Server Version#: 1.32.8.7639
Player Version#: 8.29 (7486) (Apple TV) , 1.84.1.4069-ff740b6d (Windows)
I recently added new content to my TV Shows library, and I noticed that the chapter thumbnails are not being generated for almost any episode that was just added over the last few days. I then looked back at another TV show that I updated the same content in terms of video quality (in other words, I just overwrite the same file names), and those episodes do not have thumbnails either.
In terms of troubleshooting, I first verified that Generate chapter thumbnails was already set as a scheduled task for years. Secondly, the new and updated content I previously referred to do have chapters. In addition, content added previously in past in the same TV Shows library does have thumbnails. Lastly, the latest content in my Movies library, with some items just added a couple of weeks ago, do have chapter thumbnails.
Almost by process of elimination, it seems like something is up with my TV Shows library, but I’m not sure. Is there anything I can do to force this to happen, and to make it work properly when new or updated content is added to my TV Shows library?
I used the Plex Media Scanner command line documentation and ran the command to force a refresh of chapter thumbs only for the TV Shows library. I tried this twice, actually, and that didn’t make a difference. The second time I created logs for the process, and there were not any warnings or errors.
Since thumbnails appear to be working properly in my Movies library, it seems like there might be some kind of issue with my TV Shows library, but it’s just a guess.
So now I’m trying to eliminate aspects via process of elimination. One thing I tried was taking one of the recent TV episode files I created, and then copied and renamed it as a new random movie title to my Movies library. I did this to see if the same file would generate chapter thumbnails properly, but in a different library. In this initial test, the TV episode copied as a movie title in the Movies library did not generate chapter thumbnails. Perhaps the issue is the video file itself.
The file I tested this with was a TV episode I encoded from Blu-Ray to HEVC with Handbrake for Windows v1.71. Realizing that Handbrake 1.72 was released, I updated to Handbrake 1.72, and re-encoded the same source Blu-Ray title. That also did not generate chapter thumbnails.
I then took the source file for that episode, used mkvtoolnix to put the original .m2ts file into an MKV container, and added that file to my Movies library. That file did generate thumbnails properly. So is the problem Handbrake in general?
But then I realized that I have also recently encoded Blu-Ray movies with Handbrake, using the same HEVC profile (settings). So I copied and renamed a movie to the TV library as a different file name, and that file had generated chapter thumbnails.
So does that mean the issue is the source? That doesn’t make sense to me. I may do another test of forcing thumbnails to generate, and maybe I’ll do a time offset to see if that helps.
I forced chapter thumbnail generation for my TV Shows library 3 times, with chapter thumb offsets of 1%, 5%, and 10%. No change.
Can’t think of anything else to try, and responding to myself multiple times in a forum post is madness, so I’m done for now. If someone who is not me has any ideas, let me know.
