The media for my PleX library is stored in an external hard drive, which I recently had to unplug. After plugging it back in again and restarting PleX, all the folders are still there, but they all say they’re empty! What on Earth do I do?? Please help!
Do you mean it says “unavailable” when looking at an item in Plex?
When you plugged the HD back in did it get the same drive letter it used to have? If not, you should be able to change it back manually to whatever it was. Change a drive letter | Microsoft Docs
When I open the folder in Plex, it just says “Empty Folder - There Are No Items In This Folder.” But when I check my external hard drive, the folder still has those files in it.
I don’t know if the drive has the same drive letter it used to have because I don’t know what that old drive letter was.
change the view from by folder to Movies or Tv. does it show anything?
Yes! Under “Folder” it still just shows a ton of empty, labeled folders, but under “Movies” it shows what looks like all my files, but they’re not in order.
hover on one of the movie posters/thumbnails and click on the dots on the lower right corner. At the bottom of the menu that opens choose “Get Info”. In the window that opens it should have the file path that Plex Media Server thinks the file is. You should be able to see the drive letter that it used to be, and compare it to the actual drive letter in windows.
If they don’t match change the drive letter in windows (not in Plex)
I really thought that was going to be it. But no…
The server thinks the file is drive F. Then I checked Windows - the external hard drive with the file on it actually is on drive F.
I think this might be it, not sure: I went into Manage Library > Edit > ‘Add folders’ to see what folders are in my library, and they all said drive G. But in Windows, my external hard drive is currently plugged into drive F!
So if I go into Windows and rename F to G, will that bring everything back?
It should.
AAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!
OK, I changed the drive letter to G (because that’s where my library thinks all the folders are), closed Plex down, started it up again, and the dang files are all still missing!
have you tried scanning for files again?
Do you mean “update libraries”? Or something else? (Sorry, I’m just getting really frustrated.)
It worked!! Aw, BigWheel, you’re the best!! Thank you so much, I appreciate it tremendously!!
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