A couple of days ago I went to add a movie file and it deleted all of my movie files from Plex. I still have the movies on my computer.
Then yesterday I go to add some movies, I added a few, then on the 5th or 6th file added it deleted them all again besides the most recently added.
Really not sure what’s going on, and any help would be greatly appreciated.
Server Version#: 1.18.3.2156
Player Version#: 4.12.3
Follow this link to on how to retrieve your logs. You should get a zip file of all them. Upload them and then hopefully somebody will come along and look at them to help figure out what is going on.
-Shark2k
The weird thing is this didn’t happen right after an update to the server, and I did not change any settings myself. I just went to add a movie file, and after saving it deletes all of the files.
I’m not super familiar with looking at the logs. I’m going to tag @OttoKerner who’s a mod and is familiar to get his attention to this thread (thanks OttoKerner).
However, looking at the media scanner log I am seeing lines about deletion.
It looks like you are using your downloads folder for Plex to watch. Are you moving files there after they are downloaded/processed or are you having your files download directly to there? If it’s the latter, it is not recommended to do that. Depending on how the download occurs means the file name could change which could be causing the issue (and it looks like that is at least part of what is happening from what I see in the logs).
One setting to look at is under the server settings in the library section. You’ll need to show the advanced settings to see it. The option is “Empty trash automatically after every scan.” If that is checked, then whenever you do a scan and media gets deleted from Plex, the trash will empty which removes it from your library. With that option not checked, you will see a trashcan icon over-layed on the thumbnail for the media and when you go in it to the movie/show it will say that the file is not available.
That won’t solve your problem, but it will let your media be “un-deleted” within Plex when the file is matched again.
Hopefully OttoKerner will see this and be able to help out more.
-Shark2k
Thank you Shark2k you seem to be close to finding the problem. Yes I have been sending movies to my download folder. Before all the movie files were deleted from Plex, I had about 1/3 of movies on desktop folders and the rest in download folder.
Then a few days ago I go to add a movie file and Plex deleted all the files from the server after I saved the new file. I didn’t change any settings before that happened. After it happened I searched the net and did find the option as you suggested to uncheck the “empty trash automatically after scan”.
So I unchecked it and now when I add movies it still deletes the files, but leaves behind the thumbnails with trash icons. I am able to add those movie files back and it saves, but if I go to add a new movie file it will do that again (erase files and leave the thumbnails).
Is there a recommended way to save the movies on computer to use with Plex?
Thanks again for your help!
Brandon
Well I solved the problem by putting all of my movie files in 2 desktop folders, 1 for regular movies and 1 for kids movies. Then I just added them to Plex.
I was adding movie files to Plex one at a time for almost a year and never had a problem until recently.
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