Lock this item to prevent future changes

[MoonOverMiami]

'Lock this item to prevent future changes' works to protect Overview but does nothing to protect 'Community rating' and 'Critics rating' from being changed.

I am manually removing Community rating and Critics rating numbers and have noticed when I move a movie to a different folder, then run 'Scan all libraries' the ratings come back.  Please make ' Lock this item to prevent future changes' All-Encompassing.
Thank you

[Efficient_Good_5784]

To clear up how the "Lock this item to prevent future changes" option works, it actually is all encompassing.

It will lock all items that have anything filled in them.
It will not lock blank/empty items.

The reason the ratings keep returning on your media is because you keep deleting them leaving them as empty entries, which the lock option doesn't cover.
If you were to leave the rating (or add your custom ratings) and leave it locked, the rating will never change until you unlock the metadata.

The same behavior happens for any part of the metadata that is left empty.
For example, if you leave the overview empty of a series and lock its whole metadata, the next time you scan over it (with a scan that will change items), the overview will be regenerated despite the metadata being locked.

Basically, the lock metadata option only applies to already-filled metadata. It doesn't apply to empty fields.

Note that there are three types of library scans:

1. Scan for new and updated files
   
2. Search for new and updated files
   
3. Replace all metadata
   

Scan for new and updated files will not regenerate metadata, so if you scan a whole library with it, your empty rating metadata will not be brought back.
If you scan with the other two, empty metadata fields will be regenerated.

Also note that using the "Scan All Libraries" button in the dashboard will not regenerate empty metadata fields in your locked items. This acts similar to "Scan for new and updated files".
However, this and any other scan type will regenerate empty fields if the library entry is either moved to another location or renamed on your server (since you changed where the database expects the entry to be).

[PrincipalMinipig]

Frankly, that doesn't feel right. Lock should mean "no changes", and a blank field being filled is a change.

Furthermore, I think we should be able to disable or at least leave blank certain fields so they never fill with metadata ever.

Like OP, I hate that I have to manually clear out all ratings if I don't want them to appear in my library. Some apps allow customer CSS to hide the ratings, but some (like the Roku app) do not. So I have to go through and remove them all, which is tedious in its self, but it's doubly annoying when the scan puts it all back, with no way to stop it.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

Frankly, that doesn't feel right. Lock should mean "no changes", and a blank field being filled is a change.

It would be nice if it worked that way. This most likely is code behavior from when Jellyfin was forked from Emby.

Like OP, I hate that I have to manually clear out all ratings if I don't want them to appear in my library. Some apps allow customer CSS to hide the ratings, but some (like the Roku app) do not. So I have to go through and remove them all, which is tedious in its self, but it's doubly annoying when the scan puts it all back, with no way to stop it.

After you clear them out the first time, this should not be a problem again unless you keep scanning your library with the options that refill metadata. If you do a normal scan that only scans for new and updated files, they shouldn't come back.
As in, you will only have to worry about this if you change folder names or move movies around in your storage folders. Anything that forces metadata to be regenerated.

[FactoriedMyAuth]

I was going to suggest if you have all the content you want in your NFO file, you could go to the actual file and make it read-only. Unfortunately, I just checked that with my setup and it didn't work. I am using my main Windows computer as the server right now and just pulling the data from my NAS. I set the nfo file to read-only, but that didn't seem to stop the file from being updated.

[jsonting]

Regarding the locking, i'm hoping it works to prevent changes on collections as well.
Currently TMDB is compiling collection in a weird way, for instance Godzilla Collection where they include Godzilla Vs Kong but exclude Kong Skull Island.
I want to rename the collection to "Monsterverse" but it will keep reverting back whenever any scan happens which is frustrating.

Would be great if we can lock the name, and movies list in collections.

[Iskelderon]

Would certainly be useful, I often have folders, collections and even movies (in the last case with screencaps if it's a movie of a video game) where my custom images get nuked on a random basis.