[BLKMGK]

Okay, I have finally begun trying to tackle my movie database. In the past I have had to go movie by movie to try and get it sorted, auto scans often got things wrong. however I came across the XBMC Media Companion Tool and have been working with it.

This tool will lookup movies in the IMDB, pull down fanart, icons, and movie info for you, and create the folder.jpg, movie NFO, and other things. As I understand it these files should be picked up by XBMC and override having XBMC scrape the IMDB WEBsite. This way if my database for XBMC gets blown away - AGAIN - my files will be tagged at their source. I know at some point I found information about this in the Wiki but I'm having trouble searching it out now - this is the closest I've come http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Thumbnails

So, here's are my current issues. 1) If I goto a DVD folder that has an ISO, an NFO, and a TBN file from the file browser view I see no thumbnail and hitting INFO on my remote brings up an info screen that is BLANK. Here's is what the NFO file looks like for one of my movies -> http://pastebin.com/m4f154bdb 2) If I goto a folder that contains a MKV it does the same thing. 3) If I goto a DVD folder things are configured slightly differently. If the path is d:\moviename\ and the format is VOB/IFO I have a folder.jpg in d:\moviename\ and in Video_TS I have the NFO file, TBN, and any fanart. These also do not appear to work correctly.

I have verified that removing the NFO files etc. forces XBMC to scrape the IMDB again. So the files are certainly being seen and having some effect, I suspect though that an XML format issue is at work. Can anyone see an issue with the file I posted? Is anyone else using this tool successfully with Linux XBMC? Lastly, are the files position correctly to work with IFO/VOB formatted rips? I HAVE deleted the TBN files from .xbmc\userdata\thumbnails\videos\ at least.

Not sure if I've hit a bug, a problem with my setup, or found a change in the expected XML for the NFO format. I'd appreciate it if someone could point out the Wiki page for this too - my searches for NFO and scraper aren't helpful

Thanks!

[mkortstiege]

Mind creating a dummy archive to replicate this issue? If its possible, please create a new bug report and attach it to the ticket.

[althekiller]

Debug log too.

[BLKMGK]

I will not be able to do this tonight but I will work on it. I ASSume by archive you just want a copy of the XML and other files created by that tool in a directory structure that mirrors mine? You don't need any VOB or other files do you as that coudl get big and I'm nto sure yet where best to host this. A debug log should also not be an issue although right now it's not crashing or anything on this.

thanks!

[althekiller]

Just make a duplicate of your dir structure (or an acceptable portion) with all the media files being empty, but the names the same.

[BLKMGK]

Okay, I think I have an archive that can demonstrate this located here

Sorry but Rapidshare was all I could think of for a good place to put it. VERY small file with mostly empty data except for the key files. I think it will be enough to duplicate this issue.

Edit: If I get a chance I will do a debug log as well but I'm currently unable to run XBMC via VNC and i'm away from it while it compiles the latest SVN pull. Will try for it though!

[mkortstiege]

Uploaded file is working great here. Everything shows up, including film information and fanart. What Scraper settings do you use? Stacking enabled?

[BLKMGK]

Uploaded file is working great here. Everything shows up, including film information and fanart. What Scraper settings do you use? Stacking enabled?

ARGH! I am SO close to just rebuilding XBMC from scratch <sigh> That dir structure is on a NAS if that is of any consequence - share is NOT mounted, I'm allowing XBMC to use it's SMB client.

Scraper settings under Set Content say to use IMDB, Use Folder Names For Lookups, other boxes not checked ATM. Under Settings in that dialog I have Awards, Posters, Trailers, and Fanart all checked. Thumb size is 512, there's an alternate IMDB listed that I didn't input. In the Settings area for videos yes I have Stacking turned ON. Library is Enabled. Stack Dupe TV shows, Flatten seasons if only one, Season thumbs are grabbed automatically. The rest is off in that dialog.

I may have found a potential clue here - I attempted to get info for a movie just now in order to create a log for you and instead of just coming up blank it queried the IMBD. When it was finished with it's query the display was blank - nothing brought up. If I exit out and try for info again it requeries. This is looking like a permissions issue - it cannot write. The log is showing create errors on files. If I get properties for the video directory Owner is shown as root, Group is root, all others READ ONLY. That would be usr/local/share/xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails/Video/*

If that's the issue (yippie!) how best to fix it, and how would it have gotten hosed, and why isn't it getting info from the NFO files or is it trying to copy that data local and failing? Wouldn't it always get it from the source or does it just use the source for a one time scan to get the data local? Should I simply be blowing things away and starting from scratch just to get a solid baseline?

I think I'm getting somewhere at least. SVN in the info dialog is showing 16419 FWIW. I'll be doing another pull and recompile in a moment..

[BLKMGK]

What do others have for permissions on usr/local/share/xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails/Video/*

I'd hate to delete XBMC and start over just to cure a permissions issue :-O Kind of a sledgehammer to kill a fly sort of thing...

[althekiller]

All you your thumbs should be written to ~/.xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails. XBMC never tries to write inside /usr/local/share/xbmc, if yours is then you have done something fundamentally wrong (you should NEVER launch xbmc.bin directly, but use the launcher script "xbmc" which sets up the env).

[BLKMGK]

Well, I have stripped XBMC off and built the software from scratch. As it happens I had the PPA onboard too and there may have been some conflicts there as well - that has been removed too. The software compiled fine and is currently scanning my music collection - by sometime tomorrow it ought to be done and I can scan my movies again. If I had anything screwy going on this ought to clear it - we'll see. If not I'll provide logs etc. and perhaps can figure it out. I can tell you that I see TBNs in .xbmc already so perhaps all is well.

Appreciate the insight and no I've never directly executed the bin file.

P.S. I added two sources for videos. While the first was still scanning I finished adding the second and when that dialog closed XBMC coredumped. I suspect it didn't like being faced with two scans concurrently but am not sure. For now I'll do one at a time starting with the longest which is music. <shrug> I didn't backtrace this etc. as I've only got 3 hours to sleep before work but if I can reproduce it tomorrow I'll document it better!

[BLKMGK]

To close the loop on this - NFO files do appear to be working now. Permissions issues or a conflict with having the PPA onboard or who knows what - fixed by stripping everything out and just loading up only the SVN :o

Using XBMC Companion my library is now looking pretty good although I do have a few weird cases to solve like TV series with bunches of disks etc. but those are documented well elsewhere and I'll get to them.