I did something stupid!

General Discussions
1

OK I also did something smart, at least sort of. I have a complete backup of all my files so whatever I have done is reversible but the backup is in several parts that is sometimes overlapping and sometimes not.

What I have done is accidentally delete some files (It is actually a Drivepool accident and I had temporarily turned off duplication) and the problem is that I do not know which files got deleted and so I do not, without actually looking at each listing in Plex which ones I need to restore from my backup or re-rip if I am using the original copy as my backup.

I was smart enough to turn off “Empty Trash” so the deleted files are marked “unavailable”

I can go through my library one file at a time and get a list of the unavailable ones but I was wondering if there are any tools or database queries that can be used to effectively speed up the process.

I have probably a maximum of 150-200 files missing out of my nearly 3000 file movie library. Fortunately my TV library is kept in a separate pool so that, much larger, library is untouched by the accident.

At least I have a backup for everything so I have really lost nothing however I think, after this, I will come up with a better way of storing the backups.

Thanks for any help and it is not necessary to slap me around too much. I have learned that having a backup without a good restore plan is only slightly better than no backup at all. I REALLY wish I had an upload speed to allow me to backup to the cloud but, alas, it would take too long to get my files up there. I think I will create a local mirror of my data and use some form of system that assures that deletions do not get copied but moves do. That is if a file gets actually deleted then that is NOT propagated to my backup for say a month but if I move a file from directory A to Directory B then that does get duplicated. Or maybe just delaying any deletions for two weeks will be good enough.

I can always restore from me deep backups it is just much less convenient than simply restoring from a local backup.

2

You want ExportTools
see https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1371933/#Comment_1371933

3

@OttoKerner said:
You want ExportTools
see https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1371933/#Comment_1371933

Yep! That seems like it will do the trick. It is running now. Of course I would already have the info from the tool if I actually paid attention to the documentation and could tell the difference between “Level 2” and “Level 3” but reading that would be too much like actually following an instruction manual and everybody knows those are only written to give people something to throw away. :wink:

Thanks a LOT.

4

@Elijah_Baley you can also try WebTools which is fantastic. https://github.com/ukdtom/WebTools.bundle

This would be my goto tool for finding what is missing. Once you have it installed and open it’s web page there is a function/menu choice called FindMedia.

You can select a particular library and it will walk the database and your file system and tell you what’s on disk not in your library as well as what you need which is what’s in the library and not on disc.

I had a boo-boo about a month ago as well as I manually deleted about 500 movies and this made cake of finding what I had to restore.

Carlo

PS WebTools is perfect tool for telling you what files are in your database but not on disc since it’s one of the built in features among a lot of other things. https://github.com/ukdtom/WebTools.bundle

1 Like