A replacement file does not appear on my device

I have been a regular user of Servio for several years and would highly recommend it. I was recently surprised to find that I was unable to view a new video file on my device. The circumstances leading up to this were rather unusual and may provide a clue to solving this problem:

I had an earlier copy of this film in my computer video library, which appeared on my device and played as expected. The recording quality was poor and I had the opportunity to replace it with a better quality recording:

From the computer I deleted the original file from the folder and pasted in the replacement. When I later came to view this on my Sony TV the item did not appear in the folder list , and coincidentally a new folder appeared at the top called "Recycle". I opened the Recycle folder and it contained a coded, name file. When I opened this, it played the missing video. I assumed the missing file problem had arisen because I had deleted and replaced the original file with an identical one. (Same title and video file type - mp4). From the computer I deleted the coded file from the "Recycle" folder and renamed the replacement file, "Test", so as to avoid any conflict. When I checked the Servio Console it flashed up the message that "Test" had been added. but this still did not appear in the TV list. The video missing from the TV list remains in the computer file and can be played satisfactorily on the PC monitor.

In an attempt to reconstruct the Servio cache, I uninstalled and reinstalled Servio. My video library was successfully reinstated but the problem file still did not appear on the TV listing.

More recently I have added other videos to my library which appear on the TV lists as expected.

Any help would be appreciated

Handygrandad

[atc98092]

This is most likely because your media location is the root of the drive (such as f:\), with no initial folder. As you noted, Windows creates a recycle folder at the root of each drive, and that's where your "deleted" video is actually stored. I had this same issue with some files.

So, I recommend that you create a folder at the root of the drive. Call it Videos or whatever you want. Then move your media from the root to the folder. Since the transfer is happening on the same drive, nothing actually moves, only the pointer to the file changes, so it's really fast. Then change the Serviio library location to be the new folder. It will take a little time to rebuild the database, depending on the number of files, but you won't have an issue with deleted files appeared anymore.

Hi Dan, Thanks for the prompt reply. I successfully followed all your instructions which has resolved part of the problem ..... ..... ...

But the file still does not appear on my device:

I checked for the replacement file . It was in my computer folder as before, but still did not appear on my device !!

On the computer I opened a file browser with the Servio Console window alongside. I "moved" the file from the folder to the desktop and back again. These actions were comfirmed by the pop up notification from Servio. I checked on the device, but still the file did not appear.

I repeated the exercise but changed the name of the file to "Test" before replacing it in the folder. Again these actions were confirmed in the Servio pop ups. When I checked on my device, "Test" did not appear in the list.

Just to confirm, I have added new video files since this problem arose and all have apppeared and played as expected.

To summarise: The file appears on my computer. Servio confirms the file has been added to it's database. The file does not appear on my device (Sony smart TV)

I have now reached the limits of my technical knowledge and imagination ..... ..... ..... Any help would be appreciated.

Handygrandad

[atc98092]

OK, next check. Instead of looking for the title, go into the Folders view and browse to the file in question. If it appears there, then it's a matter of the file not gathering accurate online metadata, either because the file isn't named correctly or there's no match available in the online databases.

And you have confirmed the file isn't corrupted, correct? It can be played, then good. If it can't play, that would explain why it doesn't appear, as Serviio doesn't recognize it as a playable file.

Can you post the file contents here, so we can ensure what codecs are in use? There's a link in my sig line that explains how to get the file information.

Hi Dan. Thank you again for your prompt reply. I have made an attempt at following your subsequent instructions and those on the Wiki link, but with no success. I'm afraid the instructions assume a level of knowledge/experience that I do not have , and despite taking, the risk, and trying various imagined possibilities, I am not achieving anything.

Whilst discussing this issue with you I have remembered how I sourced this file, which might give a clue to the solution. I have a TV card installed and the video was a BBC TV broadcast which I recorded through the Windows Media Center as a .wtv file. I then edited the video in software called "Video Redo" to top and tail it. I trans coded it, saving it as an mp4 file. Finally I checked it would play, and was of better quality than the original video recording which I had recorded some years previously. The earlier version, now deleted, appeared in my device listing as expected.

I'm guessing that the problem may arise because of the method I used to acquire the recording, although I have other files that I acquired and edited in the same way without a problem.

I guess I just have to accept that this is one video that I can only view on my PC monitor.

A little disappointed , I really rate Servio. I have a large video library and have not had a single problem in five years ..... ..... Cest la vie.

Thank you for your time

Handygrandad

[atc98092]

Well, I'm basically stumped. But I don't think it has anything to do with the way you got the file. I used Windows Media Center for OTA recording for years, also using VideoReDo to remove the commercials. Before Roku added MPEG-2 support, and before I got my first Nvidia Shield, I transcoded the videos (with VideoReDo) to the MKV container and H.264 video. Since Microsoft dropped WMC support for Windows 10, I've moved to J River Media Center for my OTA recordings. It saves the files in the TS container, and since I don't need to convert them to H.264 I just remove the commercials and leave them in MPEG-2 and the TS container. Saves a lot of time.

All that to say I have gobs of OTA recordings from my WMC days, and haven't seen that particular issue. All I can think of is there's something messed up in your database. And if that's the case, the only solution is to remove Serviio, reboot, and install a clean Serviio. I've done this on occasion, so it's not really difficult or time consuming. I know you said you did that in your original post. But I believe you did that before you modified your video folder configuration, so another attempt should clear things up. But hey, I'm just another old man here offering advice.

One other thing you could try with the suspect video it to recode it again. There's a program called tsMuxeR (https://www.videohelp.com/software/tsMuxeR) that can take your video and simply remux it into another container. It also has a few neat tricks like reordering the audio tracks, as well as others. You might give it a try and see if it suddenly appears as a TS or MKV container.

Hi Dan, It's 1.15am here in the UK ...... and I'm back out of bed, because I had an idea ....... ...... ...... and it worked !!

I dropped the mp4 file back into VideoReDo and transcoded it back to a wtv file. Dropped it back into my video library along side the original mp4 problem file..... .... ....

Turned on the TV in the lounge, and the .wtv version appeared ..... ..... while the mp4 one still didn't show.

So, something to do with trans coding the file from wtv to mp4 made the mp4 file invisible to the device.

Off to bed now .....

Thanks for sticking with me

Best wishes
Handygrandad

[atc98092]

Perfect. That probably means my tsMuxeR idea would have worked as well. As long as it's working, that's the important thing.