Duplicate Movie Entries

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

Lately, I am seeing duplicate movie entries. One is correct with the correct file and title, and another that has the save file, but the title says 1 movie or 2 movies.

Why is this happening? Can I delete the incorrect entry without deleting the file?

2

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201273953-collections/

Particularly:

Frequently Asked Questions

Where did all these extra collections come from? I didn’t add them.

There are two common sources for “automatically added” collections.

  1. You may have enabled the Use collection info from The Movie Database metadata agent setting. When enabled (it is disabled by default), that will try to gather collection information from The Movie Database. This may cause many unwanted collections to be automatically created, particularly collections where you only have one item. You can disable that preference in the server metadata agent settings for the “Plex Movie” and “The Movie Database” metadata agents. This will only prevent collections from getting automatically added to items added to your library in the future . It will not remove collections from existing library items.
  2. If you have MP4s with an embedded “Album” tag, the Local Media Assets agent may pick it up as a collection. Be aware the Local Media agent also picks up external subtitles, extras, and other embedded metadata in MP4s (and other files), so be aware of this if you choose to disable the agent source.

You want to disable the gathering of Collection Info from TMDB.
We assume if it’s disabled in one section it will be disabled everywhere - at least that’s what we hope.

After that:

A Collection Poster is the one that shows ‘1 Movie’ - you can delete that collection by hovering over the poster’s lower right corner, click the dots, delete.

If you have a bunch of MP4s with an ‘Album’ tag (or other whacky metadata) - move Local Media Assets to the bottom of the stack of active agents under ALL tabs in Shows and Movies:

LMAHack-Year20
LMAHack-Year201029×372 90.5 KB

Red: where it was
Green: where it goes

Doing that might prevent you having to remove that info manually, for every MP4 file you have - we also hope.

3

you can also toggle collection visibility (it does not remove or add collections) at the library level.

image

  • disabled = always hide collections
  • hide items = show collection, hide items (they will be inside the collection)
  • show both collections and items (this is probably what you are seeing as duplicates)
4


AND


Hit the Collections Tab - to show ALL the Collections in a Library. That’ll make it easier to locate and destroy. If you delete the Collection, the Movie inside it won’t be deleted.

In the end, Collections are cool - only if you create them manually. “Auto Collections” is insane:

CollectionAbuse101
CollectionAbuse101860×581 176 KB

5

to each their own :slight_smile:

I use both auto collections and some customized ones.

also, @ OP if you want to see true duplicates, you do that from the library view, click the “ALL” drop down and select duplicates (or one of the other filters).

image

6


as long as I can turn that crazy ■■■■ off - I’m good
lol

7

I agree. I actually find collections fantastic in Plex nowadays (when manually created.)
No sign of them in the movies library but all present and correct in the erm
collections tab.

8

I had the same problem. I will tell you what worked in my case. If you have different libraries that are based on nested folders, click the 3 dots at the end of each library, go to Manage Library > Edit > Advanced
 uncheck “Include in dash board”, except for the outermost folder. Reset your server. That’s what worked for me.