Custom (3D) Filter disappeared from menu editor (1 Viewer)

[sHiKoRa]

I created a custom filter for my 3D movies (screenshot#1). After I added the filter it shows up nicely in MP (screenshot#2), and works great. Unfortunately I can't edit the filter anymore because it disappeared from the menu editor (screenshot#3). Maybe it's a small issue which can easily be resolved, if nobody has any clue I'll have to reinstall the plugin.

MediaPortal: 1.6.0
Moving Pictures: 1.5.1.1487
Skin: Titan Extended

Thx for the help in advance!

 

[ltfearme]

Re-installing the plugin won't solve your issue. I have no clue why it's gone, never had a problem like this before myself.

I suggest you re-create the category/filter and see if you can re-produce the issue. Your screenshot #3 looks like the default set of categories.

 

[RoChess]

Check to see if the custom category accidently got itself as a subcategory into another, so expand all the others, you can then drag and drop to re-arrange. When you initially created the category, you were supposed to enable the checkbox for "blank menu item", so this might have gone wrong. Or like @ltfearme suggested, just write it up to a gremlin and recreate it.

 

[sHiKoRa]

Thx for the quick reply! Besides the 3D Movies filter I use the default set of categories. I recreated the filter, but it disappeared again. The filter works fine so far so I'll just leave it. If I would do a clean install of Moving Pictures and recreate the database, would that have no effect?

 

[RoChess]

Thx for the quick reply! Besides the 3D Movies filter I use the default set of categories. I recreated the filter, but it disappeared again. The filter works fine so far so I'll just leave it. If I would do a clean install of Moving Pictures and recreate the database, would that have no effect?

SQLite is the database system of choice for Moving-Pictures and many other plugins such as MP-TVSeries, mainly based on the fact that MediaPortal used it as well (recently you can switch to more robust solutions such as MySQL).

What it means is that corruption on a database can occur without you sometimes even knowing it, which can lead to weird/random behaviour. Since filters/custom-categories do not dissapear for the majority of users, you are clearly dealing with gremlins, which then makes dbase corruption one of the many possible culprits.

It does not have to be it, it could be that you got some concurrency issue going on with another plugin, or stumbled on some combination of settings that cause a not-yet fixed bug to surface, sometimes it is really a needle in a haystack. For me the Sherlock Holmes way of debugging always makes things easy, and that is once you start excluding all other possabilities, then whatever you are left, how unlikely it is, has to be the cause.

You might have spend a lot of time creating custom categories, in which case deleting the database is going to be painfull, because you wll have to redo them all, but at the same time that gives you the ideal oppertunity to restructure it the way you really want, as after usage of a system that you slowly expand a fresh start usually leads to a better structure.

Before you go crazy and delete the existing database, why don't you just re-locate it to a safe location, and reconfigure MovPic with basic setting, perhaps set it to a path that only holds a few movies and another path with some 3D movies, then you create the 3D category/filter and see if it sticks. If that works then you know 100% sure already that something is wrong with the old database and you simply start over again, but this time configure it for your entire collection and redo all your categories/settings.

If it still dissapears, then what you did was create a very centric test case which if you run MediaPortal in debug verbosity log mode, should allow the developers of MovPic to locate that astranged bug.

Odds are redoing it fresh will fix it all, as it works fine for majority of users.

PS: You can also use an SQLite tool to run a PRAGMA integrity test on your database, it will reveal instantly if there is a technical detectable corruption in your database. If you search the forums you will find a post of me where I share a batch-script that does this fully automatic as part of an automatic backup/restore system (in the event of corruption). I can't remember if I posted it in MovPic, MP-TVSeries, or both, but I am sure you can find it.

 

[sHiKoRa]

Thx for the information RoChess! I've been upgrading MediaPortal since version 1.2.0. So it's quite possible the database got corrupted somewhere along the way. Since it works fine right now, I think I leave it the way it is. I think I can still edit the filter by adding it every time and change whatever needs to change, I only won’t be able to delete it.

If it becomes a problem I can use PRAGMA as you suggested. But maybe a clean install of MP with all the plugin’s won’t be a bad idea either. Thx for you all your help RoChess.

 

[RoChess]

If it becomes a problem I can use PRAGMA as you suggested. But maybe a clean install of MP with all the plugin’s won’t be a bad idea either. Thx for you all your help RoChess.

Yeah, especially if you remove movies (maybe bad or you needed the space) or do the same with TV episodes, or other content then a lot of times a bunch of crap stays behind in the database or artwork folders. Now there are other plugins such as MPCleaner that will scan MovPic and MP-TVSeries database and locate any artwork not used anymore so it can delete it, but that doesn't take care of the database.

So a fresh start is not a bad idea, and is only a pain when you have a ton of custom modifications that would take forever to re-add. That is why for example I've made a feature ticket request to add an export/import method to MovPic on the custom categories, the same way MP-TVSeries allows you to export/import your parsing expressions and string replacements.

Of course there are many other issues that need attention, so we'll just have to be patient for one of the developers to work on it. Lot of times the main motivator for developers on open source projects is if the work benefits their own usage of the product, so lets hope that one of them sees the benefit in an export/import option