Ability to disable auto-scan/prune of Local Content

Channels DVR Server Feature Requests
#1

I have a very large library and have noticed that the scan is basically running continuously. Technically it does stop but only for a few minutes before the next scheduled one kicks off because each run takes so long.

This keeps the NAS from ever sleeping and runs the drives continuously.

I know the auto-scan makes this setup plug and play and for small libraries is likely quite convenient but it would be nice to be able to turn it off and run it on demand when I actually do add something due to the library size.

Related note - I am using all 3 categories (Movies, TV and Video) and it would be very helpful to be able to kick off the scan on the specific Source that I know I added content to in order to decrease the runtime.

#2

Perfect timing. I'm re-working the Personal Media (Local Content) management as we speak. Giving them more properties than just a path is the focus of the changes.

I'll keep this feedback in mind while working on it. Being able to add a setting that excludes a path from auto scans is something we should be able to do. Manual scans of just certain paths is definitely something we were already planning on doing.

So just keep a look out.

1 Like
#3

That's awesome! Thank you.

There is one other thing which came to mind I will mention while on this topic.

The ability to "retarget" a source since it is more practical to stand up another NAS when the library gets this big than try to find CMR disks bigger than 22 TB.
CMR disks are maxxing out right now around 22TB and get exponentially more expensive over 20 TB.

Use case:

Current Path in Channels:

Movies -> \NAS1\Videos\Movies
TV -> \NAS1\Videos\TV

New Path in Channels:
TV -> \NAS2\Series\TV

Possible workflow:

User Responsibility:
	Build out NAS2 
	Copy \NAS1\Videos\TV -> \NAS2\Series\TV (Keeping directory structure below the Source path identified to Channels identical)
	Use "retarget feature" to inform Channels of the new location

DVR action
	Roll through database, updating file path for all files pathed to: \NAS1\Videos\TV  to reflect \NAS2\Series\TV

User Responsiblity 
	Remove files from \NAS1\Videos\TV to free up space.

This will prevent the need to rebuild all of the Metadata, correct various "Incorrect Matches" previously fixed, etc.

1 Like
#6

I have the same problem and request to disable/change frequency of auto-scan.

@maddox Did the frequency of the auto scans increase recently?

I never really noticed it before. But it seems like since the latest version of Channels was released, it seems to be running far more often. Or at least I'm noticing it more -- as my drives seem to be spinning up/seeking every 4 minutes for over a minute each time. They're quite noisy drives, so it's driving me a bit crazy!

#7

Nothing has changed about how personal media is scanned.

#8

How often is it supposed to scan for new content?

#9

I believe at one point they said it is every 5 minutes. It would be nice to be able to change that option or turn it off completely and just do a manual scan on imported content.

#10

:white_check_mark:

#11

I would like to follow up on OP's comments and feature request here. I feel the same. Local content collections are quite large and the folders on my NAS are essentially being scanned nearly 24/7. While the NAS is meant to be on 24/7, it doesn't/shouldn't necessarily have to be spinning/reading 24/7.

Let me say that I'm happy to have learned of Channels DVR recently and was immediately drawn in by its much better performance of Live TV and DVR in comparison to Plex. When I learned that it could also take in my local content and play that flawlessly, that was awesome. But, when I found out about the Virtual Channels feature, you had me sold. - Now, it's the little (but still important) issues such as the scan frequency. I'm much more of a user who likes to have it scan only when I request it.

Congrats to @maddox and rest of the Channels DVR team in building and sustaining a wonderful product. It's much appreciated.

1 Like
#12

I just want to add another reason this would be useful more me - When I move content over from one computer to my NAS, because Channels is scanning so often it commonly scans a show or movie while it is still being moved over and I inevitably have to refresh the metadata on those to allow it to properly show how long that content is and what type of audio is contained in the file, etc.

This is especially annoying when you move a whole season of a show over and start watching and realize that the end time says 0, which tells me that it scanned it while it was still moving over. I then have to search every episode of that season to see which ones need to be fixed before watching any further.

So, minimally it would be good to be able to turn it off while I am moving files over so this doesn't happen.

#13

This is odd as there are specific mitigations in place to not scan in files that have been modified in the last 30s.

#14

Interesting. Well, it still does it a lot for me. I just moved over a TV Show with 3 seasons and 10 episodes per season. For each season there were about 3 or 4 episodes that weren't scanned fully and I had to refresh the metadata.

I had 2 movies files a few days ago that I had to refresh the metadata because of this.

Would anything show in the logs that would help?

#15

Have you tried disabling this setting that creates video indexes on import?
Settings > General > Library Database > Pre-Optimize Personal Media

#16

Yes, it would say it skipped the files.

#17

Ok.

I am going to make a new post about this since it would sort of derail this thread.

#18

With the latest pre-release you can adjust the frequency of scanning.

4 Likes
#19

Thank you! I am happy that you included the "Manually" option, which I immediately set it to. In my case, adding media is an intentional thing so I can easily trigger the scan when I know something new is waiting.

If you still plan to add the capability to scan an individual path, then this will be perfection. I won't have to scan the entirety of what is a very large library just to add a Video.

#20

Amazing! Thank you for addressing this so quickly!