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Remove those @eaDir folders from your XBMC Photo Library once and for all

There are lots of posts about the annoying '@eaDir' directories that are created when you use NFS on the Synology NAS. I've written about deleting them but unfortunately they end up coming back as they are part of the Synology indexing service.

I've also highlighted how to exclude them from scans under XBMC which will prevent them appearing in Movies and Music and this works well but I haven't been able to find a way of excluding them from Photos; until now.

I don't know how long the <pictureexcludes> option has been available in the XBMC advancedsettings.xml configuration options but it seems adding this will prevent those directories from displaying in all of your photo subdirectories. Awesome! One very happy camper now.

Here's what I added:
<advancedsettings>
<pictureexcludes>
  <regexp>@eaDir</regexp>
  <regexp>@EADIR</regexp>
</pictureexcludes>
</advancedsettings>
The before and after shots are shown below on my Xbian Raspberry Pi build. I've also tested it on my ION based Openelec build with a shared (Synology NAS) database and it works their too.



So my whole advancedsettings.xml file located in the userdata folder now looks like this. No more '@eaDir' directories anywhere!! [Updated 30th March 2020]

<video>
<excludefromscan>
<regexp>@eaDir</regexp><regexp>@EADIR</regexp></excludefromscan>
<excludefromlisting><regexp>@eaDir</regexp><regexp>@EADIR</regexp></excludefromlisting>
</video>
<audio>
<excludefromscan><regexp>@eaDir</regexp><regexp>@EADIR</regexp></excludefromscan>
<excludefromlisting><regexp>@eaDir</regexp><regexp>@EADIR</regexp></excludefromlisting>
</audio>
<pictureexcludes>
  <regexp>@eaDir</regexp>
  <regexp>@EADIR</regexp>
</pictureexcludes>

Comments

  1. Thank you for this tutorial!!!
    Does the folder 'advancedsettings.xml' have to possess permissions private individual?
    Thank you

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi. The hyperlinks provided reference the XBMC Wiki which fully explain how & where to use the advancedsettings.xml file.

      Delete
  2. Maybe you want to add as well to exclude scanning TV shows...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If your TV shows are part of your 'video' share they should be excluded as well.

      Delete
  3. Hi, thanks for this tip. This works in terms of excluding the @eaDir folders being listed but when you do a recursive slideshow it is still picking up the low resolution thumbnail images from the @eaDir subfolder and showing them in the slideshow.

    Any tips that would prevent these being used in a recursive slideshow?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. See the thread I chimed in on this evening and the outcome here. http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=237347&pid=2185626#pid2185626

      Delete
  4. Thanks for the tip. Although this excludes the @eaDir folders being listed it doesn't exclude the low resolution thumbnail images being used in a recursive slideshow. Do you know of a way to get around this?

    I have picture folders by year and then by date and would like to be able to kick of a recursive slideshow for a whole year but it keeps on picking up the files in the @eaDir folder.

    Any advice greatly appreciated.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm having the same problem. haven't found a solution yet. I even added regex's like _THUMB and SYNOPHOTO. It seems the advanced settings are just being ignored

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've updated the post with my latest expression.

      Delete

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