Files
serverAppConfigs/serverAppConfigs-docs/Dankserver/Media Audiobook Relayout.md
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Frank b7f4b7e148 docs(audiobookshelf): one page for the endpoint, and the rescan law at the relayout
The page owns the shape, the first-run account step (ABS accepts the initial
account only from a local-network address) and the laws: why the array bind is
read-only and what the one-line rollback is if on-disk sidecars are ever wanted;
why the metadata view is not that rollback; why the mount gate, the wget health
check and the amd64 digest pin are each mandatory; and that LAN-only is a posture,
not an accident.

Media Audiobook Relayout gains the third reader: ABS stores absolute paths, so the
relayout procedure has to reach its library too or it keeps rows for folders that
are gone. The vault index is regenerated, not hand-carved.
2026-11-02 02:19:29 -08:00

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---
type: reference
title: Media Audiobook Relayout
description: "Re-filing /mnt/entropy/Audiobooks by Plex's chapter rows: narrator shelves, no renumbering, the refusals."
tags: [dankserver, media-server, plex, media-relayout]
timestamp: 2026-10-31T00:00:00Z
---
# Media Audiobook Relayout
`/mnt/entropy/Audiobooks` is the one library here that [[Jellyfin]] does not read
at all — its music scanner has no audiobook concept — while [[Plex]] indexes all
of it as Artist → Album → Track: the album is the BOOK, that book's single artist
is the NARRATOR, both matched out of the files' own tags. [[Audiobookshelf]]
streams the same tree, read-only, and owns nothing in it. Today one book is split
across `… [Part 1]`, `… [Part 2]` folders three or four deep inside a collection
pack, so a scan serves three quarters of a novel; `scripts/media-audiobooks.py`
re-files the tree so the property both servers' book scanners assume is true —
Audiobooks/<Narrator>/<Book> (<year>)/<the file keeps its own name>
The shared gates, the executor, the journal law and the rollback live in
[[Media Relayout]]; this page is the audiobook arm only.
```bash
# 1. The authority: Plex's chapter rows for this root (the DB opens read-only).
python3 scripts/media-census.py audiobooks --root /mnt/entropy/Audiobooks \
--out /tmp/ab_rows.tsv
# 2. What is on disk (stat only).
python3 scripts/media-census.py enumerate --root /mnt/entropy/Audiobooks \
--out /tmp/ab_enum.tsv
# 3. The plan.
python3 scripts/media-audiobooks.py --root /mnt/entropy/Audiobooks \
--enum /tmp/ab_enum.tsv --rows /tmp/ab_rows.tsv --out /tmp/ab_plan.tsv \
--exceptions /tmp/ab_exceptions.txt
# 4. Read the exceptions file FIRST. Then the same executor, journal and rollback
# as [[Media Relayout]] shows, on its own journal, and refresh the Plex section
# as in step 5 of the movie Procedure — from inside the container, never over
# the host port.
# Audiobookshelf stores absolute paths, so the same refresh has to reach its
# library too ([[Audiobookshelf]]) — otherwise it keeps rows for folders that
# no longer exist.
scripts/media-apply.py apply --plan /tmp/ab_plan.tsv --root /mnt/entropy \
--journal /mnt/entropy/media-relayout-audiobooks.jsonl --apply
```
The group is the identity Plex asserts in its own database — **(narrator, book,
year)** — so one book arriving in four part folders becomes one folder, and a
1965 and a 2020 recording that share a title stay two books.
Two laws are forced by what the rows actually hold:
+- **A chapter is never renumbered.** Most books contain chapters whose index Plex
does not know, so a number written into a name would be invented — and it would
buy nothing, because both servers order playback by the embedded track tag, not
by the file name. A wrong number in a name is the number a human later trusts.
Fix order in the tags: a Plex scan re-reads tags and never renames a file.
+- **The shelf is the narrator, not the author.** Every book has exactly one artist
row and it is the narrator; the author survives only inside some album titles
(`Kryptos by Graham McNeill`) and in no column Plex stores, so deriving it would
mean parsing titles where a ripper wrote one and inventing it everywhere else.
The author stays visible in the folder name Plex itself shows.
What it refuses, the music arm's list with one addition: a video container, audio
no chapter row names, and a loose file in a folder holding two books all park under
`_unsorted` with the path they have today — and so does a chapter whose row names
**no book or no narrator**: a placeholder (`[Unknown Album]`, `[Unknown Artist]`)
that unrelated books share, or a chapter number mistagged as the artist (`0.4`).
`Various Artists` is not a placeholder — that is a multi-cast read.
The reviewed plan lives at `/mnt/entropy/media-relayout-audiobooks-plan.tsv`; it
applies on its own journal, behind the music writer, and then refreshes the Plex
section. Verify it with `--db-kind plex` — Jellyfin holds no rows here, so a
Jellyfin pass proves nothing either way.
## See Also
[[Media Relayout]], [[Media Music Relayout]], [[Plex]]