[ashlar]

At the end it wasn't that... too bad. I restarted scraping from scratch and now I want to back stuff up for good, once I'm all set.

Now, if I select Export library to multiple files, will that backup everything? Movies posters, movies fanart, movies info, TV Series fanart, TV Series thumbs, TV Series single episodes thumbs, TV Series seasons thumbs, TV Series info, TV Series seasons info? Everything?

[mitul103]

At the end it wasn't that... too bad. I restarted scraping from scratch and now I want to back stuff up for good, once I'm all set.

Now, if I select Export library to multiple files, will that backup everything? Movies posters, movies fanart, movies info, TV Series fanart, TV Series thumbs, TV Series single episodes thumbs, TV Series seasons thumbs, TV Series info, TV Series seasons info? Everything?

Yep.

[ashlar]

Ok. Second question (in the meantime I'm handpicking thumbs and fanart ):

Suppose this case:

- Day 1: I select Export library to multiple files.

- Day 2: I find a new fanart online that I like more, I substitute the fanart jpg, launch XBMC with the autoupdate library at startup option. I would think the new fanart will be substituted inside the library. Is this the case even if the only thing changed for the file is size and/or date (but not name, for obvious reasons)?

- Day 3: I browse fanarts through the built in scraper (Movie information, for instance). Find a new one that I like even more, select it. Now it's in the library but it's not copied (and overwritten) to the fanart jpg until I update the library once more.

Is all of the above correct? What about the question for Day 2?

[ashlar]

Ok... I found some answers by myself.

In the example above, on Day 2 autoupdate won't do a thing. Changed thumbs, as external files, are not updated. If you select Movie info, they are shown as "local file", but not as "current file". A manual action is needed to make them "current".

Now I'm trying to understand if there's some action that can be done to force this updating, without resorting to deleting the whole thumbs directory as suggested by fekker here?

[jmarshall]

If you update library it *should* detect a change in the thumbs, which *should* cause it to be rescanned.

The trouble is: We have no way of knowing if:

1. The thumb change triggered the rescan, or if it was something else.
2. Whether this thumb change was intentional by the user (or did they just copy it over from somewhere else, and all that changed was the modtime of the file).
3. Whether this thumb is the one that is cached.

Improving the thumb caching mechanism is something we want to do, unfortunately it doesn't happen overnight, and until someone starts coding it up things will stay as they are.

A simple improvement is allowing the thumbcache to know the origins of the thumb. If it was from a local thumb, then we can easily re-cache it on update (assuming a change has been made). If it's from a net based source, then that decision is a little harder to make automatically.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[CrashX]

jmarshall:

Am I correct in saying the following:

When a item is added to the library, It checks the local cached library to see if the content is their ( thumbs, cast, plot, etc ) for the item. If it finds it, it uses that else it goes off to internet to find it.

[jmarshall]

How I understand it (spiff will correct me if I'm wrong

For movies:

Currently the db file is purged of the item, and then it's re-added, from whatever source is available.

For TV Shows:

I believe we only add the episodes that are new. Not sure if we purge any that no longer exist, but I suspect we don't.

For thumbs (both the above cases):

The thumbs I believe are currently not purged on update.

Note that "on update" here means: The hash that we have for the folder in which this item resides has changed.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[tcman47]

If I find a better piece of fanart than I all ready have i just copy over the existing on in the movie folder, than fire up xbmc, go to the movie fanart in question and hit the refresh button, xbmc now shows my new fanart.

TC

[ashlar]

If I find a better piece of fanart than I all ready have i just copy over the existing on in the movie folder, than fire up xbmc, go to the movie fanart in question and hit the refresh button, xbmc now shows my new fanart.

The problem is, and I don't think I'm alone in this, that you might work at perfecting your thumbs library in sessions. If you have a lot of content, you might do... 50 movies at a time, let's say. Remembering which ones you changed and which ones you have not it's not easy.

The way I see it, the problem is that the external files are more of a backup solution and not a different way of handling the library. I would love a single option to "resynch" the library with new, changed and added stuff from the external files.

But as jmarshall mentioned, we need somebody to code it. It doesn't materialize automagically.

[ashlar]

How I understand it (spiff will correct me if I'm wrong

For movies:

Currently the db file is purged of the item, and then it's re-added, from whatever source is available.

For TV Shows:

I believe we only add the episodes that are new. Not sure if we purge any that no longer exist, but I suspect we don't.

For thumbs (both the above cases):

The thumbs I believe are currently not purged on update.

Note that "on update" here means: The hash that we have for the folder in which this item resides has changed.

So there is some sort of checksum for folders... hmmm...

I have my media set up like this:

Code:

Movies 1--->Lots of movies
Movies 2--->Lots of movies

TV Series 1--->Name 1--->Episodes
          |--->Name 2--->Episodes
          |--->Name 3--->Episodes  

TV Series 2--->Name 4--->Episodes
          |--->Name 5--->Episodes
          |--->Name 6--->Episodes

If the hash is by folder, I reckon the only change meaningfully detected for thumbs could happen with TV Series. For Movies the whole directories would change, with maybe 50 movies to be readded.

[marshalleq]

Well, for me it works by exporting everything to single files. If you then update or change your library you do have to re-export it again, though that's a small price to pay for having it not download from the internet each time you install a new copy of XBMC. I have a guide on how I do it here: https://www.tech-knowhow.com/2009/09/how...i-library/

Hope that helps.