[CLOSED] Metadata Cleanup - RESOLVED

[Teddyboy]

I thought I would make a separate topic. I’ve had some success in cleaning up metadata. At this point all the movies and some tv series display fine in CMC. For my collection, tv series are the most problematic.

Initially I used MMCM metadata cleanup to remove and replace everything thing that MMCM manages. That caused its own set of issues. MMCM doesn’t always write MyMovies.xml files when it’s supposed too! What I did to get around that was to delete and then re-add the title(s) back in linking back up the appropriate folders to the title. Once I did that the database would write the MyMovies.xml files to the titles online folder(s). I did that for 22 titles out of over 500 in my collection. I then had CME delete all its metadata that I had exported to start with a clean slate. Once I did that and then re-exported/synced. Most of the problems resolved themselves after that.

Several tv series are not displaying in the expected manner. Two of the worst are battlestar galactica and Star Trek the animated series. For star trek I keep getting a path error that it can’t write the files to the titles folders. I have double checked the paths and they are correct . The path that it tries to write to for one folder example is //server/DVDs/Star Trek TAS/Star Trek TAS disc 1/Star Trek:

That last part (Star Trek:) is where it gets lost. It tries to find that path for all four discs which does not exist. None of my folders have that last part of the path. For Battlestar CME finds the path, but can’t complete writing to the folder. MMCM has no issue writing to those folders. There are a couple of other tv series that are not displaying all episode data as well, but I want to concentrate on these two first. This is driving me crazy!

I’m at work right now so if you need screen shots or files, I’ll attach them when I get home.
Efrain

[Pauven]

Initially I used MMCM metadata cleanup to remove and replace everything thing that MMCM manages. That caused its own set of issues. MMCM doesn’t always write MyMovies.xml files when it’s supposed too! What I did to get around that was to delete and then re-add the title(s) back in linking back up the appropriate folders to the title. Once I did that the database would write the MyMovies.xml files to the titles online folder(s). I did that for 22 titles out of over 500 in my collection.

That's the old way we all used to do it, before CME. Everything you said is spot-on, and documented in the How-To section of this website. And it is a HUUUUGE pain. Which is why I wrote CME.

Now, with CME, you could have completely skipped all of the mymovies.xml metadata cleanup. CMC will use the CME mmTitle.xml data instead of the mymovies.xml data when it finds both in the same directory.

I guess the only exception to this would be if you had an orphaned title (movie and xml exists in the folder, but is now missing from My Movies DB... it randomly happens - happened to me again just last week!). In that case, CME wouldn't export new mmTitle.xml data since the Title is not in the MM database, yet CMC would still import it because it found playable media and XML data. So for that reason, doing a full mymovies.xml data cleanup would help expose these issues - CMC would report it found playable media without XML data, a big clue it's missing from your MM DB.

I then had CME delete all its metadata that I had exported to start with a clean slate. Once I did that and then re-exported/synced. Most of the problems resolved themselves after that.

Good call Efrain. When you're making big changes to your collection in MMCM, you always have the possibility of orphaning some metadata files. For example, if you Avatar.iso configured as an Online File, MMCM & CME would export Avatar.mymovies.xml and Avatar.mmTitle.xml. If you then re-configured Avatar as an Online Folder, then MMCM & CME would export mymovies.xml and mmTitle.xml. The problem here is that the metadata files Avatar.mymovies.xml and Avatar.mmTitle.xml have now been orphaned - they still exist in the folder, but since the MM DB no longer "points" to them, they no longer receive updates. And because they still exist, CMC might use them over the mymovies.xml/mmTitle.xml files, giving you incorrect results.

This orphaning can happen anytime you make major changes to the discs (file paths, changing the disc location type, etc.). Since CME makes it super easy to both clean up the CME metadata files, and to re-export, everyone should take these steps when doing a major collection cleanup like you're doing.

Several tv series are not displaying in the expected manner. Two of the worst are battlestar galactica and Star Trek the animated series. For star trek I keep getting a path error that it can’t write the files to the titles folders. I have double checked the paths and they are correct . The path that it tries to write to for one folder example is //server/DVDs/Star Trek TAS/Star Trek TAS disc 1/Star Trek:

The problem is the colon in the path - colon's are invalid. I thought I had already fixed that issue. Can you confirm what version of CME you are running?

Also, please provide a screenshot of MMCM showing the disc location for Star Trek TAS Disc 1, and also an export log from CME for the same title.

Paul

[Teddyboy]

Hi Paul,

The version of CME is 1.0.2019.0618. Attached are the two files you requested, and a screenshot of CME to show the version number. I did not give you the whole export log. Just the part for Star Trek the animated series. Lets just start with the series first then on to the others that are having some issues after we've found a solution for this one. There are only about three or four others.

Star Trek TAS Disc 1 Path 8-13-19.png (411.46 KiB) Viewed 8332 times

CME.png (58.46 KiB) Viewed 8332 times

[Pauven]

You're not running the latest version that includes the fix for reserved characters in TV series names.

Do you not receive an upgrade notice when you run CMC? The CME upgrade is included as part of the CMC upgrade.

[Teddyboy]

Well that would explain that then. I'm actually running CME my PC, so I can use MMCM and CME from there instead of running to my htpc because I wanted to see the sync output. It's easier this way as my HTPC is in my living room. I haven't notice any notification, but I haven't been using my htpc a lot. I'm starting to as of today to watch movies. I don't normally shut down CMC. I just let it run, but with all the metadata stuff going on I have been closing it a lot, but as of today it's going to stay up. No I haven't really noticed.

Things are starting to clear up even more. BattleStar Galactica is now okay. It was bogus metadata. Once I cleared that up it popped up with all the episodes. Robotech Protoculture Collection has all it's episode data and I can navigate to the episode. Aeon Flux is okay too. Kimba doesn't show any of it's episodes even though they exported just fine. It is set as a tv series. All the metadata for episodes is there in Kimba's disc folders. I'll have to take a closer look. It does show up as a title in CMC, and I can get to and play the discs. Just no episodes data shows in CMC. Gigantor is like that as well only I have half of the episodes. The other half of Gigantor is disc access even though the episode data appears to be there. Spartacus and The walking dead don't have any cover artwork. The artwork is there it just doesn't show in CMC. It appears to have exported with no errors.

I'm starting to like using CMC. I knew I would once I started to get past the initial metadata issues. I don't see the new version up on the site. Once I finally resolve all the metadata issues, I'll start on installing and using the external programs to see how well they run with CMC.

[Teddyboy]

Here is another one that has me stumped. None of the season one episodes will show in CMC. CME states that there is not episode data when clearly there is in MMCM. I can't figure out what is wrong.

Gigantor season 1 -4 discs.png (517.99 KiB) Viewed 8320 times

[Pauven]

In case you're not getting notified of CMC/CME updates when launching CMC, I've updated the Downloads page with the latest version (from June 30).

[Pauven]

Here is another one that has me stumped. None of the season one episodes will show in CMC. CME states that there is not episode data when clearly there is in MMCM. I can't figure out what is wrong.

Please include screenshots of the Gigantor main Title screen, and the Assign Discs screen.

[Teddyboy]

In case you're not getting notified of CMC/CME updates when launching CMC, I've updated the Downloads page with the latest version (from June 30).

Awesome! Thanks. That should clear up Star Trek the animated series once I download and run CME. I’ll be able to cross that off the list. My collection is looking pretty good now. Thanks for all your help Paul.

[Teddyboy]

Here is another one that has me stumped. None of the season one episodes will show in CMC. CME states that there is not episode data when clearly there is in MMCM. I can't figure out what is wrong.

Please include screenshots of the Gigantor main Title screen, and the Assign Discs screen.

Will do that when I get home. Do you want to see a screen shot of each discs assign disc screen? I think I have one or two more series that need some work to get them to display series info properly. Blue planet is having a similar issue as Gigantor. The same fix might apply to it as well.

Im not really complaining Paul. I really like what I’m seeing. It’s just a few more stragglers that need to get into shape. Once I get past this. I’ll start a separate thread about what I’m seeing navigation and presentation of the collection to see what your thoughts are. Thanks Paul.