[Hitcher]

I think tvdb has an average runtime for episodes in the TV show info which might be used before the file has its metadata scanned to determine the actual runtime.

[pkscout]

I wonder if this updated Python scraper doesn't recover the duration of individual episodes, or if it does and so it's just my problem.
(I tested this function on several devices, in none it manages to recover the duration of the episodes, if I change scraper and use tvdb v.4 (tvdb.com) it easily recovers the duration of the episodes).

Make sure you using the most current version (1.6.5).  The scraper will load the duration from TMDb if available, I just can't remember exactly when I added it.  Kodi core will override what is downloaded if the scan of the actual video file returns a length, but I use the scraper all the time to have episode lengths for stream files.  You should check to make sure the episode length is actually in TMDb.  If you still aren't getting the duration after all that, I'll probably need to see a log file with Kodi debugging enabled.

[Andrea1998]

Make sure you using the most current version (1.6.5).  The scraper will load the duration from TMDb if available, I just can't remember exactly when I added it.  Kodi core will override what is downloaded if the scan of the actual video file returns a length, but I use the scraper all the time to have episode lengths for stream files.  You should check to make sure the episode length is actually in TMDb.  If you still aren't getting the duration after all that, I'll probably need to see a log file with Kodi debugging enabled.

Yes, I had already seen if it was the latest version installed, I installed it directly from the official Kodi repo.

The TV series I tested is present in tmdb with the relevant minutes for each episode (TV series: rick and morty).

I made a LOG to understand where the problem could come from.

For the LOG I followed these steps:
1) Enabled in system settings, detailed LOG
2) Returned to the video library, in the TV SERIES section -> changed the scraper from TMDb tv shows to TVDb.com, then changed it back to TMDb TV shows, so that it  can delete the information that was present and rescan the entire video library, TV series section.

In the LOG I noticed that in the TV series: "Rick and Morty" the duration of the episodes is present, but it is always the same for all the episodes, which compared on the site for each episode, the results are different, TMDb from the website, shows a precise duration for each episode, the scraper instead always returns the same duration (I could have made a mistake, I used this parameter: (duration":) in notepad to see all the events relating to the duration).
While in the TV series: "She-Hulk" the parameter: "duration":" is not present.

I'm not very good at LOG, so I rely on expert people to understand where the problem could be.

If necessary, I also created a more detailed log, enabling the "Detailed Debug LOG" option in the TMDb tv shows addon settings, generating a file of 140,000 lines of code, while the standard one is only 30,000.

The log file is larger than 2 mb and I can't upload it to paste.kodi.tv, so it's available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/z8ynu6bzf...i.log/file


Thank you very much for any of your help.

[pkscout]

Make sure you using the most current version (1.6.5).  The scraper will load the duration from TMDb if available, I just can't remember exactly when I added it.  Kodi core will override what is downloaded if the scan of the actual video file returns a length, but I use the scraper all the time to have episode lengths for stream files.  You should check to make sure the episode length is actually in TMDb.  If you still aren't getting the duration after all that, I'll probably need to see a log file with Kodi debugging enabled.

I'm not very good at LOG, so I rely on expert people to understand where the problem could be.

If necessary, I also created a more detailed log, enabling the "Detailed Debug LOG" option in the TMDb tv shows addon settings, generating a file of 140,000 lines of code, while the standard one is only 30,000.

The log file is larger than 2 mb and I can't upload it to paste.kodi.tv, so it's available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/z8ynu6bzf...i.log/file


Thank you very much for any of your help.

You have so many things going on here that there is no way to tell what might be causing your problem.  You have two different scrapers that you're bouncing between and you have NFO files that would override anything the scraper is doing anyway.  You need to pick one scraper and method and stick with it for a given source.  If you want to use TVDB, fine, use it.  You want to do NFO files?  Fine, do them.  But having NFO files and two different scrapers doing the same source is going to give unpredictable results.  At this point I'd recommend removing the source to clean the database out and then readding that source picking ONE way to do the scrapes.

[Andrea1998]

You have so many things going on here that there is no way to tell what might be causing your problem.  You have two different scrapers that you're bouncing between and you have NFO files that would override anything the scraper is doing anyway.  You need to pick one scraper and method and stick with it for a given source.  If you want to use TVDB, fine, use it.  You want to do NFO files?  Fine, do them.  But having NFO files and two different scrapers doing the same source is going to give unpredictable results.  At this point I'd recommend removing the source to clean the database out and then readding that source picking ONE way to do the scrapes.

ok, forgive me I struggle to understand, do I really have 2 scrapers together that retrieve information?
I had them installed, "tvdb.com" and "tmdb python" but it is always only one selected. Now I left only tmdb python and uninstalled the others.

No, I would just like to use the scraper: TMDb TV shows.
TVDb was used for testing only.

No, I wouldn't want them to overwrite anything, what can I do about it?

[pkscout]

You have so many things going on here that there is no way to tell what might be causing your problem.  You have two different scrapers that you're bouncing between and you have NFO files that would override anything the scraper is doing anyway.  You need to pick one scraper and method and stick with it for a given source.  If you want to use TVDB, fine, use it.  You want to do NFO files?  Fine, do them.  But having NFO files and two different scrapers doing the same source is going to give unpredictable results.  At this point I'd recommend removing the source to clean the database out and then readding that source picking ONE way to do the scrapes.

ok, forgive me I struggle to understand, do I really have 2 scrapers together that retrieve information?
I had them installed, "tvdb.com" and "tmdb python" but it is always only one selected. Now I left only tmdb python and uninstalled the others.

No, I would just like to use the scraper: TMDb TV shows.
TVDb was used for testing only.

No, I wouldn't want them to overwrite anything, what can I do about it?

No, two scrapers don't work at the same time, but switching between them can cause hassles, and given you were bouncing back and forth during your test, it was hard to see what might have been causing the problems.

 don't know what to tell you about the NFO files.  You would have had to create them or have a program create them for you.  The log file indicated the show you were scraping had an nfo file, but if you don't know where it came from, I worry you were playing with something else at some point that created these without understanding what they are for.  I'm hesitant to give you any advice regarding your NFO files in case they are needed for your setup, but basically if you don't want to use them, you need to go into every show directory and delete any file that ends with .nfo.  Again, don't do this unless you are really, really, really sure you don't need them for some reason.

At this point, it's hard to tell what you have in your database and what you might have done during testing that is compounding things.  All I can really say is that the episode length is grabbed from The Movie Database and is used if the video file doesn't have that information in it's metadata for Kodi to grab from there.

[Andrea1998]

No, two scrapers don't work at the same time, but switching between them can cause hassles, and given you were bouncing back and forth during your test, it was hard to see what might have been causing the problems.

ok, I'm doing this test on a Windows test PC, so I uninstalled Kodi and reinstalled, and installed only this addon: TMDH helper jurialmunkey.

I inserted only one TV series in the video library, I scanned the series with "TMDb helper tv shows" python scraper.

Now everything he created is in the log. It should be pretty clean.

I don't know what to do beyond that, I hope I can solve the episode length problem.



Thank you very much for your help.



(Skin confluence, windows 10 on laptop)

[Karellen]

TMDH helper jurialmunkey

This is not a scraper. Why are you installing this?

[Andrea1998]

This is not a scraper. Why are you installing this?

Because it's the only addon that I can't do without, if it depends on it I'll have to keep the problem, but I don't think this addon is the cause.

It worked for me in the past (episode duration) and I had this addon installed, so it shouldn't depend on it.

Now I would just like that when I add a movie and a TV series, they are correctly scanned and that the right files are created if they need to be created.

This is why I can't understand the problem of the duration of the episodes, I was able to scrape it correctly some time ago, now for some reason I don't know why it is no longer taken.
I notice that it isn't actually recovered in the log file and I don't understand why.

[Hitcher]

Play one and see if the runtime changes to the correct length.

[Andrea1998]

Play one and see if the runtime changes to the correct length.

When I start any episode to play, the duration shows correctly in "Player.Duration()". The problem is that it doesn't show anything at all about the episode duration in "ListItem.Duration" (off playback, before starting the episode). if you also kindly add this TV series (She-Hulk: Attorney at Law), in the detailed Kodi log file, do you have the same results as me or are there additional entries, including the duration of each episode?
I would like to understand where the problem comes from.

Thanks for your help.

[Andrea1998]

@pkscout

Ok, I did a lot of tests, and I managed to understand where the problem originates from, I hope it can also help other users. Unfortunately, the NFO files are created by an addon that I use, and and that I didn't know could create NFO files.
I did a test by adding a TV series directly from the jurialmunkey TMDb helper addon to the library without going through this (my) addon, and the duration of the episodes is displayed correctly.

@pkscout based on what you told me, it crucial that "NFO files overwrite any information retrieved by the scraper", making the use of the scraper practically useless.
I can't help but create the NFO files because they are needed for this addon, so my question now is, can I somehow add or overwrite the information retrieved by the scraper to the NFO files, or bypass it somehow?
(or a method to ensure that the information is not taken from the NFO files (ignores them) and instead takes it from the scraper? )


Thank you for your important help.

[pkscout]

@pkscout based on what you told me, it crucial that "NFO files overwrite any information retrieved by the scraper", making the use of the scraper practically useless.
I can't help but create the NFO files because they are needed for this addon, so my question now is, can I somehow add or overwrite the information retrieved by the scraper to the NFO files, or bypass it somehow?
(or a method to ensure that the information is not taken from the NFO files (ignores them) and instead takes it from the scraper? )

You can't.  If you use NFO files, then you are stuck with what they provide.  I have no idea what addon there is that creates and requires NFO files, but as long as you use it and generate NFO files, that's the data you have.  NFO files override the scraper by design at the core of Kodi.  That's unlikely to change.

Your only choice is to go to the dev for that addon and ask them to add the duration.

[Andrea1998]

You can't.  If you use NFO files, then you are stuck with what they provide.  I have no idea what addon there is that creates and requires NFO files, but as long as you use it and generate NFO files, that's the data you have.  NFO files override the scraper by design at the core of Kodi.  That's unlikely to change.

Your only choice is to go to the dev for that addon and ask them to add the duration.

Thanks for your help, I will proceed as you told me.

I hope it can be useful for other users to know this too.

[HeresJohnny]

(...) I have no idea what addon there is that creates and requires NFO files (...)

I'm guessing it's the Metadata Editor add-on. The settings screen looks like this:



The problem is that although you can specify which scraper scheme to adhere to, you will run into trouble if you change your scraper later or if you use different scrapers for different shares. If you use that add-on and have unspecified problems, I recommend turning off all .nfo creation related settings in the add-on, recursively delete all .nfo files in your shares and then recreate them by using the built-in Kodi export function under Settings/Media.