[Spall]

Hi all,

I've migrated to a new player for my living room. Long story, but the short is my server took a bath a year ago. That's where my database was stored. I have been doing stuff with a local db on a different player for a while.

So now I'm migrated and hooked back in to my old SQL db and a lot of my artwork is missing. I've read numerous threads that talk about using addons that are unfortunately now deprecated or threads that point to missing pages.

What's my best bet here to retain my watched state, but restore artwork? I know I could go title by title, but there has to be a method that also retains my sanity.
Related to that, should I be storing artwork locally instead? If so, what's the best practice to migrate to that? I've historically just stored only movie files. I normally dislike the clutter of .nfo and a bunch of art, but if it's a better way to go I could get over it.

Thanks!
-S

[Karellen]

Related to that, should I be storing artwork locally instead?

YES, YES, YES!!!
Did I emphasize that enough?
Artwork links should be treated as having an expiry date. You scrape a movie with artwork today, next year some of that artwork may have been deleted from the servers and no longer available, which means the links in the Kodi database are now useless. So the next time you need to rebuild the Kodi library the links don't work and you get no artwork.

What's my best bet here to retain my watched state, but restore artwork?

Two options...
1. Export to nfo files and it will be preserved there. But before rescanning these back into the library, you need to put in place the local artwork.
or
2. Use the WatchedList addon from the Kodi repository. It will backup your play count and watched status.
Then you can rescrape the titles to get new artwork.
Use Artwork Dump to download the new artwork immediately after the scrape, so it is saved locally,
Let WatchedList run to reinstate the playcounts.
You will lose User Ratings, so if it is important to you, make a note of them.
Also get into the habit of exporting to separate files regularly (don't export artwork when asked) and your next disaster will be a non-event because you have your artwork and nfo files locally.

As an example, a couple of weeks ago I updated to v21 using a fresh install. I had my entire library back up and running in under an hour because of my local artwork and nfo files.

but if it's a better way to go I could get over it.

Yes, you better get over it

[Spall]

Thanks for the quick, impassioned response!

So I thought I'd give method two a try. However, WatchedList is running through TV episodes with some message like: Show X has no tvdb number. Cannot be processed with WL. Try rescraping.   << on every single entry.

So I'm at a loss there.

[Karellen]

So I thought I'd give method two a try. However, WatchedList is running through TV episodes with some message like: Show X has no tvdb number. Cannot be processed with WL. Try rescraping.   << on every single entry.

Yep, that is a problem and means those items are not backed up.
WatchedList has a difficult task. It has to backup data, then reapply it to the correct movies, tv shows and episodes. Can't use any database line numbers because line numbers change every time you rebuild your library. The Boys may be tv show #7 in your database today. You rebuild your library and it may be #363.
The only way to overcome this is to use scraped ID's. Movies use IMDB ID's and TV Shows/Episodes use TVDB ID's.
If they are not present in your database, then the entries are ignored.

My next question is why they are not present in your setup? How did you add these movies / tv shows to your library? Are they old entries that have been in your library for years?

[Spall]

In some case, yeah, they have been around for years.

All my files are stored on a server and accessed via SMB and my database is stored in a MySQL database running in a docker container running on the same server. When I get a new disc, it gets ripped into a .mkv and thrown on the server. Kodi will pick it up on the next library update. My files are stored like this:

Server
  |--Movies
        |--Seven Samurai (1954)
              |--Seven Samurai.1954.bluray.mkv

etc etc.   

There is normally nothing else in that folder with the exception of an occasional .nfo file if I want to force some stuff into a particular set that is outside what TMDB likes. I have never stored anything else in there because, one, I find it distracting/messy and, two, I don't wanna slow down disk I/O or cause multiple disk spin ups if that data happens to get stored across multiple drives in the array.

When I had my server accident I had been on Leia on an Intel NUC. Life got away from me and I just now decided to hook back in on this new machine and update to Nexus. Kodi, on first boot, migrated the db as normal, pulled the whole library, and here I am in this situation. So my database is really a snapshot from around May of 2022. I normally use TMDB for film and TheTVDB for television. I have been running this way for well over a decade and never encountered this problem.

What makes this weirder is I decided to install Kodi on my desktop system for ease of work if I have some maintenance to do, and the behavior is different a bit. I have a ton of stuff that doesn't have artwork, but some stuff that is missing artwork on the new player does have artwork on my desktop. I can't explain that.