that as closely as possible, paying special attention to the name of the TV series root folder.

Plus (which has been said before) to keep it simple.