Prevent automatic metadata scraping

[Linden Ryuujn]

How do I stop jellyfin from automatically "updating" metadata online, and then overwriting my nfo files? It's destroyed a lot of careful work before I realised this was happening.

I use nfo files, and when adding media I check the nfo files are correct and then want them remain unchanged, unless I manually do the changes (I don't actaully use jellyfin for scraping at all, but will sometimes use the GUI for making changes by hand). I do want jellyfin to automatically pick up series/episodes when I add them to my libs, but I never want it to download metadata.

I'm believe I could use the Lock tag on each file, and maybe I will have to, but the scrapers I use will not do do this automatically so it's going to be a major pain. My libraries all have everything under "Metadata downloaders" unticked, and" Automatically refresh metadata from the internet" is set to never.

From poking around it seems like it is the "library scan" that kindly replaces all my data. How can I get it to only look for new files, and not replace metadata/update existing nfos?

[foux]

Simply disable any metadata grabbers for your library (TMDB, TVDB, .....) and your NFO files will never be overwritten.

[Linden Ryuujn]

When you say disable, what do you mean? As in my OP I have ensured all "Metadata downloaders" are unticked on every library (and they always have been), which hasn't helped. I've dug through the dashboard and can't find anything else obvious, is there another setting somewhere I missed?

[TheDreadPirate]

Did you also uncheck all the image fetchers as well? If you're using Linux, you could set the permissions on your NFOs to be read only for Jellyfin.

[Linden Ryuujn]

I do have the images unchecked, and interestingly it never automatically updates the images (thankfully, I'm much more prescious about my images!). I do like the ability to manually make changes in the Jellyfin UI, so I'm reluctant to lock things down, but I guess I might have to. I'm also worried that if I just lock down the nfo files, while they won't get updated it might still update my jellyfin database as part of the scan. I guess that might be my next step though. Is it a bug that it's updating with the checkboxes unticked, should I raise a ticket?

[TheDreadPirate]

If NFOs exist, and online providers are disabled, it shouldn't make changes to the database for your show.

The "Locked" checkbox issue is known and there is already a ticket, IIRC. I don't recall the status of the ticket, though.

[Linden Ryuujn]

Sorry, what is the "Locked" issue?

From what you've said I think it shouldn't be updating metadata at all right now? So I have little faith that locking nfos will help, although I'll give it ago for now I guess. I'm still a little confused as to whether I'm experiencing a bug or not.

[TheDreadPirate]

Correct. On github, other users have already reported that "locking" metadata doesn't actually lock it. It is a bug.

[Linden Ryuujn]

Just incase anyone else comes across this and has a similar issue. The only fix appears to be "Lock this item to prevent future changes". Making the nfo readonly does prevent the nfo being updated, but not the database (so your meta data as seen in Jelly fin will still change). Odd as it may seem, if you update an nfo it will update the database and then schedule a background update to replace the change you made with an online scrape - meaning the nfo files are virtually pointless unless locked.