Video Files Missing

Greetings all,

This is a bit of a last resort, but I have an interesting issue and I basically just need to know if XBMC could have done something bad.

I started using XBMC last December. I have it installed on Windows 7 and it scans for new media on startup. Most of the videos were detected automatically, either using the TV.com or IMDB databases. In late March, I tried to play a show (in sequence) and XBMC reported the file was no longer there. After further analysis, random files were missing from random seasons in my TV show collection, and several hundred movies had disappeared.

Now, logically, I assumed my file server had a failed drive or something like that. However I have been poking at it for a month now and have not been able to find any problems with my array or my file server. It is running CentOS 5, the disk array with my media is a ZFS (raidz) pool and I am connecting to it from my windows machine through Samba. (I have been running this pool for 1.5 years without any issue).

From what I can tell, my music is all in tact, as is any other file on this array. Only video files seem to be affected, and video files are what I was primarily using XBMC for. I did have it crawl my music, but that collection rarely changes and I think I only used the music feature a couple of times.

I am not looking to get my data recovered, I know exactly what has gone missing and I can always pull from backups. As far as I can tell, my fileserver and my main array is functioning perfectly. I just need to know if it is possible for XBMC to have deleted the files. Any assistance or input is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

XBMC doesn't do any automated deleting of files....

XBMC does not delete files unless you specifically tell it to, and it asks for confirmation before hand. Files can go missing in your libraries if you clean them and the files are not accessible. This happens if the file server is offline or not reachable during a library cleaning process. If you have the advanced settings attribute set to clean on update, this could happen when XBMC does an update and the server is offline.

I think there was another post a little while back about some files not working when they were on drive pools. I think those were DVD folder rips.

Thanks for the quick responses

stoli Wrote:XBMC doesn't do any automated deleting of files....

kricker Wrote:XBMC does not delete files unless you specifically tell it to, and it asks for confirmation before hand.

I appreciate the sentiment, however I have a hard time accepting this. (for example, windows and linux operating systems do not delete things unless they are told to - automated or not).

That said, the files did not go missing from the library, they just disappeared from my drives. The library could not find the files, this is how I knew they were missing. It just seems awfully suspicious that this happened shortly after I start using this software suite, and only on the data that I use with the software. I cannot ignore this coincidence for now (and that may be all it is - a coincidence).

Just because it is not supposed to remove files on its own, does not mean it will not. Especially when it has the functionality to remove files.

I do not mean to sound defensive, I just cannot except a "no, that should not be possible" as an answer here. Has XBMC ever caused corruption on files in the library?

Thanks!

No XBMC only reads the files. It does not modify the files in any such way. You have to go out of your way to delete files from within XBMC. There is even a setting in appearance\settings\file lists that has to be turned on to even have that option in file mode. In library mode you have to bring up the context menu and choose remove from library. Then and only then will you get a prompt to remove the files from disk, which you then have to confirm by choosing "Yes" as the default is "No".

You don't have to accept it if you do not want to, but I can tell you that is how it works and there has never been any reports to the contrary. Maybe you are the lucky/unlucky first one.

I'm sorry this happened to you. Good to know you plan ahead and have backups. If you feel this is more than a coincidence, please keep track of the next time a file goes missing and if that file was accessed by XBMC in any way prior.

Sorry for the delay, but I wanted to make sure I thanked you for your time. I have set up logging on the file system, so If I decide to use this software again, I will know if it does something it is not supposed to.

Thanks again!

Sounds good. Let us know if it happens and any steps to replicate it.

I know I'm a bit late here, but I've just had this happen to me, and I have reasons to strongly suspect XBMC is the culprit.

Last night I was watching a TV show on XBMC. Last I checked the show was complete in XBMC and I was watching the episodes in order. I was just starting season 2. I reached the credits on an episode and I used the next button on hipporemote to move to the next episode. Instead it moved to the first episode of the next season. When I looked into the problem I found that the video files associated with the first 35 episodes in the second season were missing. I was less than halfway to episode 35, and had watched at least 10 episodes in the second season already. Additionally, the remaining episodes in that season were marked as watched. I also noticed that the first 31 episodes of the 4th season were also missing.

Originally, I suspected that the culprit was either the drives themselves, or drivebender which is running my array, but I have quite a few reasons to suspect its XBMC at this point.

1. The drives have all been scanned, and they are fine. (Not hardware)
2. Drivebender doesn't appear to have any problems. (Not Drivebender)
3. The file deletions are limited to video files. (Only XBMC was accessing them)
4. The deleted files are in sequence. (It's not random)
5. The deleted files are only a portion of a folder. (As opposed to a single item i.e. folder going missing)
6. Access to other files in the array was not affected. (The array didn't fail)
7. It seems impossibly coincidental that season 1 has 35 episodes (season 2 is missing the first 35 episodes) and season 3 has 31 (season 4 is missing the first 31 episodes).
8. The files in the second season that hadn't been watched suddenly being marked watched. (Only XBMC could have done that)

A bit more info on my setup in case it helps. I'm using XBMC 12.0, the videos are on a local windows server 2012 machine, MySQL is being used for the DB, Drivebender is being used to keep a 3 disk 7.3 tb array where the videos are being kept.

Does anyone have any idea what may have caused this issue

Considering you didn't even use the GUI in XBMC to delete the files, I highly doubt XBMC deleted those files. See 3 posts above. XBMC does not randomly delete files.

When you say "missing" are you meaning missing from the XBMC library or missing from the drive? If the files got moved or renamed after XBMC scanned them, they will appear missing in XBMC if a clean library action happened.

XBMC will make it appear as you have watched all episodes if they are coming from a single source file such as an ISO of multiple episodes.

How did the files get placed onto your array? What type of files are they?

(2013-03-21 18:54)kricker Wrote:  Considering you didn't even use the GUI in XBMC to delete the files, I highly doubt XBMC deleted those files. See 3 posts above. XBMC does not randomly delete files.

When you say "missing" are you meaning missing from the XBMC library or missing from the drive? If the files got moved or renamed after XBMC scanned them, they will appear missing in XBMC if a clean library action happened.

XBMC will make it appear as you have watched all episodes if they are coming from a single source file such as an ISO of multiple episodes.

How did the files get placed onto your array? What type of files are they?

Let's please keep an open mind. There is no software on my computer that is supposed to randomly delete my files without intervention. I'm not arbitrarily blaming XBMC and I'm certainly not trying to say that XBMC is supposed to behave this way. I'm suspecting it is a bug, and I have some very compelling reasons to believe that XBMC caused the issue, which is why I'm here.

By missing I mean several files I had just watched were gone without a trace. I had just watched them in XBMC, but they were suddenly missing from XBMC's library. They were also missing from the folder they were supposed to be in, they weren't in the trash can and a search of the drive came up empty as well.

The files were individual episodes. I believe they were avi, but for obvious reasons I can't be sure. They were put in place via theRenamer and successfully scraped into XBMC (as I said I had just watched several of them). At the time I was the only user on the network, and the only thing I was doing at the time was watching the files on XBMC on another computer on the network.