serverAppConfigs/serverAppConfigs-docs/Dankserver/Media Relayout.md

---
type: reference
title: Media Relayout
description: "Census, plan and apply the movie, TV, music and audiobook libraries: the gates, the refusals, the rollback."
tags: [dankserver, media-server, jellyfin, plex, procedure]
timestamp: 2026-11-02T11:00:00Z
---

# Media Relayout

The movie library on [[Entropy Volume]] arrived as release folders —
`Some.Movie.2019.1080p.WiKiTaLx.x265-FOO/` with the video inside named after
the release. [[Jellyfin]] matches a movie by folder and file name, so the
release noise cost posters, extras and versions. These scripts turn that
library into the shape its media server reads — the movies, the TV packs, the TV
that turns up in the movie share, the music library, and the audiobooks, whose
only reader is Plex — and nothing else in the repo touches a media file.

| Script | Touches media? | Output |
|---|---|---|
| `scripts/media-census.py` | reads headers and the servers' own DBs, never writes | `enum`, `probed`, and one authority TSV per library |
| `scripts/media-plan.py` | no — TSVs in, TSVs out | the plan + the exception report |
| `scripts/media-apply.py` | **renames, never copies**; sweeps only what a run emptied | the moves, plus a journal |
| `scripts/media-tv.py` | no — TSV out | a plan that moves TV into the TV library |
| `scripts/media-shows.py` | no — TSV out | a plan that re-files the TV library itself |
| `scripts/media-music.py` | no — TSV out | a plan that re-files the music library by its tags |
| `scripts/media-audiobooks.py` | no — TSV out | a plan that re-files the audiobooks by the book Plex matched |
| `scripts/media-verify.py` | no — reads the servers' DBs read-only | the verdict that every journaled move landed |

The seams are `tests/media_relayout.bats`, `tests/media_shows.bats`,
`tests/media_music.bats`, `tests/media_audiobooks.bats` and `tests/media_verify.bats`;
the movie and TV target contracts are quoted from
[jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/media/movies](https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/media/movies)
in `media-plan.py`'s docstring.

## Procedure

Run the census on the machine that mounts the library. `probe` is the slow step
(a header read per container) and is `nice`d — it is safe beside a live service
because it never competes for the GPU and never writes inside the library.

```bash
C=scripts/media-census.py
$C enumerate --root /mnt/entropy/Movies --out /tmp/media-enum.tsv
$C probe     --enum /tmp/media-enum.tsv --out /tmp/media-probed.tsv --jobs 6
$C plex      --root /mnt/entropy/Movies --out /tmp/plex-movies.tsv
```

`plex` reads the Plex metadata cache (`--db` defaults to the path the
[[Plex]] container bind-mounts at `/var/lib/plexmediaserver`) with plain
`mode=ro`: a live server is never locked or written, and plain ro is also what
makes a scan's uncheckpointed rows visible. The same rule as
`scripts/media-verify.py` — see *Proving the move landed*.

Then plan — this reads only the three TSVs, so it costs seconds and can run
anywhere, including a laptop:

```bash
scripts/media-plan.py --root /mnt/entropy/Movies \
    --enum /tmp/media-enum.tsv --probed /tmp/media-probed.tsv \
    --plex /tmp/plex-movies.tsv --out /tmp/jf-plan.tsv --exceptions /tmp/jf-exceptions.txt
```

**Read `/tmp/jf-exceptions.txt` before applying.** It is not a log: every line
is a file the plan could not name a film for, a pile that needs a README, or a
collision it refused. The printed gate lines are the go/no-go:
`problems`, `bad-names`, `occupied`, `double-claim`, `left-unmoved` must all be
0 and `unplanned=0` must appear in the report. Any non-zero number means a file
that would be filed wrong, and the plan is not run until it is understood.

```bash
scripts/media-apply.py apply    --plan /tmp/jf-plan.tsv --root /mnt/entropy/Movies   # dry, writes nothing
scripts/media-apply.py apply    --plan /tmp/jf-plan.tsv --root /mnt/entropy/Movies --apply
scripts/media-apply.py verify   --plan /tmp/jf-plan.tsv --journal /mnt/entropy/media-relayout.jsonl
scripts/media-apply.py sweep    --journal /mnt/entropy/media-relayout.jsonl --root /mnt/entropy/Movies   # dry
scripts/media-apply.py sweep    --journal /mnt/entropy/media-relayout.jsonl --root /mnt/entropy/Movies --apply
scripts/media-apply.py rollback --journal /mnt/entropy/media-relayout.jsonl --root /mnt/entropy/Movies --apply
```

An apply also leaves the release folders it emptied standing where they were —
hundreds of them at the library root — which is what `sweep` removes, dry-run
first, from the same journal.

`--batch N` (default 64) makes the journal durable per batch instead of per
move: N intents are written and fsynced, then those N rename. The rule a crash
relies on — no rename runs before its intent is on disk — is unchanged, so an
interrupted apply still replays the batch and resumes with nothing lost. Batch 1
is the old behaviour; the only reason to name it is debugging, because on the
spinning array it spends most of a large apply's wall time in fsyncs.

After it lands, both servers need a scan or the change is invisible. [[Plex]] and
[[Jellyfin]] own the exact requests; two laws hold at this step: `204` is
acceptance and anything else queued nothing — re-issue the identical request
rather than diagnosing — and ONE accepted refresh is the whole procedure, because
a second while a scan runs moves `Scan Media Library` to `Cancelling` and every
later `204` is accepted and then discarded.

### Proving the move landed

A scan answers `204` whether or not it finds anything, so proof is the journal
replayed against both servers' own tables: every `move` row has a row at its
`dst`, and **zero** rows still name its `src`. `scripts/media-verify.py` is that
replay: it opens each database read-only (there is no `sqlite3` binary on these
hosts or inside either container) and exits non-zero while a row is stale.

Both libraries live in WAL mode, so the tool opens them plain `mode=ro`:
`immutable=1` promises sqlite the file never changes, which skips the
write-ahead log — a scanner's own uncheckpointed rows then read as missing, and
a read beside a running scan can fail as "database disk image is malformed".
`immutable` stays only the fallback for a database whose `-shm` cannot be read.

```bash
scripts/media-verify.py --journal /mnt/entropy/media-relayout-music.jsonl \
    --db-kind jellyfin --ignore-ext jpg,jpeg,png,log,cue,toc,nfo,txt,m3u,accurip
```

"No row at the destination" is not one verdict but four. **never indexed**: the
server indexes no file of that extension (its own extension census says so) — a
sidecar, not a lost film. **gone**: the file sits at neither src nor dst, because
a later pass or the server's own extension sweep renamed it. **phantom**: a row
still naming src while the file has left src. **REAL**: no row at dst *and* the
file still at src — the only class that is this relayout's own damage. Phantoms
are normal for both servers (Plex carries thousands that predate any relayout);
re-scan to clear them and never read them as loss.

`media-verify.py` prints this split itself — `on disk at dst, no row names it`,
`REAL — file still at src`, `gone — at neither path` — so nobody hand-stats a
thousand paths to find out whether a film is lost or merely unindexed.

The owning server decides whether a pass can convict anything: Plex's roots are
its `sections` rows joined to their location rows (`Movies`, `TVShows`, `Music`,
`Audiobooks`, `LiveRecording`) and Jellyfin holds no audiobook library at all, so
the audiobook journal verifies with `--db-kind plex` or it proves nothing.

Three doors that look right and are not: `GET /search?query=` matches metadata
titles, never file paths; `?path=` on `/library/sections/N/all` makes Plex's
HTTPD close without a single byte; and the same HTTPD drops requests that carry
no `Accept` and client-identifier header (see the scan block above for the form
that works).

A duplicate prune is the same census and the same proof, with its own keep rules — films by title and duration, a series per episode: [[Media Duplicate Prune]].

## TV in the movie library

A box set that arrives in the movie share stays there until someone moves it:
`media-plan.py` refuses to file TV and parks each series in
`_TV needs a TV library - <series>`. `scripts/media-tv.py` is the mover. It
walks the movie library itself (no census needed), groups episode-shaped names
by series, and writes a plan in the executor's own format:

```bash
scripts/media-tv.py --root /mnt/entropy/Movies --library /mnt/entropy/TVShows \
    --out /mnt/entropy/media-tv-plan.tsv
scripts/media-apply.py apply --plan /mnt/entropy/media-tv-plan.tsv --root /mnt/entropy
scripts/media-apply.py apply --plan /mnt/entropy/media-tv-plan.tsv --root /mnt/entropy \
    --journal /mnt/entropy/media-relayout-tv.jsonl --apply
scripts/media-apply.py sweep --journal /mnt/entropy/media-relayout-tv.jsonl \
    --root /mnt/entropy --apply
```

The shape it writes is the one both matchers read — `Monk (2002)/Season 05/
Monk - S05E03 - Mr. Monk and the Big Game.mkv` — keeping the file's own name,
because the publisher's spelling beats a re-derivation, with the year taken
from the box-set folder. What it refuses it prints and leaves alone:

- fewer than `--min` (5) files under one series name: one file named `Part 2`
  is a film, not a series;
- an episode whose name states no season number — no invented `Season 01`;
- a destination two files both claim: the executor refuses the whole plan
  before its first rename, and only Frank decides which copy is the keeper.
- an episode the destination library already holds at the same byte count. The
  movie share once carried a second copy of a whole box set — same episode list,
  every byte count identical. The mover leaves such a series in place and says
  so; a duplicate is deleted or kept by Frank, never copied into one library by
  a tool.

A sidecar that shares an episode's own name (`.srt`, `.nfo`) moves with it.

Below the threshold the mover prints and leaves, so a lone downloaded episode of
a real show stays in the movie library on purpose.
Filing one by hand is the same executor on a hand-written plan and the same
journal; the trap is the series year. Read it from the file's own name or the
folder it owns, never from the title whose bonus folder it happens to be parked
in — `The Cleveland Show S03E07` inside `Die Hard (1988)/extras/` is not a 1988
show. A name whose marker is `Part 2` is a film and stays put.

## The TV library's own relayout

`/mnt/entropy/TVShows` is its own arm: a different authority (tvdb), its own
refusals, and its own test for whether a folder really holds two shows —
[[Media TV Relayout]]. It shares this page's executor, the one-journal-per-arm
law, the sweep and the rollback.

## The music and audiobook arms

Each is a page of its own, because each reads a different authority and refuses
for a different reason: [[Media Music Relayout]] files by Jellyfin's track tags,
[[Media Audiobook Relayout]] by Plex's chapter rows. Both share this page's
executor, the one-journal-per-arm law, the sweep and the rollback.

## Laws

- **A moved file is a 404 in [[Plex]] until its section is rescanned.** The
  database keeps the release-folder path, so playback fails `Couldn't find the
  file to stream` while the scanner works through the section. Never read such a
  404 as a lost file: the file is where the journal says it is.
- **Plex's matched title outranks the filename**, and a Plex year of `0` means
  *indexed but never matched* — trusting it named folders `Title (0)`, which is
  a Jellyfin item with no year, no poster and no identity. A year that is not a
  plausible year is no information.
- **`<>:"/\|?*` never survive a name.** Plex's own title for *V/H/S/2* is
  `V/H/S/2`; kept verbatim it became `Movies/V/H/S/2 (2013)/` — a tree five
  levels deep that neither matcher reads as a movie.
- **A folder inside a movie's folder is bonus territory even when its name is
  misspelled.** `Saboteur (1942)/Exrtas/Saboteur - A Closer Look` is a typo for
  `Extras`; the vocabulary rule never fired, the featurette became a movie
  folder, and its words then out-scored the real film and drew that box set's
  other extras into it. The rule that replaced it needs no metadata: the folder
  holding the longest film owns the shorter video filed under it, unless that
  file's own name carries a different year — which is another film speaking.
- **Matching words are split on everything that is not a letter or a digit.**
  Splitting on separators but not on `/` left tokens like `(1960)/extras` that
  no other name could ever agree with, so a film could not be found by the
  folder holding it, and extras drifted into a neighbour. A bare number counts
  only when it could be a release year, so `1080` and `2160` never pose as
  agreement between two names.
- **Compare two media libraries with the series engine, never a path
  substring.** Filtering paths for `monk` also returns *Monkey Dust*, and
  letting whichever file a walk happens to reach first stand for an episode
  paired two libraries into a fake duplicate — the same sloppiness pointed the
  other way deletes a file that is unique. The comparison is `media-titles.ep_of`
  on both sides: series, season, episode, bytes, and a hash before anything is
  trashed.
- **A deletion is staged on the item's own filesystem.** The trash rule names
  `~/.AGENTTRASH`, but `/home` and `/mnt/entropy` are different devices: a 31 GiB
  stage there is a copy rather than a rename, it has to fit in the 187 GiB of
  free space, and `rename(2)` refuses it anyway. Trash goes beside the item —
  `/mnt/entropy/.AGENTTRASH/<date>-<topic>/` — so it costs one inode change and
  rolls back exactly like the move that made it.
- **A file whose name carries no words is bonus material, not a folder.**
  `.Extra 1 ( 1H 27min multisub ).mkv` parses to `1`; a movie folder named `1`
  is not a movie. It becomes a review line telling a human to name the file.
- **The executor renames and nothing else.** `rename(2)` cannot cross a
  filesystem, so a plan that would is refused rather than silently copying tens
  of terabytes.
- **The journal is a write-ahead log: the intent is fsynced before the rename.**
  An interrupted run therefore leaves only two states — an intent whose move
  happened, and an intent whose move never ran — and the next run finishes the
  job without moving anything twice. A file that moved with no journal line did
  not move through this tool, and the tool refuses to guess on its behalf.
- **The journal lives BESIDE the library root, never inside it** (default:
  `media-relayout.jsonl` next to the root): a log inside the library is a file
  Jellyfin indexes.
- **Refusals are all-or-nothing.** An occupied target, a vanished source, a
  duplicate destination, or a plan row whose verb is not `mkdir`, `keep` or
  `move`, stops the run *before the first rename*, so the operator fixes one
  thing and re-runs instead of untangling a half-applied plan. An unread verb is
  refused by line number: silently dropping one turned a pass meant to rename
  two series folders into `applied: 0 moved` with exit 0 (2026-11-02).
  `--force` relaxes only the opinion guards; it never permits overwriting.
- **A sweep deletes only what the journal proves the run emptied.** A folder is
  eligible when a journalled file moved out of it or out of something under it,
  it now holds nothing but empty directories, no journalled destination lives
  beneath it, and it is not a folder the run created. A folder nobody moved —
  someone's placeholder — cannot be selected at all, and a symlink anywhere
  inside disqualifies the subtree, because the thing behind a link is not this
  tool's to delete. Every removal is journalled as `rmdir` and `rollback`
  recreates the folder, so the sweep is undone by the same command as the moves.
  Proof carries downward: inside a folder the journal proves emptied, every
  empty directory goes with it. A release's `Screens/` or `Sample/` is never a
  move source itself, so it can hold an emptied parent until the next sweep.
  A failed `rmdir` is not a removal: only a folder that is really gone leaves
  scope, so the next sweep finishes what a permission problem stopped.
- **An episode-shaped name marks a SERIES, not a film — and the series is the
  name BEFORE the marker.** `Monk - S05E03 - Mr. Monk and the Big Game` is series
  `Monk`. Keyed on the whole title instead, every episode became a group of one,
  never reaching the five-episode size that calls something a series — a whole
  box set filed as one folder per episode. The threshold still earns its keep:
  a lone film named `Part 2` stays a film. Episodes of a series are parked
  in `_TV needs a TV library - <series>` for a human to move to a TV source —
  the movie tool never files TV.
- **One journal is one undo.** The TV move runs on its own journal, and with
  `--root` set to the share that holds BOTH libraries: the executor refuses any
  path outside `--root`, and a journal shared with the movie relayout would
  undo both runs when only one of them is wanted.
- **A hold folder outside `--root` forces `--force` on BOTH `apply` and
  `sweep`.** `sweep` refuses the entire journal when any journalled path sits
  outside the root (`this journal belongs to another library`) — the same guard
  the plan hits, and it exists to stop one pass unwinding another's files.
  `--force` relaxes it and stays safe there: `sweep_targets` marks only
  ancestors under `--root`, so a hold folder beyond the root can never be
  selected; it only blocks everything that is. The cleaner shape is the law
  above — put `--root` on the share that holds both.

- **Sidecar metadata does not follow a rename, because it lives on another
  filesystem.** The media servers write `.nfo` and artwork through the
  [[Media Metadata View]] (NVMe upper layer); this tool moves bytes on the raw
  array path, so where that view is mounted a sweep or a move must be followed by
  `scripts/media-view.sh reap --apply` — stranded sidecars become ghost folders
  that both servers browse and report as content. Whether this host mounts the
  view at all is stated on that page; `media-apply.py` stays silent when it does not.
  A rename of folders the server never identified strands nothing: Jellyfin
  writes a sidecar only for a series it recognised, so `reap` answering
  `no ghosts` after such a pass is the expected result, not a broken tool.
- **Nothing deletes through the metadata view.** A delete there writes an overlayfs
  whiteout in the upper layer, which hides the array's copy without removing it;
  the file returns when the view is unmounted. Deletions in this pipeline happen
  on the raw path only, which is what the journal can undo.
- **The music album key is case-folded; the folder name is not.** `Master Of
  Puppets` and `Master of Puppets` are one album to the matcher, so the spelling
  that reaches the folder is the one most tracks carry. Taking it from whichever
  row sorted first made the folder name depend on row order, and re-planning an
  already-filed library renamed albums that were already in place.
- **An occupied path is never a destination**, not even when its occupant is
  scheduled to leave: the executor refuses an occupied target, so a plan that
  aims at one fails after the renames that were supposed to clear it. A file
  standing where the contract puts it is a keep, and a file already carrying a
  collision suffix keeps that suffix — otherwise the plan is a shuffle, not a
  fixed point, and a re-run moves albums that are already right.
- **`media-census.py music` reads the `BaseItemProviders` table, not the item's
  JSON.** This Jellyfin build carries an empty `ProviderIds` inside
  `BaseItems.Data` for albums, so a census that parses the JSON finds no
  MusicBrainz or Spotify id on any album and reads as "the library is untagged".

## Rollback

One command, from the journal of the run:
`media-apply.py rollback --journal …/media-relayout.jsonl --apply`. It recreates
any folder a sweep removed, restores every source path, removes only the folders
that run created *and that are now empty*, and refuses everything if any moved
file cannot be accounted for. A rolled-back journal refuses to roll back twice.

**Roll a chain back newest journal first, or the tool refuses.** Each pass
re-files what an earlier one moved, so a journal is a clean inverse only until
something downstream touches its files; `ls -l /mnt/entropy/media-relayout*.jsonl`
is the order. Refusing is the tool working: on 2026-10-31 the movie journal could
not restore files the later TV passes had re-filed, and the stray journal could
not restore files Jellyfin's extension sweep had renamed. Roll back what still
inverts and leave the rest as the current state — never force it.

## See Also

[[Jellyfin]], [[Plex]], [[Media Metadata View]], [[Entropy Volume]], [[Testing Policy]], [[Storage Policy]]

## Citations

- Jellyfin Movie documentation — folder/file naming, extras subfolders,
  `Movie (2013) - 216p.mkv` version and `- 4K.mkv` handling:
  <https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/media/movies>