So one of my HD’s died, and thus it’s data is still in plex, presumably under the proviso the source directory is empty. Is there any way I can browse specifically was in that source directory so I have a fair/clear idea of what I’ve lost??
My data is spread across about 5 HD and trying to pinpoint which stuff I’ve actually lost is quite difficult. I want to do this so I can decide what to replace that I’ve lost (from hundreds of movies).
Anyone have any smart solutions?
Thanks,
Webtools 3 - “FindMedia” feature.
Findmedia will list both what’s on disk and not in database, and what’s in the database and missing from disk.
And, my condolences on your loss.
Attempting to pull the data out of the database isn’t going to be easy either.
Your best and only hope is to copy the database and extract the records containing the pathnames.
With that in hand, you can then begin filtering.
@ChuckPA - Unsure what you mean - The FindMedia feature I mention makes a nice list with full drive/folder/filename.ext paths. I don’t think they’d need to pull any data directly from database.
If they have named the files correctly, it will be obvious what they are missing from the list provided to them.
(It makes two separate lists, first is “not in plex but found in library path”, second is “found in Plex but not in library path”)
Correct, it is possible to manually walk through every library and visually verify which ones are ‘unavailable’ keeping the list manually but it is still arduous
I still strongly recommend making a backup copy of the DB in case this method fails. I do know it’s possible to dump the PMS database to ascii SQL and grab the table which contains the media pathnames.
To accomplish this task using the visual method:
In Settings - Server - Library
Turn off ‘Empty Trash after every Library update’
and update the library.
Skipping all that:
There is a really swoopy way of doing this if the OP is willing to install a plug-in manually.
Install ExportTools from GitHub.
Run the "FindMedia’ - Find Missing tool on each library section. It will compare whats in the DB with what should be on disk. It will generate a report.
@ChuckPa - FindMedia in Webtools wouldn’t require comparing there vs not there - it simply outputs ONLY the missing into two separate lists. They would need the second list which shows missing from disk.
I thought ExportTools had been replaced by FindMedia in the Webtools plugin,
I see he (Tommy/Dane22) has still kept a separate plugin that does same or at least very similar as his inclusion in Webtools.
Either way, FindMedia in Webtools plugin, or ExportTools, both will export a list of missing files from each library.
No major walk-through necessary.
Good luck either way @Thiefsie
Whatever Tommy named it in 3.0, you know what I mean, FindMedia is the module/ function needed.
IIRC, FindMedia will report what’s missing from the DB (not important in this case) and What’s missing from the file system (the desired function here).
Either way, it will output a file which can then be used to clearly identify what’s missing.
Fantastic, I manually installed Webtools and I’ve got the text exports from FindMedia to work with. Thanks a lot!
