Many movies not getting any information in the moviename.metathumb files

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-General-Discussions/Media-Library-issues-What-I-have-noticed-and-any-way-around-them/td-p/482520

Basically the jist of that entire thread can be summed up like this -

200 movies about 50 of them are having the same symptom.

They display the movie information when you do the get content in the box (showing the screenshot for the movie as well as the description)

THe entire selection freezes for about 45 seconds to 1 minute until it comes back.

At the time it comes back I have all the backgrounds I have the xml file with all the information but I have a 0kb moviename.metathumb file.

I see the backgrounds I see the plot but i have absolutely no picture of the box shot either in the top left side of the view or on the file selection itself (it just stays as the generic icon with a Media player symbol)

I have tried deleting the content and selecting a totally different movie that works just fine so it seems to be a ocnnection to the movie DB of some kind.

I have tried downloading one of the jpgs listed in the xml and deleting the moviename.metathumb and then renaming the jgp downloaded to moviename.metathumb (I even tried this on mutltiple different movie types.

I tried getting rid of the metathumb altogeether and just having the moviename.jpg, xml and mkv but that di not get it there either.

I even tried a couple of the WDLive PC programs that is supposed ot be a link to the DB to download the data and I get errors from there as well. I am pretty sure this is almost 100% not a WDTV Live unit problem and just something on the DB end I am just trying to find some workaround.

Is there some other DB that is more reliable and has a much more accurate setup? is there a way for me to notify the DB location of these ones because i am assuming this metathumb problem is not just for me.

2

Have you tried deleting the wd_tv folder on the SMP, it is a hidden folder  that caches thumbnails and will regenerate the next time the media library is compiled.

Cheers

3

I have totally cleared out the media library multiple times.

In fact I am pretty sure ANYONE here could recreate this issue.

Go to any media clear the content data for it. Add content information and search based on Spiderman (2002) this is the original of the newish Trilogy. Then download. It should do the exact same issue. THis seems ot happen only with SPECIFIC DB entries and getting the data from there.

This is occuring on all three of my WDTV Live devices and is only occuring on some of the DB entries I try to load.

4

If you are saying only certain metathumb images are not showing it maybe because of the cache in the wd_tv folder,

clearing the media library doesn’t always clear the cached metathumbs in the wd_tv folder. If you haven’t already deleted this folder it might be worthwhile doing so, it worked for me.

You can also check the xml file to make sure it has exactly the same name for the metathumb as the file itself.

Cheers

5

Names are the same and I have deleted the .wd_tv folder and verified that 1) no thumbnail picture came down for Spiderman (2002) and 2) the metathumb file still is staying at 0kb. I even went as far as deleting the metathumb and the xml and THEN deleting the wd_tv folder on the network share. still not working.

6

Can there be an issue with me having 3 decvices compiling media library? Should I just have one set to compile and the rest just have the media library set to on but not set to ever modify? Just in case I turned off my number 2 and 3 device and am just working off the one until I have this fixed.

I just don’t see how this media library all works together. I thought I understood it but I am thinking this should be easy logical progression metathumb data from the db site that has a link in the xml to the jpgs that are put into the metathumb. The problem I have is clearing files out is not working as I would expect as well as trying to force with a jpg is not working though it has been indicated on this forum that a jpg should be able to be used as a replacement for the metathumb.

Getting very frustrted that I can’t even workaround something as minor as a picture of a media box.

7

Used your example of Spiderman (2002) , and then using both Get Info on the SMP & ThumbGen I generate the image & xml files as they should be. Therefore the problem isn’t with the database sites.

Sorry that I can’t help with your problem.

Cheers

8

Rats that is then leaning it back to a device issue.

Am I righti n thinking if I had removed the metathumb file and put in a jpg it SHOULD work in showing the jpg? I can’t even get this what i would feel would be simple function to work as a workaround.

Thanks for the pointer on thumbgen I played around with it and saw it indeed was pulling down all the information just fine. Really sounding more like device issues but not sure where it can be and why 75% of my media is naming properly while others are not.

9

Are you using Get Info to do all your files at once, or individually for each movie?

If you get all your info at once it sometimes doesn’t find correct movie, try Spiderman (2002) by itself. I notice I had to select Spider-man from a number of choses when doing it manually.

Cheers

10

Until it is working right I will not turn on the automatic get info option. I have seen the setting there but I refuse to turn it on because I am scared that I have 50 files that have incomplete data so if I turned it on and it did a 1 minute delay on each “failed” metathumb file it would end up being stuck over 50 minutes total.

This issue is all with me just going to each individual file and me just going in to get content for that particular file.

Like I said strange because its working for 150 files approximately but not 50 files and I can’t make rhyme or reason as to the WHY of it.

I have working non 0kb metathumb in a directory to an mkv. Then another mkv in the same directory with a non working 0kbmetathumb file,

Basically I have ruled out -

File names as being the issue - I have Spiderman 2002.mkv that does not work next to Spiderman 2 2004.mkv that works flawlessly.

WIth the suggestion of the ThumbGen program I have determined it is not my house connection to the DB site - I was able to use that to get a jpg and a bunch of other files like tgmd files) and these all HAD the jgp listed in there that would be what SHOULD show up in the thumbnail location but does not when I do it on the WD TV Live.

I have determined with ALL of the non working files I cannot remove the moviename.metathumb and just take a downloaded moviename.jpg and put it in its place and it work. (have not verified if this works with a working one that downloads content as it should).

I have determined with ALL of the non working files I cannot remove the moviename.metathumb and just take a downloaded moviename.jpg and rename it and put it in moviename.metathumb put it in its place and it work. (have not verified if this works with a working one that downloads content as it should).

What has me at a loss the most is I am obviously connecting to the DB site when I connect to get the information because it is generating the XML and it is downloading the backgrounds. The ONLY part I am not getting is the thumbnail.

i even went 1 step above in my paranoia. I had 3 shares on my server. I had one for pictures one for audio and one for movies/episodes. I thought maybe adding all three shares to the media library was gunking up the works so I just went like this instead. I did this just a few hours back and I deleted out the .wd_tv folders and restarted all the media content.

New setup looks like this -

My Movies

My Audio

Wifes movies

Wifes Audio

Kids movies

kids audio

Family Pictures

this made it so I got rid of having 3 .wd_tv folders to just one and a single source I have ot sync from. I was thinking maybe even that was gunking it up somehow.

But now I have it all in a single share. I have turned off 2 of the three WD TV Live units I own I think thats about as SIMPLE as I can make it a single media library and a single source for all content should be the simpleist. But no it still fails on only these specific files that play fine and I have no issue watching on the WD TV Live at all. Which I don’t even think the validity of the media file has ANYTHING to do with this because I notice i can have a 0kb media file like say Superman.mkv and i can use this ot then go and look through the db connection and get the xml and the thumbs and backgrounds.

Added -

I just found this thread - http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming-Discussions/Movie-Thumbnails/td-p/294516

this seems ot be an exact same thing as what I am doing except it was last year and it was for another product. In this one they indicated it was a firmware issue. I am using the latest firmware. Maybe I need to revert to an older one?

Added again -

[Deleted] its not firmware. I went back to 1.10.13 and its doing the same thing on the same files. I verified on the file server no files are locked. verified permissions. ARGH driving me crazy!

11

StumpedTechy wrote:

 

I have working non 0kb metathumb in a directory to an mkv. Then another mkv in the same directory with a non working 0kbmetathumb file,

 

What exactly does this mean - 1 movie metathumb shows ok with 0kb size,  and the other doesn’t show with a 0kb file?

Or - 1 movie metathumb shows with a certain size kb file, and the other doesn’t show with a 0kb file?

If second option is so, then try this, download a jpg image for the non working metathumb, resize it to the same size as the working image and rename it’s jpg extension to metathumb, delete your original metathumb first, then see what happens.

You may have to delete the thumbnail/s for the movie from the .wd_tv thumb folder also.

Cheers

12

All movies that show the thumbnails as they should, about 150 of the 200 or so movies, that have the moviename.metathumb file have a size anywhere from 20kb up to almost 100kb. The appx 50 movies with this issue show a file as 0kb.

What I did was I downloaded a jpg from the list in the xml and did the exact rename your talking about and that was where it did not show on the movie but did show up on the folder.

you mention needing to delete thumbnails from .wd_tv but theere is nothing regarding thumbnails in this folder at all. All that is in there is 7 files

X:.wd_tv>dir  Volume in drive X has no label.  Volume Serial Number is 4E1B-0F9D

 Directory of X:.wd_tv

10/06/2012  04:12 AM              .

10/06/2012  04:12 AM              …

10/06/2012  04:12 AM         4,954,112 uniondb.cas_0090a9c3e312

10/06/2012  04:12 AM         4,953,088 uniondb.cas_0090a9c3e54e

10/06/2012  04:12 AM         4,931,584 wdtv.cas2

10/06/2012  04:12 AM                 0 wdtv.cas2_lock_file_check_0090a9c3e312

10/06/2012  04:12 AM                 0 wdtv.cas2_lock_file_check_0090a9c3e54e

10/06/2012  03:14 AM                 0 wdtv.cas2_no_check_content_0090a9c3e312

10/05/2012  09:58 PM                 0 wdtv.cas2_no_check_content_0090a9c3e54e               

7 File(s)     14,838,784 bytes               

2 Dir(s)  819,980,222,464 bytes free

Just so you can get a better idea of what i am seeing let me put it all out here to be seen -

 My X drive on my machine is My server share all my media library is hooked up to so at the root of X is the .wd_tv directory. I have made a Test folder and in this test folder I placed a single media file. In this case Alice In Wonderland (1951).avi

X:\Test>dir  

Volume in drive X has no label.  

Volume Serial Number is 4E1B-0F9D

 Directory of X:\Test

10/06/2012  04:20 AM              .

10/06/2012  04:20 AM              …

07/05/2011  05:39 AM       725,225,472 Alice in Wonderland (1951).avi               

1 File(s)    725,225,472 bytes               

2 Dir(s)  819,980,140,544 bytes free

Now I go ahead and I go to the Media Library and I go to the Test directory and I go to Options>Get Content Info - due to the above naming of the file I only get a single option to select and I select it. (if you take off the date you get multiple options but the 1951 is the one I want to get the data for the others are not it.

At this point it hangs right after i verify the data is okay and there is the green checkmark (when I mean hangs it sticks for a good minute or so whereas a movie that returnes a metathumb file with any size to it comes through in about 20 seconds.

This is what It looks like after the content is grabbed.

X:\Test>dir  

Volume in drive X has no label.  

Volume Serial Number is 4E1B-0F9D

 Directory of X:\Test

10/06/2012  04:29 AM              .

10/06/2012  04:29 AM              …

10/06/2012  04:29 AM              .Alice in Wonderland (1951).backdrop

07/05/2011  05:39 AM       725,225,472 Alice in Wonderland (1951).avi

10/06/2012  04:28 AM                 0 Alice in Wonderland (1951).metathumb

10/06/2012  04:28 AM             5,543 Alice in Wonderland (1951).xml               

3 File(s)    725,231,015 bytes               

3 Dir(s)  819,978,854,400 bytes free

At this point the background changes behind the selected item because there are the backdrop files in the folder. The xml has size data in it so it fills in the plot and all that good stuff. But the metathumb file sticks at 0kb meaning no thumbnail is shown on the file or on the top left side of the description item.

Now say I go into this xml file it has this

http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/w185/nxI5QNs0Sdc5GgQf7zqwSxskf7x.jpg

http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/w185/9gJa2B6M8jt85aDkb0MF98MLZ9T.jpg

http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/w185/n8EKakbBkNsx7jnLjkPxFIncT0E.jpg

so if I pick any one of the ones labeled thumbnail and go to those URLs I see all the potential different thumbnails there could be. I then pick one and download it as a jpg.

If I take that downloaded jpg and I replace it as Alice in Wonderland (1951).metathumb as a rename and I then do a restart of the WDTV Live device then this jpg shows up on the Test folder but does NOT show up on the thumbnails for the movie at all.

ALL movies that have this thumbnail issue have this 0kb size file as the moviename.metathumb

Where these movies are in the folder structure of my setup does not seem to matter.

The version of the firmware does not seem to matter.

All permissions were verified double and triple checked ot be Everyone Full control so its not an issue with not being able to write to these files and why can it make and populate the xmls but not make and populate the metathumb files?

Here is another

10/04/2012  09:28 PM              .

10/04/2012  09:28 PM              …

10/04/2012  09:28 PM              .Transformers_2007_1080p.backdrop

10/04/2012  09:29 PM              .Transformers_Dark_of_the_Moon_2011_1080p.backdrop

10/04/2012  10:01 PM              .Transformers_Revenge_of_the_Fallen_2009_1080p.backdrop

10/04/2012  09:27 PM            18,287 Transformers_2007_1080p.metathumb

09/28/2012  09:28 PM     4,254,423,369 Transformers_2007_1080p.mp4

10/04/2012  09:27 PM             5,789 Transformers_2007_1080p.xml

10/04/2012  09:27 PM                 0 Transformers_Dark_of_the_Moon_2011_1080p.metathumb

09/28/2012  09:09 PM     4,294,955,031 Transformers_Dark_of_the_Moon_2011_1080p.mp4

10/04/2012  09:27 PM             6,760 Transformers_Dark_of_the_Moon_2011_1080p.xml

10/04/2012  09:28 PM                 0 Transformers_Revenge_of_the_Fallen_2009_1080p.metathumb

09/28/2012  09:18 PM     4,293,867,279 Transformers_Revenge_of_the_Fallen_2009_1080p.mp4

10/04/2012  09:28 PM             5,466 Transformers_Revenge_of_the_Fallen_2009_1080p.xml
               9 File(s) 12,843,281,981 bytes
               5 Dir(s)  819,978,313,728 bytes free

As you can probably guess the problem Transformers I have two that are not okay and one that is.

What I CAN’T wrap my head around is why these files if renamed in any specific naming context does not fix it I have tried without _'s I have tried verifying no .'s outside the file type so no mistakes in anything when it generates… but some generate just fine E.G. the transformeers one that does work (Transformers 2007) I can delete the 2 folders and rname it all funky and I can STILL get the data to download for it.

Hopefully this illustrates exactly why I am getting so frustrated as there seems to be no Rhyme or reason as to WHY some are not making thumbnails while others are without any problems at all.

13

You have got me beat.

When I try Alice in Wonderland (1951).avi I get all correct files.

Can’t explain why you have no thumbs folder in .wd_tv folder, this is where my SMP caches all the different size thumbnails for the different views i.e gallery view, preveiw etc.

Sorry I can’t be of help, maybe somebody else might have answer.

Cheers

14

I did also open up a support case but I am not sure how far that will take me I guess I will ride that wave until they can help. At least I got to know alot more about the Media Library and all the content caching. I am guessing this will help once I get to my MP3s and my Audio there. I am hoping things like ALbum art on those won’t have the same issue. I have put off touching the mp3s for right now because the movie files were the big point.

Thans for your attempt to help out. It has been appreciated though I now am more perplexed why some would work and some would not even with the naming conventions.

Do you know if there is any type of device logging for the get content info that i can look at on this since its a networked device? Maybe something in a log file may give me some kind of denied or coonnection refused that may give me more to work with? Is this a simple port 80 http get type of thing?

I really wish I knew more about how this all got pulled from the db server thats what i have as fuzzy in my head right now and yet I think that is the key to unraveling this.

15

FYI I have found my the workng workaround to this issue. it really is from a number of locations that gave a little bit of information as well as you mentioning the content cache being in the .wd_tv folder though mine had nothing other than a few files. So between a number of threads I made up my own 100% defintive list as to how I can reliably replicate this fix.

From the WD TV Live Streaming Device -

  1. Ensure all WDTV Live streaming devices are off except the one you are working with. This won’t be an issue in a single device house but thought I would mention it.

  2. Get content info on the media file. If it gives you a quick return your golden and you have nothing left to do. If it “hangs” and it gives me the 0kb metathumb file then you must continue down the rest of these steps. Unfortunately you still have to wait that extended pause at least one time per failed movie to get the backdrop date and the xml creation that shows you where the jpgs are.

From any PC with access ot the File share where the Media Library is in place -

  1. Go the movie XML list and select any of the thumbnail images from the list (look through them all so you ensure you pick the one you WANT some are in forign languages and so on.

  2. Save the file in the same directory as the 0kb metathumb file.

  3. Ensure ALL WD TV Live Streaming devices are OFF.

This next step order is the most important - I think I did this backwards and thats what gave me no thumbnail image and i only saw it on the test folder -

  1. Rename the 0kb metathumb file to metathumbbad (or delete it if your comforatble it will not be needed for anything)

  2. Renbame the downloaded jpg in step 3 to the same filename as the rest of the files but list it as metathumb

  3. Delete the .wd_tv folder from the root of the Media Library.

  4. Delete all metathumbbad if you have multile movies causing this issue.

  5. Turn on the WD Tv Live streaming device and intiate a Media Library Content scan (not sure if htis happens right away because of the missing .wd_tv file but I am impatient and just forced one.

 Setup>System>Media Library>Media Library Manager> Select the Media location and then click the circular arrowed selection to intiate a scan.

I have just fixed about 5 of my movies and will be fixing the rest after I get all their content information down.

While it isn’t a “fix”: at least this is only a sinle time configuration per movie that fails ot do it on its own.

Now to wonder why it happens 1/4 to 1/5 movies I select.

I really am thnking I should set one device as the master content scanner and have the other two not be. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think the media scanning on 3 WD TV Live streamers may be “gunking up the works” so to speak?