Added folder with everything and nothing is in my Infuse library

General
1

I’m still working with the basic version of Infuse on my iPhone and on Apple TV. I did use Infuse before and stopped for a long time because of some issues, so I’m trying to set it up again.

I keep all my media files on an NAS. I added the folder “Video” on there, which has a hierarchal arrangement of folders to include all my TV shows and movies. (On the NAS share, it’s in /Library/Video and, under that, I have Movies and and, also TVShows. In TVShows, I have many folders with genres, like drama, SF, westerns, and in each of those folders I have many TV shows in their own folders. So all my episodes of Red Dwarf are in /Library/Video/TVShows/SFandF/RedDwarf.)

I can get to all the shows and movies by navigating through the folders and I see, at least on my iPhone, that Infuse includes metadata like the episode descriptions. But when I pick Infuse’s Library icon, I can check under TV or Movies and not one TV show or movie is listed.

How do I get Infuse to include all my files under “Library?”

What I want, down the line, is to be able to go to the Library and go to TV Shows or Movies and see my videos listed through there, instead of having to go through the folders directly.

Also, and this may be related (if not, I’ll be glad to start another thread), I see the episode descriptions listed on my iPhone. For instance, if I step through all the folder levels, when I get to Red Dwarf, and see a list of all episodes, it includes the episode descriptions. I’m hoping I can see that on my Apple TV as well, so, on the Apple TV, I can go through and go to the first unwatched episode easily (for TV shows), but also see the episode descriptions as I’m looking for what I want to watch. I’m not sure if I need to get everything listed in the Library for that to happen or not.

2

Make sure you add the folders/favorites you want in your library.

3

You may also check to see which streaming protocol you are using to connect to your NAS. Library features will not be available when connecting using UPnP/DLNA, but if you are able to switch to SMB, NFS, FTP, or WebDAV you will be able to make use of the Library features.

4

The shares on my NAS are SMB.

One point about adding favorites that I’d like to clarify: Does Infuse handle them recursively? For instance, when I add the folder “Video” on my NAS share, will it go through and add all the subfolders from there on down? Or do I have to add each folder separately? And if so, how far down do I have to go?

For instance, say I have:

/Library/Video/TVShows/Comedy/RedDwarf
/Library/Video/TVShows/Comedy/TheGoodPlace
/Library/Video/TVShows/SFandF/Supernatural
/Library/Video/TVShows/Westerns/Maverick

Do I have to add all 4 of those individually? Or can I just add “Video?” Or maybe I have to go down more and add “Comedy,” “SFandF,” and “Westerns” and it’ll pick up the shows in those folders?

5

Adding the ‘Video’ folder as a Favorite is all you need.

Once the favorite has been added you can check to ensure it’s included in the Infuse Library in the Infuse > Settings > Library menu.

You may also check that you are using one of the recommended naming styles for your movies and TV shows. This will ensure Infuse is able to match and categorize everything correctly.

6

I’m away from my Apple TV systems, so I’m asking this since I can’t verify this now - and in case I find the issue when I’m back home in a few hours. Can I add a folder, like Video, and NOT favorite it? It sounds like that’s what I did.

Since it’s giving me metadata on my iPhone, that makes me think I do have the right format for file names. I use Plex, so all my folders and filenames are in a format Plex can use, which seems to be universal.

I’m hoping, with metadata available, and with Infuse tracking what I have and have not watched, that I can switch to Infuse only, and stop using Plex, since I don’t like having to update a server along with updating the app. I’m beginning to look at all the computer based stuff in our home and working on making it a simple as possible so I spend less time dealing with updates and bugs and so, if something happens to me, my wife can keep using it all without having to know tons of things about how everything works. I would hate it if I were, say, away for a few weeks for some reason, and something went wrong with the Plex server, and my wife was unable to watch her favorites on the LAN’s media server because I had to fix something. (And, with an ISP that uses CGNAT, I can’t easily tunnel in from outside to fix things.)

7

You’ll need to add at least one favorite in order for Infuse to scan items into the Library. However, if you don’t want to see this favorite on the home screen you can long-press on it and choose the ‘Hide Favorite’ option.

Or, you can browse the share through Infuse > Settings > Shares > and choose the option to add all files. Note, this may cause Infuse to scan through other folders which may result in longer scanning times (depending on what else you have stored on the NAS).

8

The one folder I added was Video, which would include ALL my video files, but in various folders and subfolders. I have, as a hierarchy:

(Using ‘=’ to indent, since some forums get picky about leading whitespace. Also, using ‘…’ to indicate many more folders at that level.)

Library
= Audio
= Storage
= Plex (since Plex gets picky with folders, this folder has symlinks to other files and folders)
= Video
== Movies
===Action
===Adventure
===Mystery
===… (in other words, many more folders at this level)
== TVShows
===Comedy
====Get_Smart (1995) (all episodes, in proper name format)
====Mr_Bean (1990) (all episodes, in proper name format)
====As_Time_Goes_By (1992) (all episodes, in proper name format)
====…
===SF&F
====Supernatural (2005) (all episodes, in proper name format)
====Orville (2017) (all episodes, in proper name format)
====Star_Trek
=====Star_Trek (1966) (all episodes, in proper name format)
=====Star_Trek_The_Next_Generation (1987) (all episodes, in proper name format)
=====…
====Doctor_Who
=====(Multiple shows set up like in the Star Trek folder)

So there are a lot of subfolders.

If I had to add “Video” to make sure it shows in the share, I added it - but all the shows and movies in the subfolders in the hierarchy under Video are not showing up.

9

Adding only the ‘Video’ folder should be fine. I would double-check to ensure it’s listed (and selected) in the Infuse > Settings > Library menu. Scanning through multiple subfolders is not an issue.

10

Thanks.

I listed the folders to show just how deep my folders went. It’s a LOT easier for me to find things by classifying them than to have, say, a hundred or more TV shows in one folder (and all my movies in one folder!).

Does the app have to be open for it to scan the folders? For instance, if I set it up and favorite Video, do I have to wait for it to scan, or can I exit it and go watch something with Channels and let it update in the background?

11

Apple doesn’t allow apps to have much background activity so Infuse would need to remain open in order to scan your files. You can view the scanning progress in Infuse > Settings > Library.

12

Could the issue be that I have so many movies and TV shows (and some shows are 10 or 15 seasons, so that’s a LOT of files!), that I never gave it time to scan all that?

13

If you go to the Settings > Library you can see when it finishes and it will tell you the last time it completed.

Yup if you didn’t let it finish it won’t show in the library. :wink:

14

Got home and opened Infuse. It wanted to update the data, so I’m guessing it’s been trying to do that all the time I run it. (And lately, when I’m using Infuse on the Apple TV I’m testing it out on, I tend to use Infuse on my iPhone and use ScreenSharing, which has faults in the more recent iOS versions. So that explains why I get metadata on my phone, but not on the Apple TV - Infuse has been running on my phone long enough to get all the data!)

Right now, under Settings→Library, it says, “Fetching artwork for (2303 of 25154)” so I see it’s going to take a while. (The total listed on that screen is 0 movies, 0 TV Episodes, and 36,908 Other.) This is after I got home, ran it on my Apple TV, and let it run. When I go to Library→Movies→All Movies or to Library→ TV Shows→All TV Shows, I still get empty folders, but when I go to Library→Other, it takes a while to load and then I see tons of TV show episodes.

So I’m guessing it’s not only downloading artwork, but won’t be done categorizing everything until after all the artwork is downloaded and everything else is done. Is that right? And it’s just time?

If this is all working as it should, then I have some concerns/questions:

  1. When I add more TV shows or movies, I take it I have to give it time to rescan the library and find the new stuff and download artwork and metadata?
  2. I’m thinking, with the amount of files I have, that’s a LOT of metadata and art. What got me very frustrated with Infuse in the past was that the watched/unwatched metadata kept getting clobbered, so when my wife and I watched a show, we’d keep losing track of what episode we were on. How is storage handled for all this information on an Apple TV and on iOS?
  3. Since my iPhone seems to have all this data, is there a way to share it across platforms between Infuse on my phone and on my Apple TV?

I realize some of this might involve the cloud or other functions in the Pro membership. I am seriously considering that, but I want to see if Infuse will do the basics of what I need first. (Mainly I want to have movie/TV series/episode descriptions and have it track watched/unwatched so my wife and I can browse movies and TV shows and have descriptions of something before playing it and not having to remember the last episode we watched in each series we’re watching.)

15

What I do when I have to start from scratch is I set the ATV to not sleep and no screen saver first and then make sure that the hdmi CEC is off so I can then turn off the tv and the ATV will keep on chugging. I then go to the Library screen and let it get started then turn off the TV. Mine takes a few hours to rebuild every thing so I just check back every so often by just turning the tv on to see where it’s at.

After the first big build it doesn’t take long to add a handful of new items every so often. That when the background update comes in handy often. Saying that remember what James said about Apple being pretty stingy with the background time so it may not be instantaneous for updates until you launch Infuse.

16

I turned off the screen saver and left it for several hours. Last I saw, it still needed to download something like 9,000 pieces of artwork. That was about 4-5 hours ago. Came back up to my study and, out of habit, hit the Home button on my Apple remote. Then I remembered what I was doing and went back to Infuse. (I don’t even remember what was on the screen when I came up and first saw it.)

On the Library screen (Settings→Library), it says:

Movies: 0
TV Episodes: 0
Other: 36,908

Then, down lower:

Last Update: Today, 10:46 PM

(It’s now about 3 minutes later)

I went to the folder and went down a few levels and found TV shows that showed up with thumbnails taken from the video itself. Went to Library→Other and I see thumbnails that change every 3rd episode of a series. (And the seasons, at least for one show, are not in order. But then again, it starts with “Bewitched,” and there are many TV shows and movies I have that start with “A”, so I don’t know how it’s sorting what it’s displaying.) And, as I expected, based on the Library screen in Settings, when I went into the Library and checked on TV show, there were none there - empty folder.

So I gave it time to read all my files and know it downloaded artwork, but it still hasn’t categorized my TV shows or movies and everything is still “Other.”

I’m not sure where to go next to test things out. I have a large library. I’m thinking of using symlinks on the share, adding a folder, “Test Library,” and using symlinks to create a Movie folder with just a dozen or so movies, in different genres (which also means in different genre folders), and adding around half a dozen TV shows - shorter ones that were only on for 2-3 years, again, using symlinks, so I can test Infuse out to see just what is going wrong. Once that’s clear and can be fixed, then it would be time to delete that library from Infuse and add the real one and let it spend a few hours setting it up.

17

Adding an update to save others time. It’s updating, so I’m going to wait and see what it does.

I was checking out what I could see on Infuse after this issue and, at some point, hit the button and picked a choice I didn’t intend to and the next thing I saw was, “Deleting local metadata.”

I thought it was deleting it for that one TV show. Nope. It took a few minutes and was stuck on that function, so I killed the app and went back in. I got to Settings→Library and it said it was “Fetching metadata for (xxx of 36908).” I decided to let it run, since it was fetching things quickly enough. It’s now fetched close to 31,800 out of that 36,908 items and it now gives me this info:

Movies: 237
TV Episodes: 16,512
Other: 20,124

I’m not sure why there are so many in “Other” at this point. It’s fetched enough items I would think it’s classified or been able to classify most things in the Video folder tree. I do have a number of files in there twice, in different locations. For instance, since Plex had some issues with subfolders, as I mentioned, I created a folder under Video for Plex. (I’m NOT complaining about Plex - it’s good and does good things - it just doesn’t work for the way I think.) So, for instance, where, in the main “tree” I have /Library/Video/TVShows/SF&F/StarTrek/Star_Trek-1966 (and the other Trek shows listed), Plex didn’t like that and I had to put my Trek shows under /Library/Video/Plex/TVShows/StarTrek/Star_Trek-1966 (and the other shows placed similarly). I also have a number of playlists I’ve made using symlinks and folders, so I have /Library/Video/Playlists/StarTrek-TOSTSAS. In that folder I have symlinks to all the Trek episodes in the original and the animated series. So those Trek episodes will show up 3 times in the Video tree. (I create the playlists as folders with symlinks so I can use that playlist on any platform or from any program, like Plex, VLC, and Infuse. I don’t have to remake the same playlist for every program.)

When it’s all finished updating, I’ll post more info on it, but for now, since I won’t know just what’s going on until it’s done, I thought it best to let people know it’s best to just wait for now.

18

Looks like it’s working now. I switched to using art from the videos (I forgot the exact name of that settings). I see there’s still a lot of metadata stored on my Apple TV and iPhone.

I mentioned I had some expected issues in my directory structure. Under Videos, I had TVShows, Movies, and a few other directories for things I got off DVDs, but weren’t regular TV shows or were specials (like A Charlie Brown Christmas). Everything is showing up. I did get one BBC production on a blu-ray mis-classified. It’s titled “Life” and is a nature documentary, but it shows up under, I think, Mystery, and the system thinks it’s a crime or mystery series.

Also, under Video, I had folders full of symlinks, as I mentioned, it’s how I create cross-platform playlists. That led to a TV show (I’ve been using Red Dwarf as an example) having 2, or even 3 copies of each episode. I’m re-arranging the symlink lists so they aren’t in Video and I’ve added the playlist folder, but excluded it from the library. I’ll have to have it rescan to see that those files are gone, so the duplicate TV episodes will be removed.

So, for the most part, it seems to be working. I feel like I’m actually reaching the point where I can start to try to use Infuse in my setup and see if it’ll do what I want. (So far it looks good.) If so, I’ll buy a lifetime Pro membership, since I know that syncs the metadata and watched/unwatched data between instances on different devices.

(The reason I had previously stopped using Infuse was because I was one of the people hit by the frequent loss of watched/unwatched metadata, so my wife and I would watch several shows on my server and then, one evening, find all that was reset, so we’d have problems finding where we left off in each show. It happened frequently, and trying to remember each episode where we left off in each show was just too frustrating. I understand that’s not an issue due to cloud storage now.)

1 Like
19

Back to the beginning! Ugh!

So I go to Infuse this evening, after removing some of the directories I mentioned with a lot of symlinks in them, and think I can go on and clean it all up tonight and I find this:

Movies: 0
TV Episodes: 0
Other: 35,776

And it’s fetching artwork again. (I thought that by specifying to use artwork from local videos, that meant it wouldn’t need to “fetch” any artwork?)

20

Infuse rescanned my network share, but it’s ignoring all the TV shows in one directory, my TVShows directory where I have most of my TV shows. It caught the ones in a different directory that contains only some nature documentaries, but it doesn’t see my TV directory. The only episodes it lists on the Settings→Library screen, or when I go to the Library or pick “TV Shows” on the main screen are these documentaries.

Why is Infuse completely ignoring a directory? I have been re-arranging things, but I have triple-checked and that directory with all the TV shows is there and I’ve been watching shows in it today, so it’s still got everything. Infuse just won’t look there.

(And the ignored directory is not one I’ve told Infuse to leave out of the library.)