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+--- Thread: Unable to populate and delete Libraries, and odd warning when creating them. (/t-unable-to-populate-and-delete-libraries-and-odd-warning-when-creating-them)
Unable to populate and delete Libraries, and odd warning when creating them. - kowkow - 2024-10-12
I've just started using Jellyfin. The server runs on a Win10 desktop, and I am accessing the content on this machine itself as well as from two Android tablets.
The source media files are in two locations : some are on a USB hard drive connected to the desktop, and some are directly from the C drive (screenshots).
The initial setup went very smoothly, adding movies as the initial Library, and also grouping multiple episodes into Collections.
I then started adding various Image folders as individual photo Libraries (artbooks, screenshots), and this too went well initially.
However I suddenly started to have issues : first, getting an error when adding a folder as photo Library :
However despite the warning the Library gets created anyways ... but it is empty. Right-clicking it and performing "Refresh Metadata" properly populates it ... but only in some cases, as I have some libraries that straight up refuse to show anything at all.
And then, I am unable to delete such Libraries :
But what does this *actually* mean ? What *exactly* is this so-called "Media" folder ? Sure enough this isn't the actual folder containing the source media files on the hard drive, since I certainly do not want these source folders/files to be written to, let alone deleted (obviously !!!). So why would there ever be such a warning message ? Is this something related to the Library definitions in jellyfin\root\default ? But why would there suddenly be a need for some permission to delete these ?
In practice, what is the process to delete these libraries when getting this error (both from the Jellyfin interface, and manually in the database) ? Bruteforce deleting the .mblink, .collection and .xml seems like an obvious thing to do, but that doesn't tell me how to delete the actual topmost reference to a library in the main DB as these manually deleted Libraries remain listed in the home listing.
Overall, these blocking issues + the lack of clarity in the distinction between actual media files and their references in the Jellyfin DB are quite worrisome.
Also, I see that the function to remove something from a Library is called "delete Media" ; but in some cases it seems to literally delete the source media file from the drive (!), while in others it seems to only delete entries from the DB. I think this is very confusing, and dangerous.
Thank you for your help.
RE: Unable to delete Libraries, and odd warning when creating them. - kowkow - 2024-10-12
Another detail : I mention having trouble with deleting Libraires. It turns out that what I actually need is a way to *refresh* the list of libraries as displayed on the home screen, as this specific listing has dead references to previously deleted Librairies.
I realized this because the list of Libraires in Dashboard>Media>Librairies is actually correct and up to date.
But, the list in Home>My Media (horizontal caroussel) is incorrect, and the list in Hamburger>Media is also incorrect.
So, how does one force-refresh these ?
RE: Unable to populate and delete Libraries, and odd warning when creating them. - kowkow - 2024-10-12
Well, it looks like the issue with some image Libraries not populating is related to a property of the image files. The act of renaming them (in Windows Explorer) seems to fix the issue, yet the name itself doesn't seem to be the actual problem. Or perhaps I had some invisible characters in there.
Still, the issue of deleting the references to dead libraries persists.
RE: Unable to populate and delete Libraries, and odd warning when creating them. - TheDreadPirate - 2024-10-12
Can you share your Jellyfin logs via pastebin?
RE: Unable to populate and delete Libraries, and odd warning when creating them. - kowkow - 2024-10-13
Hello and thank you for chiming in.
The major/blocking issues (Libraries being initially empty, Libraries not populating on refresh, and Library listings being outdated) have stopped occurring between the time I posted and now. I cannot pinpoint exactly what fixed it, but indeed if the issue occurs again I'll make sure to grab some logs.
As for the more minor issue of some media files not being picked up : I bet I'll run into it again, so for that too I'll make sure to grab logs.
Thanks !