My main purpose is to play TV shows and movies stored as video files on an NAS on my LAN. I’ve been using another program to do this for a while, but want to move on to something else for a number of reasons. I’ve been trying to get used to Infuse for a while and it’s taken some time to get things set up and working.
Right now I’m using Infuse Pro on my Mac, and two Apple TVs. I have them all signed in to Trakt and set to use iCloud for syncing. I can’t remember signing in to any of the three instances using my Apple ID, but if that’s required, then I guess I did it. I can’t find a sign in place in Settings. (If this is part of the setup process, I would have used one Apple account to sign into all 3 instances.) Once I get everything working on these 2 ATVs and my Mac, I have more ATVs to set it up on. I noticed it takes Infuse hours - many hours! to go through and read all the files in my library.
I’m running into a number of issues and questions. I’ve previously asked how to d a few things and have gotten things working to a point, but I still have a number of questions, and a lot of those are about dealing with syncing data between different systems.
(Note: I have some reading issues, so I try to make sure I don’t leave out details for others, but that can lead to too much info. Please let me know if I need to provide more info for these questions!)
I’m numbering the questions to make it easier to provide info on just one or a few questions. Thank you for any help on these!
I put Infuse on my Apple TV in my study (call it ATV1), my Mac, and my living room (ATV2 for short). When I go to Library, I can see my shows on my Mac and ATV1, but on ATV2, I get the message Empty Folder (“Nothing to see here, move along.”) I left ATV2 on overnight and, when I checked it today, it needed more time, but later the message on the lower right that it was still reading or processing files was gone and I still get Empty Folder. Once it’s read all the files, can it still take a long time to sort and arrange everything before the Infuse library is populated?
Since I’m sharing systems, is there a way to backup one system, then restore it to another, or to have them share configurations or library info for the initial setup? (I’ve seen an “Updating” message in the lower right when I start Infuse and go to the library, so I would think that, once setup, each system will keep up with any additions or changes to the file library.) Is there a way to feed the data and metadata from one instance of Infuse to a new one? That way I don’t have to leave each new ATV on for a day or so to get my library info setup.
I’m doing most of my testing on my Mac and ATV1, since they’re both in my study. Again, I’m set up for iCloud backup and signed into Trakt on both systems. I’m finding watched/unwatched info is not being shared between the two. I’ve watched a few TV show episodes (in Library, not by going to the files and stepping through the folders and picking what I watch from the folder) on ATV1, but they are not showing up as viewed on my Mac instance of Infuse. How long does it take to update that info and what do I need to do to get the systems to stay in sync without long delays?
I’m not clear on just what is shared and synced between systems when they’re on the same account. Since I’m not seeing viewing info synced, I’m sure there’s a problem. I’ve made a lot of Collections on my Mac instance, but they’re not showing up on ATV1. Do I have to create separate collections on each device? That’s a LOT of work if I can’t share them!
How can I mark a full season of a show as watched without going through and marking each individual episode separately? (That’s a LOT to do if you want to mark 5 or even 1 full season as watched or change it to unwatched if you’re rewatching a show!)
I can’t find any way, on Apple TV, to mark even an episode as watched or unwatched. I’ve done searches on issues like this and what I find on the Infuse website doesn’t work. I found, “Long press Play to get a menu,” but the menu does not have the option to mark watched/unwatched (or to just press the select button - still not an option to mark it).
I have some shows that are misidentified by the system. For instance, there’s a BBC documentary series titled “Life.” The system identified it as “Grounded for Life,” and I can’t find any way to change it.
If you browse your video in the favorite and not in the library and go to the show you want to edit watched status on and go to where you see each season
As to #6, marking a single episode on ATV. Don’t you have a “Mark as Watched/Mark as Unwatched” button right next to the “Play” button on the episode preplayback screen?
One other thing that may help, can you give us the actual version number of the OS for the devices and version number of Infuse? With so many updates recently it may make a difference.
Along those lines, what model are your ATVs, like ATV4k Gen 3, ATV HD, etc…
Thanks, @NC_Bullseye , for replying - even before finishing your first cup of coffee!
#7: I’ve been using this kind of format (speaking of another “Life” show) for the directory and file name:
Life_On_Mars (2006)/Life_On_Mars-2006-S01E01-TheCrash.mp4
So I include the year in the directory name and in the file names, along with season and episode titles. I was about to say, “I ALWAYS use this format!” but then I checked the Life series (I don’t know if it matters, but the show in doubt is Life (2009), with David Attenburrough, with 10 episodes.) I’ll change the filenames for that. I must have ripped it early in the process, before I learned that the standardized format works for pretty much all programs that handle TV shows and movies. I’m going to have to check on the other nature shows I got at that time.
#5 & #6: I’ll go to the Favorites area for marking seasons watched and unwatched. This is a big issue right now because I’m trying to move our viewing habits from another program to Infuse and there are a lot of shows were I need to mark anywhere up to 16 or more seasons as watched to keep up with what we’ve watched and haven’t watched. So glad there’s a way to do it.
Oddly, on ATV2 (the one in our living room, not my main testing system), I tried long pressing and got the menus like you show. So maybe there’s a glitch, but at this point, until I can spend time checking it out, I’ll accept that there may be a PEBKAC or ID-10-T error. (The user is exhausted right now - mistakes could happen.) I’ll check on it and make sure it’s not just a new user trying to understand everything!
ATV1, the one I’m using for testing most things on, is an A1625 with 32GB, running tvOS 26.6. It’s a 1K. I don’t have info for ATV2 off the top of my head and my wife is watching something on it, so I’ll check on that once I get a chance and it’s not in use. All of my ATVs are older - there’s really been no reason to update them or replace them for years and only one is 4K. (A lot of our screens are smaller - they’re for BGTV - BackGroundTV, which helps me concentrate because I can’t think in silence! So, for many, there’s no need to go 4K or for any other improvements.)
Oh, a bit of weirdness here. Last night, I refreshed metadata and rescanned my library on my ATV1 and on my Mac. Both instances are reporting different numbers for total TV Shows, Movies, and Other.
And ATV2 has finished scanning my library and seemed to b e doing some other preparations, but, still, nothing shows up in Library.
What is odd, because I thought files (by file browsing through the share my library is one) would not be updated as watched/unwatched, but even though this one, ATV2, is not yet showing anything other than “Empty Folder” in TV Shows in the Library, but they are. I went through my folders, in Infuse on that ATV, and found one series I was testing did mark season 1 as watched. So that indicates the watched/unwatched data is being uploaded, either to iCloud or through Trakt and being read. (I also found it was updated on my iPhone, where it seems to be working well.) BUT - the Mac version of Infuse is still not reading what has been watched. (It is logged into Trakt and has iCloud sharing enabled.)
Added later: I did rescan and update metadata, but the Mac version is still not getting updates on what is watched.
about sync issue, Whether all infuse version is same on your all device, because infuse iCloud sync need version keep consistency, although I believe this requirement is outrageous, we have no choice but to comply.
That seems to have fixed it - updating to the latest version on my Mac. (I have my Apple TVs set to auto-update, so they updated and the Mac didn’t.) I still want to check on if it’s syncing all around, but that seems to have fixed it.
I checked both ATVs and they watched data and collections I created on the Mac have synced - and the shows I watched on either ATV have been marked synced on the Mac version.
I wasn’t sure if collections would sync (I asked about that - never got an answer - I’ll update that thread with that info!), but they did just fine.
I get what you’re saying - but I also know it from the programming point of view: It’s hard to make sure data is all in the latest format unless you restrict the version it syncs with.
