Duplicates not merging.

I have purposely put two copies of Charlie’s Angels in my plex library to play around with the duplicate finder and merging. The library shows both movies, the folders are named the same, the files are named the same except one is MP4 and other is MKV and one is located on NAS1 and the other is located on NAS2. Plex won’t show them as duplicates and merge them. The only thing I can think of is because they are on different shares with in the library. Can some explain/confirm this and tell me how to fix this?

If one is unmatched or matched with a different metadata agent than the other one, Plex won’t recognise them as duplicates.
Maybe you changed the default metadata agent between adding the first and the second copy?
Or you used ‘Fix incorrect Match’ and used a non-standard agent.

Compare the mediainfo XML of both movies.
The contents of the Video guid='' tag are are probably different.

I’m not seeing the Video guid=’ ’ in either of the XML files. As for the agent that i’m using, I don’t think i’ve changed it since I created my library. I have attached the XML files from both.

@whtdrgn said:
I’m not seeing the Video guid=’ ’ in either of the XML files.

Listing 2:
guid="com.plexapp.agents.imdb://tt0160127?lang=en"
Listing 1:
guid="com.plexapp.agents.themoviedb://4327?lang=en"

agents.imdb indicates the ‘Freebase’ agent
agents.themoviedb - well, ‘TheMovieDB’ agent

As for the agent that i’m using, I don’t think i’ve changed it since I created my library.

either you did, or you used ‘Fix Incorrect Match’, as explained above.

I see that now. Recommendation on how to fix this?

merge them
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201018248-Merge-or-Split-Items

I don’t want them merged. I want to be able to find the duplicates and remove one, only need one copy. And i’m sure if this one is different down the road there will be others. Is there a way to force the entire library to one source?

@whtdrgn said:
Is there a way to force the entire library to one source?

Once a movie is matched with a particular agent, it stays on that agent.
The only way to change it is to re-match it - either by:

  • Unmatch the movie, then Match it again
  • ‘Fix Incorrect Match’
  • performing the Plex Dance
  • erasing the whole library and re-creating it

That’s what I was thinking. Thank you for your time and help.