watchstate/FAQ.md

FAQ

To see list of all the available commands run

$ docker exec -ti watchstate console list

This command will list all available commands, and each command has help document attached to it, simply run

$ docker exec -ti watchstate console help [COMMAND_NAME]

It will show you the relevant information regarding the command and some frequently asked question about that command. The help document attach to each command is more up to date and precise. So, please read it.

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Q: Is there support for Multi-user setup?

No, The tool is designed to work for single user. However, It's possible to run container for each user. You can also use single container for all users, however it's not really easy refer to issue #136.

Note: for Plex home/managed users run the following command to extract each managed user access token.

$ docker exec -ti console backend:users:list --with-tokens -- [BACKEND_NAME]

For Jellyfin/Emby, you can just generate new API tokens.

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Q: Can this tool run without docker?

Yes, if you have the required PHP version and the needed extensions. to run this tool you need the following php8.1, php8.1-fpm and redis-server and the following extensions php8.1-pdo, php8.1-mbstring, php8.1-ctype , php8.1-curl,php8.1-sqlite3, php8.1-redis, and composer. once you have the required runtime dependencies, for first time run:

cd ~/watchstate
composer install --optimize-autoloader

after that you can start using the tool via this command.

$ php console

The app should save your data into ./var directory. If you want to change the directory you can export the environment variable WS_DATA_PATH for console and browser. you can add a file called .env in main tool directory with the environment variables. take look at the files inside docker/files directory to know how to run the scheduled tasks and if you want a webhook support you would need a frontend proxy for php8.1-fpm like nginx, caddy or apache.

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Q: Does this tool require webhooks to work?

No, You can use the task scheduler or on demand sync if you want.

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Q: I get tired of writing the whole command everytime is there an easy way run the commands?

Since there is no way to access the command interface outside docker, you can create small shell script to at least omit part of command that you have to write for example, to create shortcut for docker command do the following:

$ echo 'docker exec -ti watchstate console "$@"' > ws
$ chmod +x ws

after that you can do ./ws command for example, ./ws db:list

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Q: I am using media backends hosted behind HTTPS, and see errors related to HTTP/2?

Sometimes there are problems related to HTTP/2, so before reporting bug please try running the following command:

$ docker exec -ti watchstate console config:edit --key options.client.http_version --set 1.0 -- [BACKEND_NAME] 

This will force set the internal http client to use http v1 if it does not fix your problem, please open bug report about it.

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Q: Sync operations are failing due to request timeout?

If you want to increase the timeout for specific backend you can run the following command:

$ docker exec -ti watchstate console config:edit --key options.client.timeout --set 600 -- [BACKEND_NAME] 

where 600 is the number of secs before the timeout handler will kill the request.

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Q: Which external db ids supported for Plex Media Server?

• tvdb://(id) New Plex Agent
• imdb://(id) New Plex Agent
• tmdb://(id) New Plex Agent
• com.plexapp.agents.imdb://(id)?lang=en (Lagecy plex agent)
• com.plexapp.agents.tmdb://(id)?lang=en (Lagecy plex agent)
• com.plexapp.agents.themoviedb://(id)?lang=en (Lagecy plex agent)
• com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://(seriesId)?lang=en (Lagecy plex agent)
• com.plexapp.agents.xbmcnfo://(id)?lang=en (XBMC NFO parser agent)
• com.plexapp.agents.xbmcnfotv://(id)?lang=en (XBMC NFO parser agent for tv)
• com.plexapp.agents.hama://(db)\d?-(id)?lang=en (hama agent is multi db source agent)

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Q: Which external db ids supported for Jellyfin and Emby?

• imdb://(id)
• tvdb://(id)
• tmdb://(id)
• tvmaze://(id)
• tvrage://(id)
• anidb://(id)

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Environment Variables

There are many ways to load the environment variables, However the recommended methods are:

• Via docker-compose.yaml file.
• Via /config/config/.env file. This file normally does not exist you have to created manually.

to see list of loaded environment variables run:

$ docker exec -ti watchstate console system:env

Tool specific environment variables.

These environment variables relates to the tool itself, you can load them via the recommended methods.

Key	Type	Description	Default
WS_DATA_PATH	string	Where to store main data. (config, db).	${BASE_PATH}/var
WS_TMP_DIR	string	Where to store temp data. (logs, cache)	${WS_DATA_PATH}
WS_TZ	string	Set timezone.	UTC
WS_CRON_{TASK}	bool	Enable {task} task. Value casted to bool.	false
WS_CRON_{TASK}_AT	string	When to run {task} task. Valid Cron Expression Expected.	*/1 * * * *
WS_CRON_{TASK}_ARGS	string	Flags to pass to the {task} command.	-v
WS_LOGS_CONTEXT	bool	Add context to console output messages.	false
WS_LOGGER_FILE_ENABLE	bool	Save logs to file.	true
WS_LOGGER_FILE_LEVEL	string	File Logger Level.	ERROR
WS_WEBHOOK_DEBUG	bool	If enabled, allow dumping request/webhook using rdump & wdump parameters.	false
WS_EPISODES_DISABLE_GUID	bool	Disable external id parsing for episodes and rely on relative ids.	true

Note: for environment variables that has {TASK} tag, you MUST replace it with one of IMPORT, EXPORT, PUSH, BACKUP, PRUNE, INDEXES. To see tasks active settings run

$ docker exec -ti watchstate console system:tasks

Container specific environment variables.

These environment variables relates to the container itself, and it's recommended to load them via the docker-compose.yaml file.

Key	Type	Description	Default
WS_DISABLE_CHOWN	integer	Do not change ownership /config directory.	0
WS_DISABLE_HTTP	integer	Disable included HTTP Server.	0
WS_DISABLE_CRON	integer	Disable included Task Scheduler.	0
WS_DISABLE_CACHE	integer	Disable included Cache Server.	0
WS_UID	integer	Set container user id.	1000
WS_GID	integer	Set container group id.	1000

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Q: How to add webhooks?

To add webhook for your backend the URL will be dependent on how you exposed webhook frontend, but typically it will be like this:

Directly to container: http://localhost:8081/?apikey=[WEBHOOK_TOKEN]

Via reverse proxy : https://watchstate.domain.example/?apikey=[WEBHOOK_TOKEN].

If your media backend support sending headers then remove query parameter ?apikey=[WEBHOOK_TOKEN], and add this header

X-apikey: [WEBHOOK_TOKEN]

where [WEBHOOK_TOKEN] Should match the backend webhook.token value. To see your webhook token for each backend run:

$ docker exec -ti watchstate console config:view webhook.token

If you see 'Not configured, or invalid key.' or empty value. run the following command

$ docker exec -ti watchstate console config:edit --regenerate-webhook-token -- [BACKEND_NAME] 

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Emby (you need Emby Premiere to use webhooks).

Go to your Manage Emby Server > Server > Webhooks > (Click Add Webhook)

Webhook Url:

http://localhost:8081/?apikey=[WEBHOOK_TOKEN]

Webhook Events:

• Playback events
• User events

Limit user events to:

• Select your user.

Click Add Webhook

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Plex (You need Plex Pass to use webhooks)

Go to your Plex Web UI > Settings > Your Account > Webhooks > (Click ADD WEBHOOK)

URL:

http://localhost:8081/?apikey=[WEBHOOK_TOKEN]

Click Save Changes

Note: If you use multiple plex servers and use the same PlexPass account for all of them, you have to unify the API key, by running the following command:

$ docker exec -ti watchstate console config:unify plex 
Plex global webhook API key is: [random_string]

The reason is due to the way plex handle webhooks, And to know which webhook request belong to which backend we have to identify the backends, The unify command will do the necessary adjustments to handle multiple plex servers setup. for more information run.

$ docker exec -ti watchstate console help config:unify 

Note: If you share your plex server with other users, i,e. Home/managed users, you have to enable match user id, otherwise their play state will end up changing your play state. Plex will still send their events. But with match user id they will be ignored.

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Jellyfin (Free)

go to your jellyfin dashboard > plugins > Catalog > install: Notifications > Webhook, restart your jellyfin. After that go back again to dashboard > plugins > webhook. Add Add Generic Destination,

Webhook Name:

Watchstate-Webhook

Webhook Url:

http://localhost:8081

Notification Type:

• Item Added
• User Data Saved
• Playback Start
• Playback Stop

User Filter:

• Select your user.

Item Type:

• Movies
• Episodes

Send All Properties (ignores template)

Toggle this checkbox.

Add Request Header

Key: x-apikey

Value: [WEBHOOK_TOKEN]

Click save

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Q: What are the webhook limitations?

Those are some Webhook limitations we discovered for the following media backends.

Plex

• Plex does not send webhooks events for "marked as played/unplayed".
• Sometimes does not send events if you add more than one item at time.
• If you have multi-user setup, Plex will still report the admin account user id as 1.
• When you mark items as unwatched, Plex reset the date on the object.

Emby

• Emby does not send webhooks events for newly added items. See feature request.
• Emby webhook test event does not contain data. To test if your setup works, play something or do mark an item as played or unplayed you should see changes reflected in docker exec -ti watchstate console db:list.

Jellyfin

• If you don't select a user id, the plugin will send itemAdd event without user data, and will fail the check if you happen to enable webhook.match.user for jellyfin.
• Sometimes jellyfin will fire webhook itemAdd event without the item being matched.
• Even if you select user id, sometimes itemAdd event will fire without user data.
• Items might be marked as unplayed if Libraries > Display - Date added behavior for new content: is set to Use date scanned into library. This happens if the media file has been replaced.

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Q: Sometimes newly added episodes or movies don't make it to webhook endpoint?

As stated in webhook limitation section sometimes media backends don't make it easy to receive those events, as such, to complement webhooks, you should enable import/export tasks by settings their respective environment variables in your docker-compose.yaml file. For more information run help on system:env command as well as system:tasks command.