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In an “Other Videos” type library, I’ve got mp4s and such, many, but not all of which have file-internal ID3 tag metadata for things like Year, Artists, Title, etc., some of which I’ve updated in an ongoing project after I’d set up my Plex library for them.
Also along the way, in their Plex media server entries, I’ve manually uploaded pictures for a growing subset of them to and set them as the poster and background images for those files. Sometimes, I also rename the files. Usually, I try to change the Plex entries for those files to the intended new name first; that seems to increase the likelihood that Plex will, after I rename the file and scan the library, recognize and match the newly renamed file to its old Plex entry.
This scanning and matching usually does not result in reading in the edited files’ new Artist or Year ID tag metadata.
For that, it seems that I need to use “Refresh metadata.”
I have tried to use “Refresh metadata” on individual or multiply-selected items to get things like year and artist fields to be refreshed from the mp4 files, and that does seem to work.
BUT…and my observations on this over the weeks and months has seemed inconsistent: Does that “Refresh metadata” command lose any of the manually uploaded images I’ve set as posters and thumbnails?
It seems to me that sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. How do I make sure that it does?
Maybe it has to do with whether or not I’ve also renamed the files before the scan or metadata refresh.
The help article that seems closest to this doesn’t seem to comment on uploaded and assigned posters and backgrounds: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200289306-scanning-vs-refreshing-a-library/
Does someone know what the determinants are?
Is there a required workflow, for example:
- Edit file’s metadata
- Determine the file’s new name, if I plan to rename it.
- In that media file’s Plex library item, change the Title and Sort Title fields to the new name.
- Rename the file itself.
- That may trigger a library scan. If not, manually start a library scan.
- Assuming that the library scan matches the renamed file with its Plex library item entry…
- After the library scan is finished, either Refresh metadata on that one item, or, if I’ve changed a bunch of files, I might consider using “Refresh all metadata” on the library.
That leaves as an open question what to do if I’m editing files one at a time in series…so the scan might start with the first renamed changed file, and I might then be renaming more after that while that scan is going.
Also…my first move with a file to be edited is likely to be renaming the file to a name that has metadata like artist and title and year in it, then using a program to extract the metadata from the file name and then write to the ID tags in the file…
I’m not sure if that might change the recommended workflow order. At the least, it seems like I might, as I’m renaming files, go into Plex every now and then to tell it to “Cancel scan” until I’m done with my file renaming & editing?
