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

---
type: reference
title: Media Relayout
description: "Census, plan and apply the movie library into Jellyfin format, and move TV out of it: the gates, refusals, rollback."
tags: [dankserver, media-server, jellyfin, plex, procedure]
timestamp: 2026-10-30T00:00:00Z
---

# 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 Jellyfin's own shape — and move TV back out of it — and nothing
else in the repo touches a media file.

| Script | Touches media? | Output |
|---|---|---|
| `scripts/media-census.py` | reads headers only | `enum`, `probed`, `plex` TSVs |
| `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 |

The seam is `tests/media_relayout.bats`; the target contract is 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
`mode=ro&immutable=1`: a live server is never locked or written.

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.

After it lands, both servers need a scan or the change is invisible.

```bash
# Run this from the host shell through `podman exec`, never from a neighbour
# container: Plex's HTTPD closes without a single byte on any request that
# arrives from another container's netns (10.89.x.x reads as "empty reply", not
# as a 401). The token rides stdin, never argv, where any process on the host
# could read it out of /proc/<pid>/cmdline.
umask 077
podman exec plex sh -c "sed -n 's/.*PlexOnlineToken=\"\\([^\"]*\\)\".*/\\1/p' \
  '/config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml'" >/tmp/px.tok
podman exec -i plex sh -c 'read -r T
  for k in $(curl -s -H "X-Plex-Token: $T" -H "Accept: application/json" \
      http://127.0.0.1:32400/library/sections | grep -o "\"key\":\"[0-9]*\"" | cut -d\" -f4); do
    curl -s -o /dev/null -w "plex section $k: %{http_code}\n" -X POST \
      -H "X-Plex-Token: $T" "http://127.0.0.1:32400/library/sections/$k/refresh"
  done' </tmp/px.tok
```

[[Jellyfin]]'s scan key lives in `~/.config/secrets/jellyfin` (mode 600; the
same value is `JELLYFIN_API_KEY` in the ignored `dankserver/.env`). It rides a
mode-600 curl config, never a header argument, and it must use the
`MediaBrowser` form — Jellyfin 12.4 refuses a bare `X-Emby-Token` for any key:

```bash
umask 077
{ printf 'header = "Authorization: MediaBrowser Token=\\"%s\\""\n' \
    "$(cat ~/.config/secrets/jellyfin)"
  echo 'url = "http://127.0.0.1:8096/Library/Refresh"'
  echo 'request = "POST"'; } >/tmp/jf.hdr
curl -s -K /tmp/jf.hdr -o /dev/null -w "jellyfin scan: %{http_code}\n"
shred -u /tmp/jf.hdr
```

`204` is acceptance; the scan then runs on the server's own schedule.

## 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 carried a second copy of the whole Monk box set — 124 episodes
  both sides, the same episode list, every byte count identical, 31.5 GiB each
  way, and head+tail blake2b identical on a 6-episode sample. 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 — six did on 2026-10-30.
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.

## 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 Jellyfin 401 is the header, not the key.** 12.4 authenticates only
  `Authorization: MediaBrowser Token="…"` and refuses a bare `X-Emby-Token` for
  every key, valid or not. This page carried "no credential on this box can
  trigger a scan, the two Seerr keys answer 401" for weeks because of that
  header — the keys were innocent. Before believing a 401, prove the key against
  the server's own table: `select count(*) from ApiKeys where AccessToken = ?`
  on `jellyfin.db` opened `mode=ro&immutable=1`.
- **A scan that must see a new folder has to be recursive.** `POST
  /Library/Refresh` is the incremental pass, and inotify does not cross a
  rootless podman bind, so folders created on the host stay invisible to it. The
  move is `POST /Items/{id}/Refresh?Recursive=true` (204) per library, the id
  from `GET /Library/VirtualFolders` — its field is `ItemId`, not `Id` — and
  that same record's `RefreshStatus` is the progress read.
- **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 or a
  duplicate destination stops the run *before the first rename*, so the operator
  fixes one thing and re-runs instead of untangling a half-applied plan.
  `--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 146 of them held their emptied parents on disk after
  the first 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
  and never reached the five-episode size that calls something a series, so a
  box set was filed as 124 movies in 124 folders. 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.

- **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. After any sweep or TV move, run `scripts/media-view.sh reap`, then
  the same command with `--apply`: the sidecars left at the old coordinates become
  ghost folders — artwork and an `.nfo` with no video — that both servers browse
  and report as content.
- **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.

## 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.

## 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>