[thecubical]

Hi all,

Just started using xbmc and its great.

Originally it let it sort out all of my tv shows and parse the information, which it mostly did correct except it missed some shows here and there and misidentified others. So to fix this I used mediainfo to generate tvshow.nfo files for all of my shows and also pull the fanart for them. I didnt let it generate episode nfos.

The nfo format is this

My tv shows are in the format
DriveROOT:\SeriesName\Season Number (not with preceding 0)\episode.

The episodes themselves are named with the format "ShowName.SxxExx.Title.Source.extension".


My problem is that now that I have generated these nfos xbmc will not pull the additional episode data, so when I go into library mode it says that there are no episodes but in file mode there are. Also previously when I didn't have the nfos these exact same shows and episodes appeared fine (well they showed up some were misidentified).

I did a quick test and removed the nfos from one folder and xbmc then went off and pulled the data fine and it showed up.

So it only seems to not pull the info when there is a series nfo there, otherwise it works fine.

I know I can have per episode nfos and such but I really don't want to clutter up my folders with all these extra nfos, I don't mind the series ones but the epsiode ones make things slightly harder to read for those who are viewing via smb or whatever else.

Is there something I'm missing that would allow me to have these nfo files to tell xbmc what series the folder actually contains while having xbmc pull the episode info itself and store it where it would normally store such stuff (ie. not with the episodes themselves)

I've attached a log here where I have first added a source (I that contains the series with nfos (which dont show up with episodes) then I have added one without episodes (New Folder). Both folders had the same essential structure except one just didnt have the nfos (new folder). It doesnt seem to contain much info, is there a way to get it to be more useful?

I have also tested this in the 8.10 build and babylon beta 1 and the same behaviour seems to occur.

Is there another working way to tell xbmc what series are contained in the folders without having it autoguess (and sometimes get it wrong).

Thanks for any help guys.

EDIT:
Had to split it up cause was to big to upload
Updated log part 1
Updated log part 2
Updated log part 3
Updated log part 4

[thecubical]

just tried changing some of the values in the nfo and it didn't have much effect, removed everything but the episodeguideurl and it still didnt work

[Feanor]

I can confirm that the same happened for me with xbmc on the xbox.

[Hidd3nFury]

Is there another working way to tell xbmc what series are contained in the folders without having it autoguess (and sometimes get it wrong).

place the thetvdb.com link for the tv show in a text file called tvshow.nfo and xbmc will use that link to get the info.

For example:

TV Shows
---Dexter
------Season 1
------Season 2
------Season 3
------tvshow.nfo

[marcdd2]

Same for me on an aTV running Frontrow 2.3/Launcher 3.0/Babylon 9.04.

[Crewone]

same here.

[sho]

All of you have the exact same problems?
what happens if you ditch the nfo files?
And you all tried what Hidd3nfury suggested?

[spiff]

if not make it easily reproducable (dummy files + nfo's) and stick it at trac

[Crewone]

If I ditch the .nfo file, the show scrapes just fine. If there is a tvshow.nfo file, it only scrapes those episodes who have an .nfo as well, but not the episodes without.

[fekker]

Starting around build 18999, it's looking for <episodeguide>

add that field to your .nfo (same data as episodeguideurl)..

I though i put that into the current build of MIP but i might not have

It's going to be a few weeks yet before i can get back into the swing of things, have alot going on that requires my attention at this point.

So I don't forget to check/fix, please shoot me a pm with a request to fix it or put in a defect on sourceforge if the current build doesn't generate that field in the tvshow.nfo file.

- Fekker

[rausch101]

Starting around build 18999, it's looking for <episodeguide>

add that field to your .nfo (same data as episodeguideurl)..

Hey fekker, do you know if this is still accurate? Been having this same problem for quite some time and putting a <episodeguide> tag in doesn't seem to work for me.

[IsSidha]

ok.. soooo.. here is what i have tried so far

the content of a "tvshow.nfo" (as by the wiki explanation)

Code:

http://www.thetvdb.com/?tab=series&id=81084

Code:

http://www.thetvdb.com/index.php?tab=series&id=81084&lid=7

Code:

<tvshow>
    <episodeguide>http://www.thetvdb.com/api/1D62F2F90030C444/series/81084/all/en.zip</episodeguide>
</tvshow>

Code:

<tvshow>
    <episodeguideurl>http://www.thetvdb.com/api/1D62F2F90030C444/series/81084/all/en.zip</episodeguideurl>
</tvshow>

Code:

<tvshow>
    <title>Formule 1</title>
    <genre>Sports</genre>
    <premiered>1950-05-13</premiered>
</tvshow>

the "tvshow.nfo" is located at ROOT/SHOW/tvshow.nfo

for the last try i also made nfo files for the episodes... but nope.. none of them worked.. it seems it is totally ignored.

the show (Formula 1) does exist on theTVDB but my folder has a different name and so it doesn't recognise it.. on purpose.. as i rather fill in the details myself

i am using the Mac version of XBMC..

[fanclub]

i thought it was done like this by design... made sense to me

if you're going to spend the time creating nfo files then you should really consider spending just a bit more time and managing them in a program other than XBMC (like media companion)

**OR** you can just delete all the nfo files and remove the titles from the library... then do a full scrape of all your shows, then export the library as multiple nfo files

[sho]

IsSidha, you will need to provide a debug log while scanning (what are your episode files named?)

fanclub, what was done like this by design?
Also there is no requirement for external programs for something as simple as nfo files.
If say, the naming convention was incorrect, no external program would circumvean that.