Server Version#: 1.42.2.10156 (windows)
Player Version#: 1.112.0.359-0d79a49f (Windows )
I noticed that one of my movie drives was filling up, so I copied a couple folders to a drive with more free space and added them to the Movies library. I was planning on removing the old folders after the duplicates were detected and loaded.
Imagine my surprise when almost all of the moves I copied (in prep for moving) were unexpectedly listed as “Recently Added” – messing up that list in a BIG WAY.
I’ve done some searching here and, apparently, this is a known BUG (though never described as such) with the new metadata agents. Those of us who have been using Plex for many years (and used this very procedure successfully in the past) will now have major problems with recently added (and maybe watch history?) thanks to the same movie being both recognized as a duplicate, and yet NOT a duplicate at the same time, requiring it to be marked as “recently added.”
The Plex developers need to FIX THIS BUG ASAP (not just make excuses.) Either the copied and rediscovered files ARE DUPLICATES or they ARE NOT – treating as both at the same time is, quite simply a BUG. Somehow treating them as both indicates a profound problem with the software design and/or implementation. (Said by someone who has been writing code for the military, steel mills and nuclear power plants for the past 40+ years.)
Out of curiosity, did the libraries in question start off using the legacy metadata agents? And if so, when you migrated them to the modern agents, did you refresh all metadata after doing so?
If I remember correctly, I tested the agent change and metadata refresh with a small library that no one but me was using and was dismayed by the results – I needed to manually review and correct far more things that I expected, even in one case splitting apart some pairs of movies that were listed as one, despite having significantly different year (though sharing a title.)
It worked worse with TV shows, so when I switch other libraries, I allowed Plex to refresh if/when it wanted to do so – hoping that it would keep things more like they currently were. It is probably better now, but at first I found it to be a rather large leap backward in matching and metadata quality.
HOWEVER… this doesn’t change the fact that the server currently detects the copies using the new agent and (A) combines movies with the same date/title together because they the new copy is the same as an existing movie and (B) adds the movie to the Recently Added list because the movie is now a recent addition. I’m sorry, but there is no way to defend the listed movie being both old and new at the same time. I understand how one could make such a mistake at both design time and while writing code, but it is still a mistake and should be corrected.
Perhaps they used an Actual Incompetence (also known as “AI”) tool to write the code for the new metadata agent(s)… (smile)
If the original metadata was from the legacy agents and the new metadata is from the modern agents, it could be responsible for the difference. My concern is that the library agent has changes and therefore the changed statuses.
At this point, I’m just living with it and have already removed the files in the original locations. If I try to move something else I will try to remember to keep careful, step-by-step records of what I do – in case it happens again. Until then I’m in the, “Oh well, that’s how it works and I’ve gotta live with it.” state.
perform Refresh Metadata of the whole movie library. Let it run to completion.
fix any matching issues at the core, (i.e. folder structure, file names (don’t forget the release year). Add matching hints if necessary (e g. {imdb-tt0088258}). Don’t try to add mini series as a movie.
