Collections Based on Metadata Matching

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Collections Based on Tags/Actor/Director · Jellyfin Feature Requests

The above is an existing FIDER that most closely matches what I'm thinking about (and I commented there, too).

FIRST: Why I care about this

I have my media on a NAS.  I run JellyFin on a Mac Mini.
If the NAS needs to reboot, and I forget to shut down Jellyfin on the Mac before the reboot, I lose all of my collections that aren't "automatically set up" (like Movie collections, or things that the "box set" plugin knows how to deal with).  Yet, when the NAS comes back online, I don't lose any of my metadata or information about those series, as it's all stored in nfo files with the media itself.

WHAT I TRIED: Seemed like it should just work

A lot of media gets Tags from various internet database plug-ins.  So, my media already has the tags I need it to have.  So then I notice that a Collection itself includes the same metadata fields.  So, if I just add the Tag: "anime", I should get a collection of everything that includes the tag "anime", too.  It's a bit hidden, but it's pretty intuitive, except that it doesn't work.  So, I went searching here, and then searching FIDER, and here we are.

WHAT I WANT:

I think the Metadata edit method would be a decent default scan feature.  If nobody touches a collection's metadata, then the collection would act as it always had.

ALTERNATIVELY:

I'd like to see a Collections object SAVED within the nfo files of things added to a collection, so that it can be set once, and "remembered" later.  If folks think THAT would make a better stand-alone request, let me know, I'm not adverse to adding that.  I say this based on https://features.jellyfin.org/posts/73/c...sed-on-nfo , which is supposed to already work (though I've never seen it work).

[TheDreadPirate]

Regarding your collections being deleted, there is a Scheduled task that cleans up playlists and collections ON STARTUP when the associated media is not present.  You can disable this task.

Dashboard > Scheduled Tasks > Cleanup playlists and collections.  Click on it and delete the startup trigger.  Now Jellyfin SHOULDN'T remove collections or entries in collections automatically.

Jellyfin does create XMLs with the contents of your collections.  If you have a backup of the XML, you would simply need to restore the collection's folder(s), scan all libraries, and it will recreate the collections.  Including tags and whatnot.

Code:

<Item>
  <CollectionItems>
    <CollectionItem>
      <Path>/media/library/Movies/Batman Begins (2005) [tmdbid-272]/Batman Begins (2005) [tmdbid-272].mkv</Path>
    </CollectionItem>
    <CollectionItem>
      <Path>/media/library/Movies/The Dark Knight (2008) [tmdbid-155]/The Dark Knight (2008) [tmdbid-155].mkv</Path>
    </CollectionItem>
    <CollectionItem>
      <Path>/media/library/Movies/The Dark Knight Rises (2012) [tmdbid-49026]/The Dark Knight Rises (2012) [tmdbid-49026].mkv</Path>
    </CollectionItem>
  </CollectionItems>
</Item>

For docker, go to where you've mounted /config:
/config/data/collections

For baremetal Linux:
/var/lib/jellyfin/data/collections

If you're using MacOS on your mini, I don't know where the exact location would be.  But the collections folder would be in the same directory as the two Jellyfin database files.

Regarding the feature request at the end of your post.  I can't find anything about NFOs being used to define the contents of a collection, like we already do in XML format.  Only that there are tags you can add to movie NFOs to specify a collection they belong in.

[KodiUser1138]

Re-scanning Collections from the XML metadata no longer functions outside of the initial library set-up. It was removed (for some functional? reson) with 9.3 or 4 I believe. I used to use it all the time. Now it's basically broken.

JF will update the XML on it's own when the appropriate function is set to run and it isn't only on start-up. General library clean-up functions can do this I believe. If you have media sources offline and this scan occurs, your collections are hooped. Again becaues JF no longer rescans from the XML files as it used to even having a back-up of XMLs won't fix the issue unless you delete and create an entire new library.

As to the OP main request I have long been hoping Collections would allow far more options for gathering entries based on Library Type/Title (and sort title), Director/Actor names and for sure metadata tags. So many issues resolved when being able to use those functions, as well bring back manual XML edit function, and so much less time wasted.

In Kodi I have a custom section which is essentially the Collections (with far fewer selections) and it runs flawlessly through smart playlists where I can set specific tags of directors, as well as using just the movie or TV show title, not the complete file path. Then if I upgrade the format of one entry I don't have to re-add it to any collection so long as the actual title is still the same. It is so easy! I have an entire section for award winners with 10 different awards with umteen multiple different categories. They all work using tags. Not a change I'd try to set that up manually in JF Collections and then hope some update scan doesn't mess up the XMLs.

[TheDreadPirate]

Re-scanning Collections from the XML metadata no longer functions outside of the initial library set-up. It was removed (for some functional? reson) with 9.3 or 4 I believe. I used to use it all the time. Now it's basically broken.

I'm not sure when the last time you've tried was, but in 10.10.6 the process I described worked for restoring a collection from the XML.  Just straight up move the folder for the collection back into the over arching collections folder, scanned, and it was restored.

[KodiUser1138]

Re-scanning Collections from the XML metadata no longer functions outside of the initial library set-up. It was removed (for some functional? reson) with 9.3 or 4 I believe. I used to use it all the time. Now it's basically broken.

I'm not sure when the last time you've tried was, but in 10.10.6 the process I described worked for restoring a collection from the XML.  Just straight up move the folder for the collection back into the over arching collections folder, scanned, and it was restored.

I just tried it now, 10.10.6, Making changes to an XML and re-scanning does not work. You would have to completely nuke the entire Collections folder, re-scan the library, copy over your back-up and then re-scan and see if that actually works. Perviously that was not the function and any manual change to a single XML could be re-scanned and impotted. 

Plus this method requires you to make regular back-ups of your collections metadata to ensure something isn't missed. 

Collections are a really cool way to fine sort large media libraries and keep like things with like things but the current implementation has many pitfalls which can rended them more trouble than worth by various users.