so, my external SRT files weren’t showing up for futurama, so I did step one of the Plex dance; I removed the Futurama folder from the folder that Plex has access to, and then I scanned my TV Shows library. the last several times I’ve done this, I’ve had to scan two or three times in order to get the show actually put in the trash. otherwise, emptying the trash doesn’t do anything, the show’s still sits there, with no trash icon on it, but if you open the show up it shows everything as unavailable.
I just did the scanning seven times trying to do the Plex dance tonight, and it still isn’t working. Futurama is not going into the trash. I’ve double checked the file pads under the get info, and I don’t have another copy hanging around, it just shows my one copy, and says it’s unavailable.
the first step of the Plex dance is clearly to scan after removing the files. but, if you hit the three buttons, once you’re inside a show description, you can just delete it. then it goes into the trash, and you can do the rest of the Plex dance successfully.
I’m saying that the Plex Dance is generally not necessary in cases where you’re just missing metadata. Just refresh metadata. For the show or season, or a particular episode. Just follow the naming guidelines.
I’ve been following the naming convention to a t since the first time we had this conversation years ago. but every time I add a new show to the library, and then add the subtitles later, I have to do the Plex dance to get the subtitles recognized. it’s gotten to the point where I always have to keep the video files in a different folder until I’ve got the subtitles all fixed up, and then add them together in order for them to get recognized.
a while ago I switched hard drives, messed up my folder locations, so Plex read everything as new, and didn’t pick up the external subtitles for almost anything. until I do a Plex dance with them. and now, as I stated, the first step of the Plex dance has to be repeated more and more to get it to work, I’m just skipping it now, moving the files to an inaccessible folder, and then just deleting the show manually from my library before cleaning bundles and putting it back
Where are your media stored?
On hard drives inside of the server machine?
On externally connected hard drives?
On network file shares (file server/NAS etc.)?
Or worse? (cloud storage, and the like)
The script is exporting the db files to a SQL text file, then imports it again and rebuilds the database.
By doing this, it can purge many inconsistencies in the internal file structure, optimize the file, and re-create index tables.
This process is also more thorough than the offically recommended method for repairing the database.
It can’t do much harm, unless your C: drive is almost full (does not apply if you have relocated your plex data folder).
But it can potentially remove weird behaviour such as the one you’re experiencing and also speed up the database a bit.
