Serviio

I cannot find a way to stop Serviio refreshing everytime I restart my PC. Can this be done. It slows everything down for ages while it does the work even though I know nothing has changed. Is there a way to prevent this from happening please.

Planned for next release (subject to testing etc) - see: https://bitbucket.org/xnejp03/serviio/i ... startup-if.

Thank you very much for the prompt response - great software.

I don't understand the problem here. I have used Serviio for years and have never had a library refresh at start up simply because I unclick the blue spinner on my folders once they have been scanned, and I only enable them individually and click save when I want them updated. Could someone explain this propsed/requested change?

Hi jhb50

Not sure why this works for you - if I disable all blue spinners on all my shared folders, plus disable "Keep Library Automatically refreshed" and disable "Search for updates to currently Shared folders" I still get a Library Scan on restarting the Windows service. Cant think of why your version would act differently - are you on 1.4.1.2 and what OS are you on?

Imo users shouldn't have to uncheck the blue spinners in any case. I believe that if you uncheck "Keep Library Automatically refreshed" then you are telling Serviio not to scan automatically, and therefore that you only want a scan to occur when you manually Force Refresh - that would be how I'd intuitively expect it to work. The blue spinners in my view should define which folders to include in a scan (irrespective of whether the scan is auto or manual), but its the overall "Keep Library Automatically refreshed" that defines whether Serviio should scan on its own.

I am hoping that the next release allows you to:

• enable/disable automatic scanning based on file system changes (the new feature); plus
• enable/disable automatic scanning based on timer - I think this needs to be in addition to the above as there are some drives types that cannot be automated (NAS's etc); plus
• independently enable/disable scanning on startup. With automatic scanning based on file system changes one could argue that this startup scan needs to occur in order to update the library based on any changes while Serviio was off. I hope zip leaves it to the user - some users who have dismounted drives or drives that are slow to connect may not want this scan. For my setup I'd rather not have the initial scan, but still have automatic refreshing, but have any changes made while Serviio was off (which in my case, Serviio is on if the PC is on, so there shouldn't be any changes) picked up via a manual refresh or via the timer scan (I have mine set for 24 hours as a catch-all and use automatic refreshing via my WinHelper tool at the moment and this works well)

I disable all blue spinners on all my shared folders, plus disable "Keep Library Automatically refreshed" and "Search for updates to currently Shared folders" is enabled.
Over the past 2 months I have added a dozen video clips to one of my shared folders, but despite multiple restarts of Serviio ( test a lot of on-line stuff) none have been added to the Serviio shared library. I am on latest 1.4.1.2 under W7-64. I leave a folder blue spinner checked it will be updated. One of the reasons I have this setup is that some of my libraries are external drives, and if I leave then checked and they are disconnected the data is lost and I must rescan when I reconnect them. By leaving them unchecked I can plug and unplug without impacting Serviio's data.

What does the log show after a restart. This is what I have been looking at and you can see it run the library update thread. I wonder if it's running the thread, but skipping each folder as far as additions at least.

I'll do some more testing but I remember doing this to test what happens with a disconnected USB drive and yes, all entries were removed from the library even if the blue spinners were disabled and the "Keep Library automatically refreshed" was disabled (like you I kept the updates to current shared folders enabled).

yes, mine works as I explained above and exactly as documented in http://wiki.serviio.org/doku.php?id=ser ... _explained

Here is sequence for refreshing external drive P which has not been plugged in for months.
When plugged in all previously scanned files displayed in Serviio (ie: it was never rescanned at start up which would have deleted them)
After enabling P scan, Force refresh generated many update messages. No similar messages were generated at Serviio restart (ie: there was no initial Serviio reboot scan)
Refresh of MediaBrowser displays current structure of files on P drive
Conclusion: Works as documented in http://wiki.serviio.org/doku.php?id=ser ... _explained

Ok, this is either something out of the twilight zone or I'm going senile... probably the latter.

The story so far - a few months ago I developed my WinHelper tool (which already uses the Windows OS to detect changes to files, and trigger a refresh) to:

• check whether the shared folder exists before triggering a scan of that folder;
• check/uncheck the blue spinner based on whether the folder exists.

The intent was to cater for removable drives - if the drive was removed then prior to refreshing WinHelper would detect that and the corresponding blue spinner would be unchecked, and it would be excluded from the scan. All this was working - but it failed because on testing of the server start-up, Serviio would do the start-up scan irrespective of how I set the spinners or the "Keep automatically updated ". I tested this as I really needed my tool to work for this .... however, in the last few days as a result of this post I have tested again and find it is behaving exactly as you have stated????!! I'm trying to recall whether I simply relied on the log file stating that the library was being refreshed... I didn't think I did but maybe.... its a while ago now.

So I have to concede you have it correct as far as the blue spinners. I am going to fire up the code I added to my WinHelper tool over the next week or so and get that up and running again as even though I think the next release of Serviio will include automatic refreshes based on file system changes, I haven't seen anything to suggest it will cater for removable drives.

However I disagree with your statement "Works as documented". In the reference wiki document, the green idea (light bulb) is correct, but that document states that "The Green box is the section that make Serviio update the library all on its own 'automatic update'. If you untick this box the library won't update till you click 'Force refresh' button. Serviio only checks for new additions/updates in folders that have this feature enabled (see orange box)." That is not correct - the green box is ignored for the purposes of the startup scan ie. the startup scan still occurs - you have used the spinners though to tell Serviio not to scan a particular folder - in your case all folders. So the bit about "the library won't update till you click 'Force refresh' button" is also incorrect - that relies on both this section and the spinners being unchecked.

Anyway - this is all a moot point (other than I can re-visit my WinHelper enhancement) as zip is addressing the start-up scan in the next release.

OK, I can't comment on the autoscan since I don't use it. Perhaps bug fixes account for the way it works now vs what you tested previously.
However, I'm now a bit concerned about what Zip is doing for the next release especially if it is based on the way you thought the startup scan worked regardless.
I just want it to work the way it does for me now.

I think it will - probably best for zip to fill in the blanks - but my reading is all that will happen is if you don't enable "Keep library automatically updated" then Serviio:

• won't perform any automatic scans, either timer based or triggered by the OS on detecting a file system change (the new feature);
• won't do any scan on start-up unless required by the installation package (this "unless" part is necessary on the rare occasion the library structure changes between versions - I think 1.3 was a case of this)

This should be the case irrespective of how the blue spinners are set. I'd love it if Serviio also detected that the shared folder was mounted/available before scanning (and not scan if it isn't) but that's not on the drawing board afaik... hence I am trying to do this in WinHelper.