Keeping Metadata of Removed and Replacement Content

[FlangeMonkey]

Hi Guys,

Like many of use I'm looking at replacing Plex and therefore been testing out Jellyfin.

I am a big fan of Plex's database, albeit more complex, but it just makes a more overall better experiance.  I'd like to get a simular experiance with library consistances, but the following is stopping me from the move:

• Replacing content keeps the original added date (I prefer scanned into library)
  
• Removed items watch status remains for removed items, so when its aquired later, I know the content was watched
  

I like the trash and verisoning for items that are built into Plex that mainly facilitates the above, but thats a feature request and database change that is quite large and a major change.

Does anyone know of a means to facilitates this functionality?

Thanks,

[bitmap]

You might be able to use the Trakt plugin to sync watch history. Dates are all you or you can utilize an external media manager that handles that for you (I shy away from dropping names, I have preferences but that's mainly due to my experiences and how my ecosystem is set up).

Database changes are not likely to happen. There's one on the horizon that has been in the works for a long while now to hopefully resolve a lot of gripes about legacy by stuff, but I'm not about progress. Check out the GitHub if you want to see the details.

[FlangeMonkey]

I like the concept of Trakt, but I have privacy concerns. I think I know what your referring to regarding media managers, but that would depend on NFO files I'd assume?

I agree on the DB changes and thanks for the pointer to whats in progress. I'll check it out.

[bitmap]

I fully understand the privacy concerns. There are self-hosted alternatives (https://github.com/mispa/flox) but I'm unsure how they'd work with the existing plugins, you might have to do some work or try to work with the developer to get things functioning.

As for media managers, it's hard to speak in abstracts, so I'll be direct and not go into too much detail. Sonarr offers several options for date manipulation of media files, for instance you can have it change file creation date to the release date of the film. I haven't looked into other options as I don't mess around with dates. As for NFO files, it can spit out Jellyfin-compatible NFO files; I'm not sure how much control you have over them, but there's a lot of leeway you have as far as scripting to modify whatever you like with regards to post-[operation] scripts (e.g., import, update, delete).

Here's the feature request for a MySQL backend where EFCore is discussed as a framework for allowing whatever DB backend you desire: https://features.jellyfin.org/posts/315/...r-back-end. Not saying that allows you the flexibility you want, as the relational nature and schema of Jellyfin's database will remain the same. But with the migration off of legacy code well underway, this means the team will have better control over their code base and, consequently, the ability to move forward to additional features with regards to DB-related metadata and altering the schema without downstream effect to legacy components.