Deleted content still showing in player not certain if it is the player(s) or Server

General Discussions
1

I have my PLEX media server setup with different directories for movies and television. I usually have no issues and know how to name and all that.

Here is the issue I am having again.

Some shows under my Television directory I have deleted. So for instance, a path
Television
Star Trek
Season 01
S01E01 Title ETC>

I have multiple shows, each has its own directory. This always works. But the problem is, I have deleted a few directories/shows. So if I delete the show Star Trek. It is no longer in the directory or on the server computer at all. Yet, when I play Plex on either one of my Rokus (different tvs) or my other laptop, or when I look at the contents of the server itself, the deleted shows are still there.

Now this happened before and I got advice that has worked, in that case I was updating shows as well as deleting some. In that case when I updated with new files, the new and old showed even though the original files were deleted. Here is the advice, and steps, I have done that always worked, until now…

  1. move all files for the media item out of the directory your Library is looking at, so Plex will not “see” it anymore
  2. scan the library library (to detect changes)
  3. empty trash
  4. clean bundles (in menu next to server name, when accessed under ‘More’)
  5. double check naming schema and move files back
  6. scan the library

I did this for when updating, but it should still work for deleting, I just do not do number 5 or 6.

So that solution worked for a long time, but now… nothing is being removed HELP lol

2

Did you reboot the client (player) apps themselves? My Android Shield player won’t update with new movie additions, so I have to kill the app and start it up afresh.

Does it show up still in a browser window? The browser is the best at updating as soon as a change is made, so if it’s showing up there then it’s a server problem. A Plex Dance (the steps you enumerated in your post) shouldn’t be needed. As soon as you have the library scan, the files should be detected as missing.

What I would try if I was in your spot would be to check to make sure there isn’t a duplicate of the files. If Star Trek shows up still, click the ... triple dot button and choose “Get Info”. See where Plex thinks the files are still at.

3

Thanks for the reply. So to address what you wrote. The only places I watch plex is on my televisions and occasionally form another laptop. The plex server is located on its own laptop dedicated to it. So my player(s) are imbedded in the Roku player(s). (2 different models) Oh yeah, and a third tv occasionally with built in Roku. So I can not say I have “rebooted” them. But all three Rokus are started up fresh. And they all show the deleted shows as still being there. I assure you, there are no duplicates. But they still show on the players, on my other laptop… which I access through a web browser AND the media server itself. So I just went to the server itself. I clicked on my “television” directory. It shows all the shows that are actually there, but again, it is showing all the shows I deleted and guarantee are not there. So I just clicked on a couple directories that are not there. One of them when clicked and there were no “files” in it, it said empty folder. But one of them I clicked and it showed episodes (that are not actually there) so I clicked get info on one of them like you said. What is shows is the actual path of where the folder used to be, but it ends with a bright “UNAVAILABLE” after the path

4

Hmm. Ok, if Plex detects the files are there but “UNAVAILABLE”, then empty trash ought to do the trick. But you said you did that, which stumps me.

5

HAHA Exactly… I am dumbfounded myself

7

Do you have a delete files link after the entry that’s unavailable? Clicking that will cause Plex to delete the entry from its database and it will be gone. For future reference you can always delete from inside Plex when signed in as the admin it will remove both the database entry and the file system entry/entries for you.

8

Hey… thanks for replying. I am at work right now and purposely shut down my server at home because if I did not, I would be unproductive at work today… I would be accessing the server all day trying to figure this out. So, I will not be able to check this until later this evening… I am uncertain if there was a “delete”: after the “unavailable” but I do not think so, I will check. In case there is not one, could you walk me through how to delete from inside Plex when I am signed in? I have not found a way myself. Thanks again

9

After doing this,
edit your library,
go to the “Add Folders” tab
peruse the list of the source folders of this library.

Each of the folders listed in there has to be

  • still existent
  • accessible
  • not completely empty

Remove all folders which don’t fulfill all of the above criteria.

10

Thanks for replying. I have gone to the editing library. Admittedly I was not sure what exactly to change in there to stop this from happening. I will try again tonight when I get home… but one thing I can tell you for absolute certainty with no room for error or debate is that the folders in question are 100 percent non -existent any more… they are deleted off the server, trash off computer emptied. SO they are not existent, not accessible, and they are not there at all to be empty. SO I will play around with the library editor for these phantom folders tonight and update the thread.

11

The “O” in the words “So” above should not be capitol letters. that is my fat thumbs and me not prrof reading… sorry… I was not yelling lol

12

Ah, Otto makes a good point. If you are adding each show individually as a separate library source folder, then deleting the folders on the file-system side might cause issues.

I always forget about this when people have issues. All my libraries have only a single source, but some people add multiple specific folders instead of the main sub-folder.

To check this, ... Manage Library > Edit… and click on Add folders on the left-hand side. Check if you are pointing your library at any folder that now doesn’t exist. If so, remove these entries.

13

Divideby0

Could you possibly elaborate on what you mean by “a single library source for all my libraries”

My structure on my server drive is like the following.

In the root drive;

Movies
Jaws (folder)
Jaws (actual file)
’ Terminator (folder)
Terminator (actual file)
Etcetera… a folder for every movie and the files inside

Television
Lost In Space (folder)
Season 01 (Folder)
S01E01…(File)
S01E02 …(File) Etc.
Season 02 (Folder)
Files
Star Trek Original Series (folder)
Season 01 (folder)
S01E01 File
S01E02…file

And so on and so on…

Obviously anything in parenthesis is not actually written out. And I indented everything in the structure under each folder but on posting everything is aligned to the left… the sub folders are obviously not in the root directory, only the folder Movies, Television, Home Movies, Concerts etc. With a sub folder structure underneath
This has always worked for me for like 4 years… until now.

How is your structured?

Thank you

14

Sorry, reading that it does appear I am indicating I use a single folder, and point each library to. That is not the case for me. My structure is similar to yours, but I was curious what method you use in the Add folders menu.

You use individual folders for each movie, while I mostly just dump each movie into the root Movies folder on my NAS. I don’t collect any external metadata or media/trailers, so I see no need to create folders for each movie. I didn’t believe they had any value until I used Plex, but now that I do, Plex handles all that, so I still don’t need to collect it myself.

My movies are like this:
//Media/
//Media/Movies/ ← (Movie library points here)
//Media/Movies/Spaceballs.mkv
//Media/Movies/Transformers/Transformers 1.mkv
//Media/Movies/Transformers/Transformers 2.mkv
etc etc.

Some people create a Movie library, and create a thousand sources for Plex to look at, one for each movie folder. This doesn’t work for me, where my movies are more or less dumped into the root of the folder, but for someone like you that has a folder for each movie, I have seen them add EACH movie folder as a source.

My shows are like this:
//Media/TV Shows/ ← (Show library points here)
//Media/TV Shows/Allo Allo (1982)/Season 01/S01E01.mkv (etc etc)
//Media/TV Shows/Bewitched (1964)/Season 01/S01E01.mkv (etc etc)

Similarly, with TV Shows, I saw someone who instead had the following sources in his library Add Folders menu:

//Media/TV Shows/Allo Allo (1982)/ ← (Show library points here)
//Media/TV Shows/Bewitched (1964)/ ← (Show library points here)
//Media/TV Shows/Diagnosis Murder (1993)/ ← (Show library points here too)
etc etc

The more shows they added to their NAS, they also went into their library and manually had to add the new show as a source. I suppose it works (I haven’t heard of a limit on number of source folders), but that is a lot of manual work to add shows. If you did this, I can see how Plex might not clear out a file if the folder that a source points to is gone entirely.

15

The last example simply doesn’t work. Or it may work for a while, until it doesn’t.
Don’t do it that way if you want to prevent grey hair and a pile of broken computer parts outside your window.

16

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