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[Fixed in v1.5.2020.0601 & v3.4.2020.0601] CME Not always creating TV Series Parent Files

How-To and general support for the CMC Metadata Exporter (CME) which exports My Movies data via the My Movies API.
ScareDcrow
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Re: CME Not always creating TV Series Parent Files

Post by ScareDcrow » Fri May 29, 2020 2:24 pm

I think I have "solved the issue" based on Juliet Bravo. I think the Parent files need to exist in the alphabetically first season directory or series directory.

And I think (now I am reaching/guessing) that CME puts the Parent files next to the first episode in the mymovies series.

I moved the file Doctor Who 2005 S00E02 (and corresponding exported files) to the Series directory (and pointed mymovies S00E02 to the new location) and fixed the naming of the Juliet Bravo Series 1 directory (and repointed my movies S01* to those new files)

These 2 series now show correctly in CMC (and I verified that CME now updates the parent files in the right place)

Before these changes, all Doctor Who episodes showed as movies - the TV Series had no episodes linked in CMC

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Re: CME Not always creating TV Series Parent Files

Post by ScareDcrow » Fri May 29, 2020 3:14 pm

If I could suggest a couple of things

1) CME should skip "Season 0" in terms of exporting the TV Series files (e.g. "Law & Order.mmSeries"). This "Season" is reserved in mymovies for specials and they are more likely to be in a strange location. I like putting them in the correct chronological location but that was because of the app I last used (SageTV) which used the directory structure for the play menu

2) The CMC synch log error "[ERROR] Did not find TV Series Parent for Season x Episode y" would be a lot more useful with the file or directory name as it does not identify the TV Series at all (leaving the user at a loss as to which file is a problem). Of course showing the orphaned file as a movie is extremely useful once you catch on to why it is there.

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Re: CME Not always creating TV Series Parent Files

Post by Pauven » Fri May 29, 2020 3:15 pm

You're on the right path, but you shouldn't have to do this - this is a CME + CMC issue that I need to address.
ScareDcrow wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 2:24 pm And I think (now I am reaching/guessing) that CME puts the Parent files next to the first episode in the mymovies series.
Looking at the CME full export log, the first file exported was a Bonus episode, technically S00E002 but assigned as part of Season 2. If you look closely at the CME order, you'll notice that it exports in order of Season + Episode, so Season 0 - Episode 1, then Season 0 - Episode 2, etc... then Season 01 episodes, then Season 02 episodes.

The problem here is that CME is using the first exported season, which in this case is Season 0, to determine where to place the parent mmSeries.xml file. And since S00E002 belonged to Season 2 in My Movies, CME uses the Season 2 directory to write the mmSeries.xml file. I had carefully programmed to ensure that mmSeries.xml was always written in the first season's directory (Season 1 if you have it), it hadn't occurred to me that the first season could be a bonus season 0 episode assigned to anything other than Season 1.

So, that's bug 1 - CME writes the mmSeries.xml file to the wrong directory when there are bonus episodes listed as Season 0 but linked to seasons after Season 1. Whew!

ScareDcrow wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 2:24 pm I think the Parent files need to exist in the alphabetically first season directory or series directory.
Yes, and no. "Yes", in that currently in CMC v3.4 this seems to be a requirement. "No", in that I think this is a stupid requirement, so I consider this another bug. Sure, if the CME bug above was fixed, this CMC bug wouldn't have been triggered, but that just seems too fragile to me, so I want to look at fixing this too. So bug #2 is CMC requiring the mmSeries.xml file to be found and imported before the first episode.


Long story short, if you want to work on making your data adhere to current CMC v3.4 requirements, I won't stop you, but at the same time I will be working on fixing both of these issues, and would hope to release a fix next week - so feel free to enjoy your free time doing other things and let me fix this for you if you like.


On a side note, had you used the Structured output option I mentioned earlier, this issue likely would have been avoided. By writing the mmSeries.xml to the episode's grandparent directory (i.e. \\tigger\SageTV\Doctor Who 2005\) it would have been seen and imported by CMC before it got down into the episode directories. I really like the Structured output option, which is what I use, which is probably another reason I haven't discovered this bug before.
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Re: CME Not always creating TV Series Parent Files

Post by Pauven » Fri May 29, 2020 3:19 pm

ScareDcrow wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 3:14 pm 1) CME should skip "Season 0" in terms of exporting the TV Series files (e.g. "Law & Order.mmSeries").

That is exactly my planned fix for CME Bug #1.


ScareDcrow wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 3:14 pm 2) The CMC synch log error "[ERROR] Did not find TV Series Parent for Season x Episode y" would be a lot more useful with the file or directory name as it does not identify the TV Series at all (leaving the user at a loss as to which file is a problem).
That's probably an oversight on my part, as typically I would show this info. I'll take a look, thanks for pointing this out. Perhaps I mistakenly only show it in the debug log. For example, in the debug it is clear where this is occurring:

Code: Select all

  Processing Directory \\tigger\SageTV\Doctor Who 2005\Doctor Who 2005 Season 01
    Importing media \\tigger\SageTV\Doctor Who 2005\Doctor Who 2005 Season 01\Doctor Who 2005 S01E01 Rose.divx
    Reading XML file \\tigger\SageTV\Doctor Who 2005\Doctor Who 2005 Season 01\Doctor Who 2005 S01E01 Rose.mmEpisode.xml
      Found an Episode XML file.
        [ERROR] Did not find TV Series Parent for Season 1 Episode 1
          Parsing Season 1 Episode 1 XML into S=0, E=0
            WebServiceID=d94978de-cbce-4f4e-95f4-26b139f599c8
            Episode Name=S01-E001:  Rose
            Finished Parsing Episode "S01-E001:  Rose"
          * Season 1 Episode 1 is "S01-E001:  Rose"
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Re: CME Not always creating TV Series Parent Files

Post by ScareDcrow » Fri May 29, 2020 3:47 pm

I am fixing them to clear up CMC, but keeping a list of changes made so I can move them back if/when the applications handle it (or test it for you).
Some of them are erroneous (as in the naming of the Juliet Bravo Series 1) so I think my "right thing" is to just fix these :-)

I seem to have another situation (while down to 6 question marks :-) ), that if there are valid playable episodes in the "Series" directory (NCIS LA 1x14 and 1x15 etc in the NCIS directory seem to break NCIS and then NCIS is appearing as 5 separate seasons) and Numb3rs had S06E16 in the "Series" directory. These are also "my error" but seems to be strange behavior as a result. To be clear, I don't think I linked the NCIS LA episodes to anything in mymovies as I don't have "NCIS LA" as a TV Series

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Re: CME Not always creating TV Series Parent Files

Post by Pauven » Fri May 29, 2020 4:14 pm

ScareDcrow wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 3:47 pm I seem to have another situation (while down to 6 question marks ), that if there are valid playable episodes in the "Series" directory (NCIS LA 1x14 and 1x15 etc in the NCIS directory seem to break NCIS and then NCIS is appearing as 5 separate seasons) and Numb3rs had S06E16 in the "Series" directory.
While I agree that this organization is not ideal, the result you got from CMC is the exact same Bug #2 I described above. I looked at the debug log you provided, and I see that the Sync finds "\\tigger\Videos\Numb3rs\Numb3rs.S06E16.HDTV.XviD-LOL.avi" before it traverses further down to find the mmSeries.xml in the Season 1 folder: "\\tigger\Videos\Numb3rs\Season 1\Numb3rs.mmSeries.xml"

Again, if you were using Structured with CME, then Numb3rs.mmSeries.xml would be exported to "\\tigger\Videos\Numb3rs\Numb3rs.mmSeries.xml", and CMC would have read that before processing the Numb3rs.S06E16.HDTV.XviD-LOL.avi file, and you would have gotten a good result.

But once I fix this CMC bug, it shouldn't matter which order they are imported.

ScareDcrow wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 3:47 pm I am fixing them to clear up CMC, but keeping a list of changes made so I can move them back if/when the applications handle it (or test it for you).
Testing of the fixes will be extremely helpful, as you are the first (only?) user with this scenario.
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Re: CME Not always creating TV Series Parent Files

Post by Pauven » Sat May 30, 2020 2:32 pm

Pauven wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 3:19 pm
ScareDcrow wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 3:14 pm 1) CME should skip "Season 0" in terms of exporting the TV Series files (e.g. "Law & Order.mmSeries").

That is exactly my planned fix for CME Bug #1.

I believe I have correctly coded the CME fix for this issue. The new logic will export the mmSeries.xml file into the lowest non-zero season's folder (probably season 1, but depends upon your collection), except if the only season is season 0 then it will export for season 0, preventing a potential break.

I also think this issue only exists for Standalone TV Series. For disc title based TV Series, the mmSeries.xml file is always exported for the first disc, which I think is still correct and not affected by this issue.

I've still got to work on CMC to have it pick up the mmSeries.xml from anywhere and link it to previously processed mmEpisode.xml files.
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Re: CME Not always creating TV Series Parent Files

Post by ScareDcrow » Sun May 31, 2020 12:18 am

Yes I believe you are correct that this will fix the issue and that its only a problem for Disc-less TV Series

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Re: CME Not always creating TV Series Parent Files

Post by Pauven » Sun May 31, 2020 2:46 pm

Here's my progress on the CMC fixes.

First, I replicated the issue. During setup, I again discovered that this only seems to affect standalone discless TV Series, as I was not able to replicate with disc based TV Series. After replication, I see these vague messages in the error log, just as you detailed:

Code: Select all

[ERROR] Did not find TV Series Parent for Season 1 Episode 1
 
[ERROR] Did not find TV Series Parent for Season 1 Episode 2
 
[ERROR] Did not find TV Series Parent for Season 1 Episode 3

And the episodes each showed as a separate movie in the GUI:

image.png
image.png (502 KiB) Viewed 7296 times

With the revised code, the error log now shows as follows:

Code: Select all

[WARNING] Did not find TV Series Parent for Season 1 Episode 1, XML File:
          \\Tower\TV_Series\The Late Show with David Letterman\Season 21\Disc 1\The Big Bang Theory - S01-E01 - The Big Bran Hypothesis - Copy.mmEpisode.xml
          Creating placeholder for TV Series ID: E53646FA-B332-46EB-9809-F1462E54418C
 
[RESOLVED] Found TV Series Parent for TV Series ID E53646FA-B332-46EB-9809-F1462E54418C in:
           \\Tower\TV_Series\The Late Show with David Letterman\Season 32\Disc 2\Late Show with David Letterman.mmSeries.xml
Instead of an [ERROR], I changed this to a [WARNING], and also show which file was being processed and the TV Series ID. Note, ignore my The Big Bang Theory filename for The Late Show, that's just me doing crazy testing.

And instead of 3 errors, there's just the single warning, because the placeholder TV Series was created on the first record, preventing the following errors.

And there's also the new [RESOLVED] log entry, showing that the earlier warning has been addressed, and showing where the mmSeries.xml file was located.

And lastly, the separate episodes as movies are now gone, and correctly show inside the TV Series:

image.png
image.png (725.01 KiB) Viewed 7296 times

I think that wraps up the changes and fixes. Let me know what you think.

The only thing I really don't like about this solution is that the warning triggers the showing of the error log, even if it is resolved. The changes to CME should make this scenario less likely to happen in the first place, but not impossible. But for now I think it is better that an error is generated, making it more likely that a user will reach out to me for help, possibly revealing another bug I need to address.
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Re: CME Not always creating TV Series Parent Files

Post by ScareDcrow » Sun May 31, 2020 5:29 pm

Yes, that seems to totally resolve it other than (as you say) the warning in the log. But I think to avoid it, you would need to pass through the directory structure twice (once looking for parent files and then a second time for episode/series files). Personally I think this would make the process slower and I'd rather live with the warnings :-)

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