Every night my PMS deletes one particular TV show (Gotham, two seasons). The show drops from the library and the files are in the trash bin. Every night. I reload it from a backup in the morning, Plex deletes it that evening without fail.
I try to be a good Plex citizen and follow best practices. And I’ve mostly had a great experience but this has me stumped. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Log files from last night’s “purging” attached. I run PMS version 1.9.4.4325 on a Macintosh with macOS 10.12 Sierra. I have unchecked “Allow media deletion” in Library Settings. My media is all loaded on an external 8TB USB 3 drive. As far as I know, this is the only weird thing happening.
Regarding year in brackets instead of parenthesis, yes quite right point well taken. Adding the year (albeit incorrectly) to the folder was one of my attempts to dissuade Plex from deleting. For the record it seems to have made no difference. But for tomorrows 's “restore” I’ll remove the year notation and repost if you think it relevant.
Regarding the ‘keep from past xx days’ setting, my problem files are disk rips and placed in a separate sub-directory from anything I DVR.
BUT . . .
I first noticed this behavior right around when I tried to start recording new Gothams over the air. It was one of the first things I shut off. So now I’ve no scheduled recordings of Gotham, and no OTA recorded episodes anywhere. Just the ripped episodes stored in an entirely separate sub directory.
Regarding the ‘keep from past xx days’ setting, my problem files are disk rips and placed in a separate sub-directory from anything I DVR.
You can’t do that.
Plex and TV Shows is an area you can’t fiddle with - at all.
TV Show Library/
… Gotham (2014)/ <— this is the new way and is correct - not covered in the handbook (yet)
…Season 01/
…Gotham (2014) - S01E01 - Episode Name Optional.xxx
…Gotham (2014) - S01E02.xxx
That’s the structure you MUST use. No other sub-folders are allowed. That naming is what FileBot would do - so that’s what I do. It ‘just works’.
You are also advised NOT to try to create another ‘Gotham’ show in another TV Show Library - or more bad juju will ensue.
BUT . . .
I first noticed this behavior right around when I tried to start recording new Gothams over the air. It was one of the first things I shut off. So now I’ve no scheduled recordings of Gotham, and no OTA recorded episodes anywhere. Just the ripped episodes stored in an entirely separate sub directory.
Remove that sub folder and Plex Dance® (to rewrite a brand new non-bogus bundle for Gotham) and I’ll bet this odd behavior will vanish.
This used to happen to me with Big Bang Theory. I would routinely lose my back library. I finally figured out that it ties to the DVR settings, and if you set “Keep X number of episodes” that it will also start culling your existing stock as well. Lame. As a result, I just manually manage any show I DVR that I have existing content for.
Yikes. Even though the files are stored in separate libraries/sub-directories? And even though I’ve long since deleted (and danced) my Gotham recording schedule?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. I hope you’re wrong but that sounds just irritating enough to be correct.
I run two libraries. One for DVR materials, and one more non fluid back catalog which contains files free of commercials and such:
TV Shows
Recorded TV
I have a few shows that exist in both areas. Everything runs fine for me… once I figured out that the DVR settings for keeping episodes tied to the show as it exists in any directory.
You can run as many TV Show Libraries as you want.
If you run two Gotham Shows in two libraries - you’re in for some high quality hurt. Not even Plex knows what’ll happen if you start poking that beast.
I had some major freak outs at this location making client apps do flip/flops - until I figured that little secret out. Some of those apps weren’t official, but still - I wouldn’t advise it.
I don’t remember the exact formula I employed to create that monster - but it ran amok for some time until I came up with the formula for the poison that killed it.
DVR retention settings tie to the show no matter where it exists, whether it be 1 or 100 folders/subfolders/subsubfolders. Keep All Episodes is the only safe option I’ve found to keep my back libraries untouched.
I ONLY know what happened here when the Dueling Banjo TV Show Monster was unleashed. The destruction was costly, but the cure was bringing back all TV Shows to live under one roof, in an approved and 100% compliant nature.
And, apparently, “deleted” recording schedules do this too?
Sigh.
Okay today I will create a new recording schedule for Gotham and select “Keep all episodes”. Tomorrow I will click your answer as correct.
JuiceWSA, pardon I don’t quite follow this: “I don’t remember the exact formula I employed to create that monster - but it ran amok for some time until I came up with the formula for the poison that killed it.” How do you mean exactly please?
I believe you can double check all of this now by going to the show in the web app and clicking the edit button in the lower left corner of the show thumbnail. Hit the advanced tab and the settings shown there should match what you had in the DVR. My key mistake was assuming that it would keep the settings I wanted by directory.
It makes sense if you remember that retention settings tie to the show.
@marduk411 said:
JuiceWSA, pardon I don’t quite follow this: “I don’t remember the exact formula I employed to create that monster - but it ran amok for some time until I came up with the formula for the poison that killed it.” How do you mean exactly please?
It was a while ago now - and my brain tends to ‘forget’ things that were very painful.
I seem to recall I was running out of space at some point and decided to make another Show Folder in another Library - when all HELL broke loose. I do recall both ‘Show Locations’ were compliant in every way, but operations went right down the terlit.
After some time and much pain and suffering I brought ‘The Show’ back together to live in one TV Show Library and The Beast’s rein of terror was ended.
That’s all I can recall - as I said it was a painful time.
There could be difficulties and differences in the setup. My setup works, and keeps the files separate. So, if I go to the TV Shows directory and look at The Big Bang Theory, I am presented with only my commercial free versions. When I hit the Recorded TV directory, I get only the recorded versions.
I bet the mess gets sticky when you tell Plex that TV Shows should draw from serverA/TV and serverB/TV and it tries to mix the directories. Yes, I could see the problem with that.
