Fix Incorrect Match search is broken

I recently deleted/recreated my Movies library to troubleshoot a transcoding issue in 1.7.6.4058. I purposely did not back up my metadata. After recreating the library, no combination of agent ordering correctly identifies my data and downloads the appropriate info from Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, etc. If I attempt to manually match the data, the search function does not work regardless of browser or app – I’ve tried the Plex Media Player as well! Note that there is a field that I can click on, but there is no text – this is the same in any browser and the Plex Media Player app.

If I click the field, which is presumably a result of some kind, the entry disappears from my library. I have no idea what metadata this process applies.

If I click “Search Options”, I can modify data, but this results in the same screenshot as above.

My current library settings:

  • Scanner: Plex Movie Scanner
  • Agent: The Movie Database

My server agent settings:

  • Movies → Plex Movie → Plex Movie
  • Movies → The Movie Database → The Movie Database, Fanart.tv, and Plex Movie

I’ve tried deleting the agent data, reordering agents, selecting different agents, with nothing changing in terms of matching.

If you rename it: Avatar (2009)/Avatar (2009).mkv, PMS will find it automatically and correctly.
Since you have the media already in position where PMS scans, Move it out of the Movies directory, Update Libraries, Empty Trash, Clean Bundles, rename it, then move it back into position. (The Plex Dance)

@ChuckPa said:
If you rename it: Avatar (2009)/Avatar (2009).mkv, PMS will find it automatically and correctly.
Since you have the media already in position where PMS scans, Move it out of the Movies directory, Update Libraries, Empty Trash, Clean Bundles, rename it, then move it back into position. (The Plex Dance)

I do not believe this has anything to do with file naming as my library was previously tagged/labeled/poster-ized perfectly. That being said, I did move the file out of the library, rescan/cleanup, move it back, rescan, and it still does not match. I can’t help but feel this is a problem with the agent process.

if you believe there is a problem with them, clear the caches and refresh all metadata
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/202967376-Clearing-Plugin-Channel-Agent-HTTP-Caches

@ChuckPA said:
if you believe there is a problem with them, clear the caches and refresh all metadata
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/202967376-Clearing-Plugin-Channel-Agent-HTTP-Caches

I appreciate the response @ChuckPA, but I tried that and mentioned it in my first post. Is there anything specific I could look for in the logs?

May I see the complete logs ?
There are several things I will cross check . it’s quicker to do than explain all the different items.

@ChuckPA said:
May I see the complete logs ?
There are several things I will cross check . it’s quicker to do than explain all the different items.

Sure! Logs attached. I just attempted to auto-match Avatar again, FWIW.

Chad,
Would you verify user permissions for all the files in the Library directory? The only thing which makes any sense is somehow an agent 's ownership (of the file to execute) isn’t plex. If need be, do a recursive chown -R plex:plex and set them all then restart PMS. Otherwise running out of ideas here as nothing in the logs indicates otherwise.

@ChuckPA said:
Chad,
Would you verify user permissions for all the files in the Library directory? The only thing which makes any sense is somehow an agent 's ownership (of the file to execute) isn’t plex. If need be, do a recursive chown -R plex:plex and set them all then restart PMS. Otherwise running out of ideas here as nothing in the logs indicates otherwise.

From within the Plex jail, I see the following info regarding Avatar:
-rw------- 1 plex plex 6707090236 Jan 10 2017 Avatar (2009).mkv

If I look at the mount point, I see the following info:
root@Plex:/mnt/tank/Media/Movies # ls -l /mnt
total 1
drwxrwxrwx 4 root wheel 4 Jun 8 11:06 tank

After noticing this discrepancy in permissions, I reviewed the original guide I followed for setting up the jail – for some unknown reason, VIMAGE was not checked in the jail options. I checked the option, restarted the jail, and initiated a rescan of my library.

The permissions are still the same on on the mount point, but now all metadata is populated correctly and I no longer have any transcoding issues at all.

I have no idea how this option was reset or what changed as a result of checking it, but my issues are entirely resolved. Thank you for the assistance.

@trumpy81 said:
A number of things show up in your logs. I noticed that Plex is merging Avatar with Batman the Killing Joke, both have the same ID in the database. This is due to your poor file naming!

I highly recommend that you use FileBot to automatically rename the files for you.

FileBot:
https://www.filebot.net

Plex naming schemes for FileBot:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/191687/plex-naming-schemes-for-filebot/p1

FileBot Introductory Videos:
Getting Started

You may also use The Renamer or Radarr to rename the files correctly for use with Plex.

I appreciate the feedback but my file naming had nothing to do with the incorrect matching. The issue was that the matching search was not displaying correctly – it didn’t even return “no results” – it was just blank.