[SOLVED] TV Show Library Empty in Jellyfin – Caused by Duplicate Folder Path in Libra

[Flambers]

I wanted to share an issue I just solved in case it helps other Jellyfin users whose TV Show library appears empty even though their files are correctly named and located.

System setup:

Server: Raspberry Pi running Jellyfin (latest stable build as of Aug 2025)
OS: Raspberry Pi OS (Debian-based)
Library type: Shows
Metadata providers: TheTVDB and TMDb enabled, TheTVDB set first

Folder structure:
/path/to/media-stack/tv/
  Fallout (2024) [tmdbid-106379]
    Season 01/
      Fallout S01E01.mkv
      ...

[*]Jellyfin plugins installed: TVmaze, TheTVDB, TMDb Box Sets, Kitsu, Open Subtitles, VGMdb, LrcLib
[*]FFmpeg path:
/usr/lib/jellyfin-ffmpeg

The problem

• My Shows library was completely blank — no posters, no episodes — even after running full library scans.
  
• Oddly, the same TV show appeared normally when added to a Mixed Movies and Shows library type, and posters would show there.
  
• Logs showed Jellyfin scanning the files with ffprobe, so the files were being seen, but the Show library still showed nothing.
  

Troubleshooting steps that didn’t help

1. Verified file naming matched Jellyfin’s official naming guide (Series Name (Year)/Season 01/Series Name S01E01.mkv).
   
2. Confirmed permissions were correct for thejellyfin user to access all media folders.
   
3. Changed hyphens to spaces in filenames (based on naming recommendations).
   
4. Cleared cache, optimized database, cleaned logs, and removed image cache.
   
5. Tried forcing metadata refresh and reordering metadata providers.
   
   

None of these fixed the empty library issue.

The actual cause
Checking the logs more carefully, I found lines like this:

Found duplicate path: "/path/to/media-stack/tv/_test_"

Turns out I had two library entries pointing to overlapping paths.
One was the main
/path/to/media-stack/tv
folder, and another was a test library pointing to
/path/to/media-stack/tv/_test_.

Even after removing the extra library from the Jellyfin dashboard, the duplicate folder remained in the filesystem and was still interfering with scans.

The fix

1. Remove the duplicate folder from the filesystem.
   
2. Remove any extra/duplicate libraries from Dashboard → Libraries so only the correct folder path remains.
   
3. Clear metadata for the affected show (optional, but helped in my case).
   
4. Run a full library scan.
   
   After this, the Shows library repopulated immediately with posters, episode lists, and correct metadata from TheTVDB.
   

Key takeaway
If your TV Show library is blank in Jellyfin:

• Check your logs (jellyfin.log) for Found duplicate path messages.
  
• Remove any duplicate or overlapping library folder paths.
  

Hopefully this saves someone else hours of frustration!