SOLVED: Reloading data from NFO files without touching scrapers

[mihara]

So I have a typical anime problem: I have a show that TheTVDB considers one show that contains numerous other "shows" as seasons, while I would rather treat them as separate shows, because that's what AniDB does. No matter, I'll just use AniDB as the primary source of truth and use TheTVDB for the artwork references... right?

Well, no, turns out that it pulls in the episode guide from TheTVDB anyway, and that episode guide contains references to "seasons". So now the show contains "seasons" which are actually present in the library as other shows and it's super annoying.

But that's why I set Jellyfin to write NFO files. I'll just edit the NFO file to be correct and reload it...

Only, I can't do that, because it downloads TheTVDB data anyway. And this becomes a more general problem, because if I disable TheTVDB entirely, get the show right once, and then re-enable TheTVDB for any reason and accidentally scan the library, it's going to change the data again. EDIT: Actually, correction - even if I completely disable TheTVDB for this library, somehow re-adding the show with nfo files cleaned of any mention of TheTVDB still results in <episodeguide> tag appearing once the NFO file is saved again. I can't seem to get rid of it, and thus I keep seeing ghost seasons that don't belong there.

Is there a way to not download metadata missing from the NFO files for a particular show?

Failing that, is there a way to supply my own episode guide file?

[sjorge]

I had a similar issue and only way I got rid of it was to delete the entire anime library, and create a new one (you can't keep the old one around while making the new one as it somehow stores a bunch of data in the db based on path).

I used adbren so I wrote a script (https://github.com/sjorge/anidb-nfo-exporter) to generate stub NFO's and I only have anidb on the show level, and nothing enabled at all on the season and episode level.

It's not perfect though, but usable for my needs.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

But that's why I set Jellyfin to write NFO files. I'll just edit the NFO file to be correct and reload it...
 
...

Is there a way to not download metadata missing from the NFO files for a particular show?

Jellyfin will always fill in empty metadata fields if they're empty and an online metadata provider has the info. Even if you lock the metadata.

[mihara]

I had a similar issue and only way I got rid of it was to delete the entire anime library, and create a new one (you can't keep the old one around while making the new one as it somehow stores a bunch of data in the db based on path).

Doesn't seem to be helping: I renamed the directories at least once while messing with it, and completely disabled TheTVDB, it still somehow introduces its episode guide.

You'd think supplying a bogus URL in the NFO would at least get it to pop an error, but it still overrides it.

[mihara]

It's much worse than I thought.

If I understand the source correctly, when writing the NFO out, regardless of anything else, if the series has a <tvdbid> tag, an <episodeguide> referencing TheTVDB for the series will be written. Any other <episodeguide> it might have will just be ignored, so there's no way to supply a different file either.

Since other scrapers appear to add the TVDB id tag as well, this will get populated on save even if TVDB is completely disabled.

I wonder if I can cook up a plugin that will override this or something...

[mihara]

Ah there we go...

The actual culprit is the Missing Episodes Fetcher provider, which actually turns out to be part of TheTVDB provider. If this is disabled, ghost seasons stop spawning. The <episodeguide> tag is a red herring, as apparently, while it's written, it's not actually getting read.

This does not conclusively answer my initial question (can I just reload NFO without referencing online sources?) but at least it solves the immediate problem I had.