I’ve had to rebuild an entire library more than 30 TB in size (2500+ titles). I’ve figured out that Plex Movie Scanner scans maybe five titles a minute. But when I tried to scan the full library, titles were missing collection tags and posters even after the scan showed complete. How many files should I dump into the library at once, so that Plex Movie Scanner can run a good scan before I dump in the next batch? I’m getting reasonable results with a limit of 100 files +/- 10. Too few? Too many? Does it matter?
From experience (with a smaller library) I suppose that what you experienced was the scan of your files being complete but Plex still being busy processing your library. Plex will e.g. process collections pretty much towards the end of a scan.
So my take is it’s more about how much time you want to give Plex to complete the job.
What I’ve taken to doing, is watching, like a hawk, the options available to me when I click the vertical ellipsis to the right of a library name.
If it says “Scan Library Files,” then I know that either the scan didn’t start (which is rare but just happened to me), or that the scan is finished and the server is ready to process more.
But if it says “Cancel Scan,” that says: WAIT. So I wait. And keep sampling until it says “Scan Library Files.”
My question is whether I need to worry about not dumping too many files at once for it to scan. I’ve done it up to 150 files, with good results. I’m trying 160 now. I hope I can be through with all my additions soon. But what I really want to do is to throw in a batch of 1000 or more–and then go to bed and look at it again the next morning. Would that be feasible?
Not necessarily.
If you want to keep track of what’s going on you can watch/monitor
Settings > [Server Name] > Status > Alerts or
Settings > [Server Name] > Manage > Console
As said… there’s no immediate limit.
Just give it time to process even if you think it’s done… for such a large library you might want to trigger the scan before going to bed and check when you get back from work the next day
Thanks for those two links. I’ve found them very valuable already.
It’s actually easier for me to batch-process these titles 200 at a time, until the time comes to knock off for the night. I already have processed more than half my library by now. So by the time I do send in a big batch, it will be of a more manageable size.
So–bottom line, there’s no limit, and there’s a way to monitor the server to see how far along it gets in building the library. If I am mistaken, please someone correct that, for the benefit of anyone who comes after us.
