The old server is still there as I made the mistake of using the exact same name and was not sure which one to remove. Very lame entry as you don’t get much in the way of details.
But the new server to replace old server was part of fix testing, so problem existed way before there was an old server to make a log entry issue. But will look at it again.
I have wanted to avoid the need for a new server claim as that makes the server look like a new server to my users and it causes confusion. Some are older and the menu pin / unpin thing confuses them.
BTW… I added a new show and one episode just now with poster, season and fanart. Alas, it added fine with posters showing and episode level metadata displaying without me needing to force refresh. Really not sure what is happening for you.
I appreciate the efforts. This is like being a detective or Dr. House trying to find out why someone is sick!
I created a new library, name it TV Shows-FIXED and pointed it to an empty directory
New show called “Chosen”
Named episodes with Filebot
Placed s03e01 into new empty folder.
Manual library scan. Season and episode data DID work!
But it looks different. I normally do not get actors showing up between season folder and episodes. Makes me wonder if my plex install agent has an some kind of issue against main library. Like maybe stuck between legacy and new agent or something like taht.
This is what worked. Note cast and crew on season page.
Here is last test on main library that did not work and needed a manual refresh. No cast and crew on season page
I matched all settings against the main library. The only different was the ‘Episode Ordering’ was default to “The Move Database”. I deleted the show, emptied the trash, changed it to TheTVDB and re-imported. now the actors do not show up on season page but metadata for season and episode DID work.
It would seem, there is an issue with Plex agent against my main library.
I did a few DBRepair.sh runs against the database. No errors ever reported.
I really do not want to build a new library as there is a bug where you lose all TV Show items on your on deck/continue watching section. Shows that have been watched, still show as watched, but you lose watch history, which is a nuance where plex only knows you watched it and does not think to put next one one deck in your continue watching shelf. That would crazy confuse my mom.
I found a post somewhere that was recent and plex developers said a fix would go in on a future release.
At least now I can start working on changing plex agents and then changing back again to see if that helps.
Odd, when I delete a show from the new TV Shows-TEST library, plex will not remove it after a scan. I tested against my main library and shows are removed there after a scan.
Tried empty trash and re-checked settings but for some reason deleted shows will not remove from test library unless I delete them manually from plex.
sigh… nothing is ever easy.
EDIT: FYI turns out plex ignores a directory if it is completely empty. I guess it is protection in case it is NAS and goes offline. If you have 10 items in a directory, move/delete them all, then a scan will not remove them. Move/delete 9 of 10 and 9 will be removed and you have to manually delete the last one.
Stupid Sonarr!!! Sonar has a setting I turned on a long time ago and forgot about it.
Settings
Metadata
Plex - enable
This feature worked fine, until it didn’t.
Sonarr metadata feature puts a small file in the main folder named ‘.plexmatch’
It looks harmless enough. Here are contents for one of the test shows:
Title: The Big Cigar
Year: 2024
TvdbId: 418756
ImdbId: tt19399602
Now all works fine if I do two things.
turn off the sonarr metada .plexmatch file, so no more .plexmatch file
add either {tvdb-xxx} or {tmdb-xxx} into show name folder.
Once I made those two changes, new shows and new seasons populate correctly without having to do a manual metadata refresh.
I will add that I did test bypassing sonarr, so some of my test did not have the sonarr metadata file, yet still did not work. But after so many test, I am not going to question anything or touch anything. It is now working!!
Nice. My initial thought was sonar which is why I asked to remove it from your workflow. Guess the .plexmatch was still present when you done that test.
Regardless, really excellent you got this sorted as it would have drove me crazy if it was happening to me Hopefully this thread will also help someone else in the future.
@dokuro Yes. Those tests were focused on adding a new season to an existing show. So the .plexmatch file was already present in the main library.
The issue was not discovered until I started testing a new show. The new location and new library all of the sudden stopped working in my test. I did a lot more testing where I kept changing 1 variable and eventually found the .plexmatch file as the culprit. Not sure if I really need the {tmdb/tvdb-xxxx} in the main folder name, but I like the idea that it helps prevent the occasional mismatches. I updated sonarr to add the id as part of it’s naming workflow.
Many thanks for all of the assisting on this. Always easier when you can bounce ideas of someone as you try to narrow down the issue.
I should put a post on the sonarr group so they can do their own testing and fix the feature.
Hopefully this thread will also help someone else in the future.