đź“şGetting your Emby library scanned for new content in four ways.

· 5 min read

Running Emby en Radarr/Sonarr on different servers or in different container can be a pain in the ass to get your content scanned.

But it is much easier than you think if you know what’s going on inside the services. The TL;DR is keep your content path the same in EMBY and in Sonarr/Radarr. If you don’t keep them the same, you run into trouble.

First, I show two options when you can’t keep the paths the same (say you have a linux node running EMBY and a Windows (don’t mention it) node for Sonarr/Radarr. It’s obvious the paths will never be the same, as Linux will give you a PATH like below.

/home/user/video/movies/Your Old Movie (1921)/Your.Old.Movie.1921.Remux-2160p.mkv

Where Windows (sh*t have to mention it again) will give you a path

D:\data\video\movies\Your Old Movie (1921)\Your.Old.Movie.1921.Remux-2160p.mkv

The slashed only (Linux forward slash / and Windows a backslash \ ) already makes this a problem.

Then I will show you two options if you can the PATHs the same. This can be done when:

  1. You run all your software on one node, therefor the content PATHs in EMBY en Sonarr/Radarr will be the same (Obviously)
  2. When you run multiple nodes of the SAME OS and run the services (EMBY, Sonarr, Radarr) in DOCKER, and therefore you can keep the PATHs the same inside your docker containers.
  3. When you run multiple nodes of THE SAME OS (for EMBY, Sonarr and Radarr) and store the content on the same network share (a third node) via Radarr/Sonarr and EMBY will scan the content on that same third node.

Option 1 different paths (you can’t keep the paths the same)

This method triggers a complete library scan. This work fine but is suboptimal. When your library is large, or you frequently trigger the library scan, it will have an impact on EMBY.

  curl -X POST "${EMBY_HOST}/Emby/Library/Refresh?api_key=${EMBY_APIKEY}" --data ""

Where:

EMBY_HOST = http:/192.168.1.1:0896 or https://www.yourdoamin.com:443

EMBY_APIKEY = XXXXXXYYYYYZZZZZZ

Option 2 different paths (you can’t keep the paths the same)

This method tiggers a scan for a certain library in your collection (EMBY_PARENT_ID). The advance to the pervious option is that you only trigger one collection in the library. The downside is you have to fiddle around with the EMBY_PARENT_ID. These can be obtained from the URL when you open the collection in EMBY.

curl -X POST "${EMBY_URL}/emby/Items/${EMBY_PARENT_ID}/Refresh?Recursive=true&MetadataRefreshMode=Default&ImageRefreshMode=Default&ReplaceAllMetadata=false&ReplaceAllImages=false&api_key=${EMBY_APIKEY}" -H "accept: */*" -d “”

Where:

EMBY_HOST = http:/192.168.1.1:0896 or https://www.yourdoamin.com:443

EMBY_APIKEY = XXXXXXYYYYYZZZZZZ 

EMBY_PARENT_ID = 12

Option 3 Same paths (you can keep the path in *arr equal to the path in EMBY)

This is the simplest to configure the default trigger in Sonarr/Radarr

Option 4 Same paths (you can keep the path in *arr equal to the path in EMBY)

This method tiggers a scan for a certain library in your collection. The advance to the pervious option is that you add your own logic to the scan. The other advance is that you can fill-out Path and UpdateType from the environment variables in Linux (or your container)

  curl -X POST "${EMBY_URL}/emby/Library/Media/Updated?api_key=${EMBY_APIKEY}" -H "accept: */*" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\"Updates\":[{\"Path\":\"${Path}\",\"UpdateType\":\"${UpdateType}\"}]}"

Where:

EMBY_HOST = http:/192.168.1.1:0896 or https://www.yourdoamin.com:443

EMBY_APIKEY = XXXXXXYYYYYZZZZZZ 

Path = /movies/Old Movie, The (1921)/The.Old.Movie.1921.Bluray-2160p.mkv

UpdateType = [ Created | Modified | Deleted ] (optional)

Here is an example script I use for Radarr and Sonarr. I like separate scripts for Radarr and Sonarr, but you easily merge them and create one script for both Radarr and Sonarr.

Radarr

#!/bin/bash

NOW=$(date +"%d-%m-%Y %H:%M")
LOG_FILE="/logging/radarr/emby_scan.txt"
TMP_FILE="/tmp/tmp_emby_radarr.txt"
DL_FILE="/scripts/dl_radarr.txt"
DEL_FILE="/scripts/del_radarr.txt"
REN_FILE="/scripts/ren_radarr.txt"
EMBY_URL="https://emby.yourdomain.com"
EMBY_RADARR_APIKEY="xxxyyyyyzzz"

if [ "${radarr_eventtype}" != "" ]; then
  if [ "${radarr_eventtype}" == "ApplicationUpdate" ] || [ "${radarr_eventtype}" == "MovieAdded" ] || [ "${radarr_eventtype}" == "Grab" ] || [ "${radarr_eventtype}" == "HealthIssue" ] || [ "${radarr_eventtype}" == "Test" ]; then
    (echo "${NOW} - [Emby Library Scan] Radarr Event Type is ${radarr_eventtype}, exiting."; cat ${LOG_FILE}) > ${TMP_FILE}; mv ${TMP_FILE} ${LOG_FILE}
    exit
  fi
  
  (echo "${NOW} - [Emby Library Scan] Radarr Event Type is ${radarr_eventtype}, updating Emby Library for ${radarr_movie_title}."; cat ${LOG_FILE}) > ${TMP_FILE}; mv ${TMP_FILE} ${LOG_FILE}
  
  if [ "$radarr_eventtype" == "Download" ]; then
    echo "${radarr_movie_title} (${radarr_movie_year})" >> ${DL_FILE}
    UpdateType="Created"
    Path="${radarr_movie_path}"
  fi
  
  if [ "${radarr_eventtype}" == "MovieDelete" ]; then
    echo "${radarr_movie_title} (${radarr_movie_year})" >> ${DEL_FILE}
    UpdateType="Deleted"
    Path="${radarr_movie_path}"
  fi
  
  if [ "$radarr_eventtype" == "Rename" ]; then
    echo "${radarr_movie_title} (${radarr_movie_year})" >> ${REN_FILE}
    UpdateType="Modified"
    Path="${radarr_movie_path}"
  fi
 
  curl -X POST "${EMBY_URL}/emby/Library/Media/Updated?api_key=${EMBY_RADARR_APIKEY}" -H "accept: */*" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\"Updates\":[{\"Path\":\"${Path}\",\"UpdateType\":\"${UpdateType}\"}]}"
  
else
  (echo "${NOW} - [Emby Library Scan] Radarr Event Type is empty."; cat ${LOG_FILE}) > ${TMP_FILE}; mv ${TMP_FILE} ${LOG_FILE}

fi

# write a status file with date of last run.  Helps troubleshoot that cron task is running.
echo "$(basename $0) last run was at $(date)" > /logging/radarr/_$(basename $0)_lastrun.txt

Sonarr

#!/bin/bash

NOW=$(date +"%d-%m-%Y %H:%M")
LOG_FILE="/logging/sonarr/emby_scan.txt"
TMP_FILE="/tmp/tmp_emby_sonarr.txt"
DL_FILE="/scripts/dl_sonarr.txt"
DEL_FILE="/scripts/del_sonarr.txt"
REN_FILE="/scripts/ren_sonarr.txt"
EMBY_URL="https://emby.yourdomain.com"
EMBY_SONARR_APIKEY="zzzzzyyyyyxxxxx"

if [ "${sonarr_eventtype}" != "" ]; then
  if [ "${sonarr_eventtype}" == "ApplicationUpdate" ] || [ "${sonarr_eventtype}" == "Grab" ] || [ "${sonarr_eventtype}" == "HealthIssue" ] || [ "${sonarr_eventtype}" == "Test" ]; then
    (echo "${NOW} - [Emby Library Scan] Sonarr Event Type is ${sonarr_eventtype}, exiting."; cat ${LOG_FILE}) > ${TMP_FILE}; mv ${TMP_FILE} ${LOG_FILE}
    exit
  fi
  
  (echo "${NOW} - [Emby Library Scan] Sonarr Event Type is ${sonarr_eventtype}, updating Emby Library for ${sonarr_series_title} - ${sonarr_episodefile_episodetitles}."; cat ${LOG_FILE}) > ${TMP_FILE}; mv ${TMP_FILE} ${LOG_FILE}
  
  if [ "$sonarr_eventtype" == "Download" ];  then
    echo "${sonarr_series_title} - ${sonarr_episodefile_episodetitles}" >> ${DL_FILE}
    UpdateType="Created"
    Path="${sonarr_episodefile_path}"
  fi
  
  if [ "$sonarr_eventtype" == "EpisodeFileDelete" ];  then
    echo "${sonarr_series_title} - ${sonarr_episodefile_episodetitles}" >> ${DEL_FILE}
    UpdateType="Deleted"
    Path="${sonarr_episodefile_path}"
  fi
  
  if [ "$sonarr_eventtype" == "SeriesDelete" ];  then
    echo "${sonarr_series_title}" >> ${DEL_FILE}
    UpdateType="Deleted"
    Path="${sonarr_series_path}"
  fi
  
  if [ "$sonarr_eventtype" == "Rename" ]; then
    echo "${sonarr_series_title}" >> ${REN_FILE}
    UpdateType="Modified"
    Path="${sonarr_series_path}"
  fi
    
  curl -X POST "${EMBY_URL}/emby/Library/Media/Updated?api_key=${EMBY_SONARR_APIKEY}" -H "accept: */*" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\"Updates\":[{\"Path\":\"${Path}\",\"UpdateType\":\"${UpdateType}\"}]}"
  
else
  (echo "${NOW} - [Emby Library Scan] Sonarr Event Type is empty."; cat ${LOG_FILE}) > ${TMP_FILE}; mv ${TMP_FILE} ${LOG_FILE}
  
fi

# write a status file with date of last run.  Helps troubleshoot that cron task is running.
echo "$(basename $0) last run was at $(date)" > /logging/sonarr/_$(basename $0)_lastrun.txt

These scripts also maintain lists of the content names, so they can be used in reporting or notification. You can, of course, strip these.

I run these scripts in the Connect section in Radarr/Sonarr.