Dot at beginning of folder name causes scanning problems (windows)

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

Server Version#: 1.41.2.9200

A Music library in windows whose path’s final folder starts with a period doesn’t scan properly. Can this be fixed?

This is similar to https://forums.plex.tv/t/looks-like-folders-starting-with-periods-are-not-being-scanned/663318, but their problem was with a folder inside of the root folder. This is the root folder itself.
Also, why is this an issue for windows, and not ubuntu?

Details:
I have a folder (d:\Music\.PlexMusic).
When I created a library in the UI, I wasn’t able to browse to this folder, but I could enter it manually.
Plex scanned the folder, but didn’t perform any additional scanning (loudness, sonic fingerprint, etc).
I could play music, but “Play Artist” would fail with a blue error. Looking at the logs, there were no matches found when doing “Play Artist”.
I left it this way for at least 4 weeks. I restarted the server and the service, but that didn’t make a difference. It never started scanning for additional information at all.

I created symlink in windows from d:\Music.PlexMusic to D:\PlexMusic.
11/22/2024 10:55 AM PlexMusic [D:\Music\.PlexMusic]
I added d:\PlexMusic to the library.

The library is scanning now properly with both folders in the libary.
Once it is finished, I will move \Music\.PlexMusic to \PlexMusic, but I would rather not have to do this.

I have been using this folder over SMB (and now NFS) for an ubuntu instance of Plex Server on another computer for at least 3 years. It didn’t have any difficulty using a library whose folder is /mnt/d/Music/.PlexMusic. In fact, I am still using that server now for just music, but I would prefer to move Plex Server to the computer with the storage.

2

It doesn’t make a difference. Don’t use dots at the beginning of file and folder names, if you want Plex be able to see them. A dot indicates a “hidden” item on any *NIX-based platform, (which are pretty much all that Plex is supporting except Windows). But to achieve consistent behaviour of Plex across all platforms, this rule is in effect on Windows as well.

Put the actual titles of your artists/albums into the embedded meta tags of your files.

If you want a folder to appear at the beginning of a folder listing, use a different character to achieve that. I recommend an underscore _

3

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.