please can you help? I'm desperate, frustrated and disappointed by jellyfin

[theguymadmax]

There's a bug with Jellyfin that causes it to fail to load when there's no internet connection. You can check it out here. A workaround is to use an older version of Jellyfin Media Player, specifically version 1.9.1, which you can download here.

[Dex Luther]

thank you for your replies. I am happy to see that forum users seem more down to earth than the "official" culture. I am not a programmer, I'm a mere user, and was pointed to jellyfin as such. I'm sure it's huge fun to go through all of the tech if that is your joy. Mine is cinema, not tech.
I have all films on a usb ssd on windows 10. when I go offline, JF keeps spinning as if to load, but never does, even though all data are there. when I use the media player, it refuses to connect.
I can't find any of the options or settings I asked about, and the "official" help is either no help or just wrong (starting with the windows installer itself being for either AMD or ARM processors - NOT intel, and both thus refuse to run).
I don't see my version number anywhere. I assume it to be current, 10.9.10, since I only installed it a week ago.
Below is 
- my movie folder (win explorer) 
- what JF makes of it (homepage)
- a library screenshot. see how many posters are missing and a subtitled film appears twice

Your Jellyfin is spinning (first time scans can take a LONG time especially if you have a lot of files. I assume because it's scanning your files. The homepage looks normal.

Your library screenshot with "Freedom" appearing twice it's probably due to having two versions/copies of that file. It's hard to tell since your explorer screenshot shows the top of your files, but the doubled "Freedom" would be down in the F's. It could also be that Jellyfin just simply misidentified something (it happens no one/nothing's ever perfect). You can right click on each of the doubled items and click on "Media Info"



At the top of the box you'll see "path"



Comparing the path of your doubled item(s) might give you a clue to figure out what's going on.

If one of them was simply wrongly identified, then just right click on the wrong one and click "Identify". Put in the correct name, and year and any of the other information if you have it. You might also want to go into the library settings and turn on other metadata sources (if you haven't already). Not all sources have information on everything (Especially if it's kind of an obscure movie).

If you have the file in there twice for some reason, then you can just delete one (or move it somewhere else).

Also, are all the files in that folder movies or did you mix Movies and TV series or something? Jellyfin CAN mix, but generally I like to keep shows and movies separate (same with home movies and such).

[dafaq]

anyone? pleeeease

[TheDreadPirate]

thanks!
so JF is a tray icon. I click on it and right click on "open JF". brave opens to http://localhost:8096/web/index.html#/home.html and I see the screenshotted page - IF I am connected to the internet (Wifi). if not, i.e. I am offline (= wifi turned off, deliberately; or I'm travelling), I only see a spinning circle that never stops. despite NO other change, i.e. HDD still plugged in.
Ditto entering above address into the JF media player: "unable to connect", even if wifi is connected. same for its suggested "192.168.1.100:8096"

The exact filename is Fahrenheit 11-9 (201.mkv

theguymadmax said this is a bug

There's a bug with Jellyfin that causes it to fail to load when there's no internet connection. You can check it out here. A workaround is to use an older version of Jellyfin Media Player, specifically version 1.9.1, which you can download here.

[KodiUser1138]

Not adding much in the way of helping your specific questions but I say the desperation post and wanted to encourage you to stick with things as Jellyfin is pretty freaking awesome for handling your media. There is a learning curve to a lot of all of this but I'd suggest toning down a little by taking a deep breath and then asking for ways to learn more, tutorials, videos etc.

I also looked at your screencaps and your media appears to all be in one folder? The first place I would start, once you figure out how to get JF up and running, is to learn a proper way to curate your media in a method that is both easy for your to replicate but works well with the scrapers you are using to obtain your metadata. And then look into backing up that metadata locally. When I started my media server journey over 10 years ago the above was one of the hardest lessons I needed to learn and until I sorted it out I would have fits. Now my system is super simple, the same for near everything and backed up so if something happens to my database I never lose all the already hard work information.

Good luck and enjoy the ride!

[dafaq]

well great: "Error 0x80070666: Cannot install a product when a newer version is installed."
so now I have do redo EVERYTHING ALL OVER AGAIN?!?!?!?!
can anybody understand how or why this JF is frustrating me?!
IF I did it all again - can anyone promise me that it will then FINALLY JUST WORK???

[Mel_Gibson_Real]

well great: "Error 0x80070666: Cannot install a product when a newer version is installed."

This is a regular thing for pretty much every piece of software ever its not jellyfin exclusive.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

well great: "Error 0x80070666: Cannot install a product when a newer version is installed."
so now I have do redo EVERYTHING ALL OVER AGAIN?!?!?!?!
can anybody understand how or why this JF is frustrating me?!
IF I did it all again - can anyone promise me that it will then FINALLY JUST WORK???

Nobody can promise you that it will "just work". You need to be able to put in the effort and learn for yourself/do things for yourself.
Different things in life require different levels of ability. If you're finding doing things such as this on a computer becomes difficult, it's because you're missing important fundamentals with how to interact with computers and programs.

I'm not trying to be mean here (you can't express emotion/tone through text well). If this software is giving you enough grief were it's negatively affecting your well being, it's probably time you put a pause on using it and evaluate if other software will work better for you.
No one here is going to take 100% responsibility to make sure you get a working Jellyfin server that works to your expectations. We're all volunteers in this space. There was no contract or payment done on either end for anyone to be forced to promise you it will "just work".

Think about it. How are you going to deal with upgrading your server if you can't handle installing it in the first place? Do you want someone to be in charge of handling your server for you?
One of the main principles of self-hosting is that you get 100% control of everything. You gain that freedom.
The pitfall of self-hosting though is that with that level of freedom, you're the one responsible for fixing things and becoming your own 24/7 tech support whenever something goes bad.
The best you can do is ask for help and wait for people to try and help. No one can be forced to guarantee you service unless you entered some form of written agreement for such an arrangement to be done.

[KodiUser1138]

I've experienced issues when trying to install JF that don't seem to happen with any regularity from other software, which can get frustrating fast. But sometimes you just have to keep working at it. Best advice if you are having install issues is to completely remove all instances of the program, all installed files, all program data and then do a full system reboot (assuming Windows based). Then try again.

Don't try and stuff your entire media collection into an install from the beginning. Start small. Create a new folder for media and put only a few things in it. Start with a few movies, get JF installed and setup that one small media folder to see how it works. Once you get through the initial setup then move to bigger things. And if you have no local metadata and artwork files your media is going to take forever to rescan over and over, plus you will have to make any manual changes again over and over. If that is part of your frustration then look into a media manager or other method to make that process a once and done and then JF only ever needs to rescan local information.

There are great people happy to help but you have to approach things with less hostility. I understand things can just come out in frustration as well as anyone but from what I can gather you need to start from scratch with a small setup to get yourself going, and then expand from there.

[dafaq]

I understand your points and appreciate every volunteer here!
please also try to understand mine. JF is communicated not as a construction site for enthusiasts, but as a complete and usable solution for a mass audience. that is absolutely not my experience. I do volunteering myself, in very different areas, and if the gap between expectation and reality were anywhere near as wide, there'd be a lot of dead kittens in my one volunteering area, and, believe me, even more frustration than here, in my other.
I have asked direct and specific questions here, yet only received general chastising for my tone, or non-working solution.
- setting to use the catalogue offline? all my files are on a hard drive. there is just no NEED for the internet just to show me what is already here.
- how can I search by colour/BW, director, length, resolution, country or OTHER perfectly banal features?
- why, if I have an srt file in the folder, does the FILM show up twice in the gallery?
- from 539 items, only 514 are found? (it's NOT the 3 srt files). how can that be?
- set WHAT to display on main gallery: film names and posters in original language; director; colour/BW. also, can I see actual posters and not just film stills?
- how can I search for at least: film names; director; black and white; country - and get shown ALL matches?
- confirm via Enter, and not EVERYTHING TWICE?
- stop jumping to the top of the list EVERY TIME rather than staying where I was?
- see all film names and posters in their original or MY SET language? I see a POLISH poster (with polish writing) for a french film in french, jellyfin is set to english!
- see POSTERS rather than film stills? should I really have to edit EVERY FILM INDIVIDUALLY?
- set which languages not to subtitle?

given that I am NOT a software enthusiast, I feel bitter about that: IF this were your attitude here, then PLEASE, PLEASE why not communicate it from the getgo?! so that non-experts need not even start here. I enjoy libre/OS software a lot, starting with the spirit. the difference is that other OSs just "work": I've never had to resort to an online forum to get, idk, LibreOffice etc. to just work. ofc it would be different for ultra-deep functions. I also admit that I was already properly annoyed when I came here after days on days of failures. sorry if someone felt personally offended.