Duplicate Movies Despite Having Same File Name

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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Server Version#: Version 1.19.4.2935
Player Version#: Version 4.36.1

I am attempting to follow the guidance here:

Moving to a new, larger disk. Everything moved fine with the exception of movies. For some reason they are all double and do not match, despite being named exactly the same and the only difference is the drive letter.

So I have started the time-consuming (and irritating TBH) process of merging one by one each title. The problem I am running into now is that I have accidentally merged two titles (for a total of four combined).

I have split them apart. However, when I refresh metadata on one, all four refresh to reflect the metadata of the one that I refreshed.

That is, they are all still stuck together, despite being split apart.

Is there a way to clear all metadata for these titles? Any other considerations/suggestions? Thank you for any assistance!

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You should have success with Fix Match on the Mismatches.
Youā€™ll have to inspect each oneā€™s File Name in ā€˜Get Infoā€™ - then Fix Match to the real title.

Worrying - is this didnā€™t go smoothly.

Letā€™s see if we can get an opinionā€¦
@trumpy81 may have done this a few timesā€¦lol

1 Like
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@trumpy81 if you read that article above it says to disable it. Regardless, I did empty trash and it didnā€™t affect the issue. Both items (since there are only two now that the other directory was removed) still reflected each othersā€™ metadata when being refreshed.

What I did was:

  1. Delete one of the movies.
  2. Empty trash can.
  3. Restore the movie out of Recycle Bin (Windows)
  4. Refresh metadata

Finally they were separated and only one refreshed.

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Alright thank you both for your assistance. I actually had two libraries, and did the smaller one first. I was careful after my selection after that.

Now is the primary, big Movies library with 265 titles. Each and every one of them are being duplicated despite having the same name, different drive letter. I will see if the above does anything.

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BTW this thread is actually two issues:

  1. (Minor) Refresh Metadata on previously merged items refreshes all items despite being split apart. This only impacted one title and was fixed.
  2. (Major) Movies are being duplicated despite having the same name. Trying to get out of this one now. :laughing::sob:
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The movies were matched with a different metadata agent, back when they were first added to the library.
You then changed the default agent of the library.
Now, the moved items are getting matched with this new agent. Different agent = different movie (for Plex).

After splitting the accidentally merged posters, you need to perform ā€œFix Matchā€, instead of refresh metadata.

1 Like
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Thank you for that insight @OttoKerner! Are you saying that I need to change my metadata agent back to what it was when I first scanned the library? Is there a way to verify/validate what that was? Itā€™s set to Plex Movie now but I might have had it set to The Movie Database originally. The matches were taking forever so thatā€™s why I was fiddling around with it, I believe.

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Yeah unfortunately it doesnā€™t matter which agent I use, anytime I add the new directory my movie count doubles. :frowning: Iā€™ve tried various ordering of Optimize Databases, Cleaning Bundles, and Emptying Trash, but no matter what the titles double.

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Thatā€™s one approach. But only viable if your agent change was recent-ish. Because it may solve the issue for older items, but cause the same issue for newer items, which were already matched with the newer agent selection.

Inspect the content of the guid="... property from the Plex XML info of a movie. If it says imdb, it is Plex Movie.

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Ended up going through each and every one and merging them. Even the collections as they are not listed. BRUTAL. Anyways, thanks for attempting to help out, all. :+1:

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