Movies with no poster art issue

Channels DVR Server
#1

I asked this over six months ago and got no response so if it's ok I'd like to try again!

If I add, let's say, a video I downloaded from YouTube to Channels as a movie and don't give it any poster art and then view that title in a collection, it shows up as expected with no poster image, just a purple rectangle with the title of the movie file.

But if I then add that same movie to a virtual channel, it shows up in the guide with the poster art of a non-related movie I recorded from one of my sources!

Something has changed since when I first posted about this. Back then, the movies with no art would assume the art of whatever movie I had most recently recorded from one of my sources. That eventually stopped.

Looking at the dates of my recordings, the movies with no art are currently showing the poster of a movie I recorded on January 3rd. The next movie I recorded was on January 9th, so it seems something may have changed between those dates.

If no one else is having this issue and it's not worth tracking down exactly what happened, is there a way to "reset" the images my virtual channels use so I can see if they'll stay properly blank now?

Thanks for any help.

#2

So they're not actually movies? If so I would import as videos. See if that works.

#3

Most of them are not actual Hollywood movies, but online documentaries. I've been importing them as movies for years with no issues. Some time in early December 2025 is when every one of them I'd ever previously imported and every one since began using whatever the most recently recorded movie art was. They'd then all change to the next movie I recorded! Weird!

You're right, importing as videos would work, but (1) that would require me to go back and redo all of them since I started my library several years ago, and (2) videos show up more like TV shows which isn't really great for my use case. But thanks for the idea!

(EDIT: Just to cover every base, I deleted the artwork from a Hollywood movie I ripped from a BD, and just like the downloaded from YouTube movies, it defaulted to the same random movie poster as the rest.)

#4

you could try moving the files, scan personal media, prune removed media, then move them back and rescan personal media. you'll probably lose watch status, but I would think it would reset the art.

#5

I don't care about watch status so that might be worth a try if no better options appear!

You did give an idea I just tested. I gave one of the movies a random poster image and restarted my Apple TV client to make sure it appeared. Then I deleted the poster artwork to see if that one would now remain empty. After restarting the client, nope, still showing the random poster image. (I might try the test again but restarting the server between each change, but something is recording right now!)

Very weird to have my online documentary virtual channel be full of titles with the poster for London Has Fallen!

#6

Does it show the random poster on the web interface or other apps? Or Apple TV only?

#7

Ah, should’ve thought to mention that! The web server is doing the same thing as the Apple TV. Viewing these videos in the guide on a virtual channel the posters all show up as London Has Fallen. Viewing the same videos anywhere else via the web interface (in a collection, under dvr management, via a search) always properly show up with the generic purple “blank” poster.

#8

Obviously I don't know how the underpinnings of the code work! But I tried a few random things just to see what would happen.

I first tried removing the poster art from the original London Has Fallen recording to see if the artless videos were somehow just copying whatever art was on that video. (BTW I restarted the server and the client during each of these tests.) Nope.

Then I thought, screw it, I don't need to keep this London Has Fallen recording, let's see what happens if I just delete it. Answer, nothing. All the artless videos still had it.

Next I imported a new movie into Channels to see if it would still use the London Has Fallen art by default even though that movie was no longer in my library. It did.

After that I decided to try deleting what I assumed would be the cached poster image wherever it was located. So I went to the guide in the web interface, found an artless video file showing the London Has Fallen image, and used the web inspector. It showed the image location as: "127.0.0.1:8089/tmsimg/assets/p11819825_v_v8_ab.jpg".

I didn't find an "assets" folder in my local "tmsimg" directory so that's about as far as I've gone. I did notice that "tmsimg.com/assets/p11819825_v_v8_ab.jpg" takes you to the image in question on the web. Not sure if Channels is pulling this off the internet every time or if it is just using the same naming convention for the local version for convenience.