Questions about “LOCAL ONLY” media files using .nfo files

Posted on Author Kodi Community Forum - All Forums

Greetings!

I enjoy archiving certain motorsports events..

Let’s take the recent Dakar Rally, for instance.

I end up with 13 episodes and various “special” interest files of various sorts.. There’s no valid data on thetvdb, so I create a “tvshowslocaldataonly” directory. Set Kodi appropriately, the directory contents are TV Shows, no scraper, local .nfo only.

Okay so far. Now I want to create .nfo files, thumbnails and fan art, etc.. That’s all pretty straight forward.

My questions:

1) If I MIX SEASONS in one directory as I often see it, what goes in tvshow.info in terms of tags that relate to season – just leave them out? How would I invoke a “season summary”, should I keep every year as it’s own season vs. trying to list it as it is, the 38th running of the Dakar Rally (aka season 38)..

2) My info files for this show aren’t taking, and I’m sort of stumped as to why not..

My .nfo file looks like this:

Code:
<episodedetails>
    <showtitle>Stage 1: Eurosport</showtitle>
    <rating>10.000000</rating>
    <epbookmark>0.000000</epbookmark>
    <year>38</year>
    <top250>0</top250>
    <season>38</season>
    <episode>3</episode>
    <uniqueid></uniqueid>
    <displayseason>38</displayseason>
    <displayepisode>3</displayepisode>
    <plot>
The 2017 Dakar Rally was the 38th edition of the event and the ninth successive year that the event was held in South America.  The event started in Asunción, Paraguay on January 2, then ran through Bolivia and Argentina, before returning to Buenos Aires on January 14 after 12 stages of competition.  This year saw the introduction of the new UTV category.

Stage 1: Eurosport
</plot>
</episodedetails>

When I scan this directory, it “APPEARS” to be working, but then I get nothing in the media database at all, not even an empty TV show.

My CURRENT directory structure is:

$NFS_SERVER:/TV Shows_localdataonly/Dakar Rally/Dakar Rally 2017 (season 38)

All files in bottom dir, “Dakar Rally/Dakar Rally 2017 (season 38)” has all my .nfo, thumbs and fan art..

The LOG FILES (raspberry pi, shared mysql backend) show certain oddities:

Code:
21:20:02 5458.646973 T:1675768896 WARNING: Process directory 'nfs://192.168.100.100/nas/media/Movies/TV Shows_localdataonly/Dakar Rally/Dakar Rally 2017 (season 38)/Dakar.2017.Stage01.Highlights.Red.Bull.Sat.Feed.1080i.H264.English.m4v/' does not exist - skipping scan.
21:20:02 5458.647461 T:1675768896 WARNING: Process directory 'nfs://192.168.100.100/nas/media/Movies/TV Shows_localdataonly/Dakar Rally/Dakar Rally 2017 (season 38)/Dakar.2017.Stage01.Highlights.Sat.Feed.1080i.H264.English.Russian.m4v/' does not exist - skipping scan.

and:

Code:
21:20:01 5457.881348 T:1675768896   ERROR: VideoInfoScanner: Asked to lookup episode nfs://192.168.100.100/nas/media/Movies/TV Shows_localdataonly/Dakar Rally/Dakar Rally 2017 (season 38)/Dakar.2017.Stage01.Highlights.Sat.Feed.1080i.H264.English.Russian.m4v online, but we have no episode guide. Check your tvshow.nfo and make sure the <episodeguide> tag is in place.

Why are we looking for DIRECTORY in the name of the show?

Why, despite setting “content” to local info only, is something saying “Asked to lookup episode”.. No, LOCAL FILES ONLY, PLEASE..

I begin to think I need to put everything in it’s own directory (show/thumb/nfo), and that CANNOT have an “empty” (nothing but other directories is “empty” to kodi?)..

Anyway, I’m wondering how other folks have dealt with this..

At this point I can get some random stuff to show up in my data base once and a while. Episode 17, with no title, but nothing else.

Episode 17’s .nfo file is just like all the rest…

Code:
[etimberl@koti:/Volumes/movies/TV Shows_localdataonly/Dakar Rally/Dakar Rally 2017 (season 38)]% cat Dakar.2017.Stage07.Highlights.Red.Bull.Sat.Feed.1080i.H264.English.nfo
<episodedetails>
    <showtitle>Stage 7: Red Bull</showtitle>
    <rating>10.000000</rating>
    <epbookmark>0.000000</epbookmark>
    <year>38</year>
    <top250>0</top250>
    <season>38</season>
    <episode>17</episode>
    <uniqueid></uniqueid>
    <displayseason>38</displayseason>
    <displayepisode>17</displayepisode>
    <plot>The 2017 Dakar Rally was the 38th edition of the event and the ninth successive year that the event was held in South America.  The event started in Asunción, Paraguay on January 2, then ran through Bolivia and Argentina, before returning to Buenos Aires on January 14 after 12 stages of competition.  This year saw the introduction of the new UTV category.

Stage 7 "Red Bull Daily" version of events....
    </plot>
</episodedetails>

Apologies if this seems a little scattered.. I just think I SHOULD be able to do this in a straight forward fashion, but something is sort of hampering me and I’m having a difficult time figuring what I am doing incorrectly..

Thanks so much for your time!

Sincerely,

-ET-