Movies no longer scraping (MC gen2 3.317)

Hi all, firstly I wanted to congratulate the developer(s?) of this fine program. I've been using Media Companion to create .nfo files and associated media content for all of my TV Shows and Movies for about 6 months.

The media files are all located on a Windows Home Server in my local network and Media Companion is run from my Windows 7 x64 Pro computer. I've had no problems (except for the occasional badly named folder, incorrect lookup etc) with MC so far.

However recently I experienced an unusual "error" (no error message popped up) in "MC gen2 3.296": certain movies in a recent batch I added to my server would NOT for any lack of trying (rebuilding, drag and dropping, renaming folders to exactly match IMDB title), be added to the movie list/scraped.

I upgraded to the newest release on the forums hoping this would fix the issue but no luck (MC gen2 3.317).

I noticed this problem with Hostel Part II, made sure it was named properly according to IMDB but still no luck. I've also noticed this with Friday the 13th Parts 1-4 (all named for their correct titles). Weird thing is that the original (1980 one) scrapes fine... and is in the same sub-folder.

E.G. Note: some preceding dir's have been deleted for privacy. Don't worry, they're not the cause of the problem.

Code:

0 New movies found in directory:- \Friday the 13th (Original) Collection

0 New movies found in directory:- \Friday the 13th (Original) Collection\Friday the 13th (1980)

0 New movies found in directory:- \Friday the 13th (Original) Collection\Friday the 13th (1980)\.actors

0 New movies found in directory:- \Friday the 13th (Original) Collection\Friday the 13th Part 2

0 New movies found in directory:- \Friday the 13th (Original) Collection\Friday the 13th Part III

0 New movies found in directory:- \Friday the 13th (Original) Collection\Friday the 13th The Final Chapter

0 New movies found in directory:- \Hostel Part II

0 Movies found in all folders
Obtaining Title for each movie found, from path and filename

Starting Main Scraper Process

The thing is, each folder that supposedly has "0 New movies" has an actual .avi of the movie in it.

If you require any extra information then please tell me and I'll provide it ASAP. Any ideas on why this is happening now, after having such a good run? Is it possible that the scraper that MC is using is down or something?

Here's a link to my Movie Preferences: http://ocau.com/pix/op64r

I don't use folder names to define my movies so I have little experience with that scenario....

However I would suggest you try creating a fresh install of MC in a new directory such as c:\MC

Then create a new folder for your movies such as c:\movies

Then add that folder to MC preferences & place a copy or dummy avi in your movies folder...

(A dummy avi is just say a new text document renamed with the movie name & extension .avi so that MC sees it as a movie)

Name the movie as it would be on IMDB, make sure the use folder names in the preferences is turned off at this stage & see if this instance of MC can see that movie.

If it does then change the path & name of the movie as you have above, remove all the created nfo's & tbns etc & rebuild MC so that the movie should be removed. Set the preferences to use folder names now & then rescrape again to see if it can see it.

Basically its a process of going back to the basics & then working forward. With that information hopefully you will be able to work out where the issue is...

Cheers

Thanks for the reply. I uninstalled the previous MC and installed a fresh one. Then I made the dummy folders and AVI's on my desktop with the following names:

C:\Users\XXX\Desktop\movies\Friday the 13th Part 2
C:\Users\XXX\Desktop\movies\Friday the 13th Part III

Friday the 13th Part III was scraped perfectly fine but Part 2 was not. The dummy AVI's were named in the exact same way as the folders.

C:\Users\XXXX\Desktop\movies\Hostel Part II

Hostel Part II was also scraped without any problem (it wasn't recognised previously).

Is there any way of looking up how MC would like me to name Friday the 13th Part 2?

Thanks again.

PS. This is with completely default settings in MC.

PPS. BTW, Friday the 13th Part 2 doesn't show up with either use folder name or not.

OK, the workaround that I used was to:

Delete my current MC install folder.
Install a new version of MC.
Create a dummy movie folder with dummy movie folders for each affected movie containing dummy avi files with the exact name of the movie/folder.
I named the dummy movie/folder according to the IMDB name which let me add most of the movies that were not being scraped.

However, Friday the 13th Part 2 was still giving me headaches.
SO...what I did to add this one was:
Selected one of the movies that added to MC in the movie main browser...
Clicked Change Movie...
After backing up the MC files in that movie folder (e.g. tbn, nfo etc)...
Browsed to Friday the 13th Part 2 on the IMDB website and clicked GO...
Thus changing the movie I had selected's nfo and associated MC files into Friday the 13th Part 2...
Then all I had to do was move those files to the Friday the 13th Part 2 dir and rename them to match the actual movie file.

Then I just got rid of the dummy folders, moved all the new nfo's that they had allowed me to create into each of the real movie folders and renamed them as above.

Start up MC, re-add all of the real movie folder dirs and then all of the movies that weren't scraping now appear.

Thanks for the help . Hope this can help someone in the future.

No worries Mate!

People have reported similar problems before and I have been unable to find either a cause or a fix.

The cause is not the filename - MC is searching the folder, but is just not seeing the media file as is shown by the log.

When searching for media, MC uses simple wildcard searches,
eg
*.avi
*.mkv
etc
So as long as it can find the folder - which the log says it is, it should see the movie.

There seems to be some kind of fixed limit on either the number of files or folders on either routers or NAS devices that limits the capability of .NETs search or maybe even a .NET issue although I doubt the latter since not everyone experiences the issue.
Once this limit has been reached - any further movies added seem to be ignored.
This limit seems to be different for people and I do seem to remember fixing it by altering some setting in his NAS or router but I cant remember the details.

I wish I could help further, the substitution method you are using must be a pain. If you do discover a solution then please let us know.

billyad2000 wrote:

There seems to be some kind of fixed limit on either the number of files or folders on either routers or NAS devices that limits the capability of .NETs search or maybe even a .NET issue although I doubt the latter since not everyone experiences the issue.
Once this limit has been reached - any further movies added seem to be ignored.
This limit seems to be different for people and I do seem to remember fixing it by altering some setting in his NAS or router but I cant remember the details.

Hi Billy, thanks for the clarification on how MC looks up movies. I'm not 100% on the limit being the cause though, because I've since added about 150 movies to the server and they were scraped without a problem. Very strange problem, I'm hoping it was just a random glitch but I will provide more information if it happens again. Cheers!

I was having the same problem with Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2 but I figured out the problem. I think MC is treating Part 2 in the same was as it does CD2 in single movies that are split over 2 files and basically ignoring them. The work around was to name the file Part II (roman numerals) the metadata will still use the proper format as per imdb, but MC now finds the file.

This would explain why the OP was able to scrape Friday the Thirteenth Part III but not Part 2.