Unable to add new local content TV source

[evolution2147]

Hello, I recently just moved my channels server to a new machine last weekend. Because the file paths slightly changed on the local content I had to remove all my sources and re-add them. To save time over the weekend I only added one folder and it noticed it worked fine. I came back today to add a couple more TV shows and noticed the dvr will not detect any media files. These are the exact same files and file structure from the previous server that worked. (only difference is the HDD name changed). I am still able to play the media that I added on Sunday just fine and that is just about in the same location. I noticed the server updated itself today to 2022.11.15.1908, not sure if this is related to that. One other note is that I can add movies just not TV shows.

I tried searching for this issue and some of the comments refer to an error log file but I can seem to find where any log file exists on this machine! The only logs I see are in the DVR/Logs folder but those appear to be related to recording. I am using a Mac mini running Catalina.

[chDVRuser]

DVR log is viewable from the Channels DVR web admin UI Support menu.
Support > Logs
To view more than 1500 lines of the log, see How can I view more of the Channels DVR Server Log?

You should say what devices and OS's you migrated from and to.
What is the old and new HDD name you mentioned.
What are the directory paths on the HDD for your TV and Movie imports.
What are your DVR Storage Paths


What have you selected for local content import paths in Channels DVR Settings.

[maddox]

If you're adding individual tv show folders, this is incorrect. Make sure you're adding a rooted directory that is filled with TV Show directories to your TV Sources imports.

[evolution2147]

The previous set up was a 2011 mac mini (the USB 2.0 version) running Mohave. It had a 5TB internal drive for the DVR and a 256GB internal SSD for the OS. The 5TB drive had the DVR folder as well as a "Storage" folder for other stuff. The previous paths that I used for adding was was:
/Volumes/5TB/Storage/TV_shows/show1
/Volumes/5TB/Storage/TV_shows/show2
/Volumes/5TB/Storage/TV_shows/show3
Each "show" folder contains "Season 1", "Season 2" etc. This worked fine.

The new machine is a 2012 mac mini (the USB 3.0 version) running Catalina. It has the same 256 GB SSD reformatted and an 8TB external USB drive. Did a backup and then copied the entire DVR and Storage folders from the 5TB to the 8TB. Over the weekend I added one show and it worked fine, in fact I can still see and play those files.
/Volumes/8TB/Storage/TV_shows/show1

When I tried to add two more shows yesterday I do not see the new shows
/Volumes/8TB/Storage/TV_shows/show2
/Volumes/8TB/Storage/TV_shows/show3

I am mainly wondering if this is an issue on my end or if others are seeing similar issues after the update from yesterday.
Thanks,
Adam

[chDVRuser]

@evolution2147

When I tried to add two more shows yesterday I do not see the new shows
/Volumes/8TB/Storage/TV_shows/show2
/Volumes/8TB/Storage/TV_shows/show3

Should work if your Local Content TV Source is /Volumes/8TB/Storage/TV_shows
You do NOT want to use these as Local Content TV Sources
/Volumes/8TB/Storage/TV_shows/show1
/Volumes/8TB/Storage/TV_shows/show2
/Volumes/8TB/Storage/TV_shows/show3
...

@chDVRuser

What are your DVR Storage Paths


What have you selected for local content import paths in Channels DVR Settings.

[chDVRuser]

It would help if they updated the Support Article Channels Support - Import Your Own Movies and TV Shows

When choosing the Local Content directory for importing, choose the folder

that contains all your moviename folders for Movie Sources
 /PATH/TO/MY/MOVIES            <= This one
 /PATH/TO/MY/MOVIES/movienames <= NOT these

that contains all your showname folders for TV Sources
 /PATH/TO/MY/TVSHOWS             <= This one
 /PATH/TO/MY/TVSHOWS/tvshownames <= NOT these

that contains all your videoname folders for Video Sources
 /PATH/TO/MY/VIDEOS            <= This one
 /PATH/TO/MY/VIDEOS/vidoenames <= NOT these

And update the examples to be consistent.

Movies
/PATH/TO/MY/MOVIES/Jurassic Park (1993).mkv
/PATH/TO/MY/MOVIES/Adventure/Jurassic Park (1993).mkv

TV Shows
/PATH/TO/MY/TVSHOWS/The Office/Season 2/2x4.mkv
/PATH/TO/MY/TVSHOWS/The Office/Specials/0x1.mkv

Videos
/PATH/TO/MY/VIDEOS/Home Movies/Day at the Beach.mp4
/PATH/TO/MY/VIDEOS/Home Movies/Snorkeling Trip.mp4
/PATH/TO/MY/VIDEOS/Home Movies/Ski Weekend.mp4
/PATH/TO/MY/VIDEOS/Peter Gabriel Videos/Sledgehammer.mp4
/PATH/TO/MY/VIDEOS/Peter Gabriel Videos/In your Eyes.mp4

[evolution2147]

Yeah this seems to have fixed it. It is still bizarre that this worked fine up until yesterday but the way you guys suggested seems like a more logical way to it anyways. This would explain why in the past every show I added didn't have a name and required me to use the "fix show mismatch" feature.

[KE3JU]

@chDVRuser

/PATH/TO/MY/TVSHOWS/The Office/Season 2/2x4.mkv

So am I to understand that the Season sub directories need to be "Season 2", "Season 3"...etc? I have Season01, Season02 because I like to see season 1 before season 10 in the directory listing. This seems to really be F'ing up my imports. I have shows mixed in with other show, and now I have some that I can't even import after trying to fix the mess. This feature is very limited, and its not easy to fix incorrect matches.

How do I force a show to import? It's in the same folder as my other shows, but Channels won't pick it up. The show in Moonhaven which I had previously imported with not problem, until I added another show with Season01 as a sub directory. I got rid of the Season01 sub folder in Moonhaven, as it got canceled and there won't be any further seasons, but its completely invisible to Channels for import.

[chDVRuser]

AFAIK You don't need to have Season folders under the show folder, but mine are Season 01, Season 02 ...

I was telling the user where to point his import path to and referring to the examples given in this official support article.

Import Your Own Movies and TV Shows

The matching Channels DVR does when importing TV Shows is using gracenote data, which you can see at zap2it.com by searching for the show.

I quit importing mine until they improve the matching or add TMDB or TVDB for matching TV Shows.

If you want more background and info than the support article gives, here are two threads from back when they implemented the importing.

ALPHA: Import TV local content into DVR

The latest DVR pre-release build adds initial support for importing existing TV episodes into your DVR library. [Screen Shot 2020-09-01 at 4.05.07 PM] Once imported, the shows will appears in the Recordings > Imports section of the DVR web UI: [Screen Shot 2020-09-01 at 4.05.41 PM] This is an early preview of the TV imports feature, which means it still contains a lot of rough edges and a lot of bugs. Please temper your expectations accordingly. Try it out and report your experiences belo…

RESEARCH: Media Library Organization

Do you have recordings from another DVR system, or maintain your own media library of home videos, DVD rips, etc? We would like to hear more about how your media is organized. I will start with some examples of how my DVD rips and DVR recordings from my homebrew DVR (before Channels existed) are organized. Please use the same template to provide examples from your library. You can use the find command in a Linux/Mac terminal or tree on Windows to get a listing, then copy/paste some representati…

[KE3JU]

I just like to have the Season Folders to keep things neat, but it seems to really mess up the import process.

[tmm1]

We can add support for things that aren't matching, but you need to provide a full example of a path and video filename that's not working.

The name of the season folder matters less than the actual episode filename.

[chDVRuser]

Unfortunately true in some cases.
I don't want to rename all of mine to conform to the poor gracenote data for some shows.

I have a few where gracenote has no season numbers listed and dumps them all in Season 0, which doesn't work using Channels DVR import matching.

Others I recorded from Channels DVR using the gracenote guide data wouldn't import correctly because gracenote changed the season and episode numbers after they aired.

The official reply you'll get is to edit the metadata on them.

[chDVRuser]

@KE3JU

The show in Moonhaven

Unless @tmm1 has a different tmsId to use, zap2it only lists the Pilot episode of the show https://tvlistings.zap2it.com/overview.html?programSeriesId=SH04289313&tmsId=SH042893130000

TMDB lists all 6 episodes Moonhaven: Season 1 (2022) — The Movie Database (TMDB)

[KE3JU]

I can't even get it (Moonhaven) to appear in Channels any longer, so there's not even a place to change anything. Very frustrating. I'm trying to eliminate my need for Plex, but so far the experience hasn't been that great. Everything else about ChannelsDVR is fabulous, and I get that its meant to be a DVR, but it works so well well, compared to Plex that I want it for everything.

[chDVRuser]

I just copied the Pilot episode I had recorded from BBCA to my imports directory on another Channels DVR server and it imported it.
/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Moonhaven S01E01 The Pilot 2022-09-11-2315.mpg

[KE3JU]

Yeah, I had it imported, and it was great until I imported another show which also had Season01 as a sub folder and the two got mixed together. In an attempt over a 3 day period of time trying to correct that mix, now I can't even get Moonhaven to import at all anymore. It's like there's some artifact in the ChannelsDVR database that's keeping it from importing. There's just no way of cleaning this thing up. I might have to do a complete rebuild to fix this.

[chDVRuser]

Used a small 2 minute mp4 file I use for import testing and made 6 copies of it, named them according to the 6 episodes and put them in my TV Show Imports directory.

/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Moonhaven S01E01 The Pilot.mp4
/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Moonhaven S01E02 The Detective.mp4
/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Moonhaven S01E03 The Envoy.mp4
/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Moonhaven S01E04 Mada.mp4
/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Moonhaven S01E05 Dreadfeel.mp4
/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Moonhaven S01E06 The Seeker.mp4

They all imported correctly.

[chDVRuser]

Just for grins, I moved the imported folder out of imports, purged deleted imports, added a Season 01 folder and moved the files to it, then moved it back to my import directory.

/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Season 01/Moonhaven S01E01 The Pilot.mp4
/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Season 01/Moonhaven S01E02 The Detective.mp4
/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Season 01/Moonhaven S01E03 The Envoy.mp4
/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Season 01/Moonhaven S01E04 Mada.mp4
/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Season 01/Moonhaven S01E05 Dreadfeel.mp4
/ChDVRdc/Imports/TV/Moonhaven/Season 01/Moonhaven S01E06 The Seeker.mp4

Again, they all imported correctly.

[KE3JU]

Mine is broken to be sure. I wish there was a fix.

[chDVRuser]

List the directory structure and filenames (i.e. full paths) you're trying to import, like I did in the examples above.

Show a screenshot of your import paths from the DVR web page.

Also state which version of DVR Server you're using (mine is 2022.12.12.0138)