10.9.8 Messes up Collections

[KodiUser1138]

After updating to 10.9.8 my collections have issues. Movies, seemingly from one network location source, are no longer listed in the correct collections. Further, JF no longer reads the local XML files for collections on a refresh or any updates made to them, and in many cases no longer even creates them. This has become a large frustration as I have nearly 300 collections which are mostly set-up for directors but also various series.

Still unclear why different rules can't be established for collections that would allow automatic population based on metadata like person's name, media title/sort title, tags etc.

Regardless, having almost every collection entry missing a large portion of it's entries isn't ideal after putting in the work to create them in the first place.

This was posted in the main 10.9.8 thread but there didn't appear to be any information about it there.

[theguymadmax]

In the 10.9.z builds, a scheduled task runs at startup that removes items from collections and playlists that no longer exist. If your network drive isn't accessible at startup, this task will delete any linked items in the XML file. To address this, go to Dashboard -> Scheduled Tasks, find the “Clean up collections and playlists” task, and delete the “On application startup” trigger.

[KodiUser1138]

In the 10.9.z builds, a scheduled task runs at startup that removes items from collections and playlists that no longer exist. If your network drive isn't accessible at startup, this task will delete any linked items in the XML file. To address this, go to Dashboard -> Scheduled Tasks, find the “Clean up collections and playlists” task, and delete the “On application startup” trigger.

That would only fix JF from removing items from collections on startup if the source sever is offline during start-up. That is good but it doesn't fix the issue of most collections currently missing media that was previously added nor the issue with JF no longer refreshing collections from the XML files. That also means if I make a change to a media entry's name/location I can't update the XML to have the collection reflect the change. It's all become much less useable since what ever was changed from .3 to .9.

Doing more tinkering it appears playlists and collections generate XML files in the same manner using the full media location path and not pulling from a source within the database for general title through specific library. So converting collections to playlists doesn't resolve or simplify any of these issues. Would be great for either/both to use entries by first library name and then title/sort title. Then if you change the file name, path etc but not the actual title/sorttitle the entry shows up easy peasy. Same goes for adding controls like director or tags. Plus having collections (and maybe playlists) able to seperate based on the library they are included in, rather than ALL videos lumped together. In my Spielberg collection I'd like the documentaries separate from the films like how they are in the actual media libraries. But maybe that's all just wishful thinking.

[theguymadmax]

There are a few unresolved issues with collections on GitHub. This particular one looks pretty serious and is probably contributing to some of the problems you're experiencing.

[KodiUser1138]

Good (not really) to see I'm not the only one having issues with collections unlike previous versions. Hoping there is work being done to resolve this. Thankfully I still have my collection XMLs backed up with only minimal changes since.