I already searched and found multiple threads talking about duplicates, but it’s either the same files listed more than once (not my case) or referring to TV Shows and not movies, which may be exactly the same issue I am having with movies, but it also may not.
I have movies showing up as duplicates and when you look at the file names, they’re not even close. One of them, for example, has 19 duplicates. Media Info shows 19 different files with names that don’t even remotely resemble each other, different folders, etc.
What’s odd is that this happens always to the same movies whenever I do a full rescan of my library after splitting them. If I’m not mistaken, it also happens on its own a while after I have manually split them, but I am not sure of that one.
Also, this happens to almost all of the same movies in two servers I have pulling media from the same directories (one is desktop and one is NAS).
The two conditions above seem to indicate it’s files named incorrectly, but I am telling you. No relation whatsoever in names or folders.
Duplicates refer to duplicate matches, not duplicate filenames.
If different files get matched to the same title then they will show up as duplicates. If you have a lot of these then it’s most likely an issue with the naming of the files or the folders. If you can show how the files and folders are structured I can give advice on what’s potentially wrong.
Naming like the article above describes will ensure you have the least amount of friction.
You can still name the files like you want however (ymmv on matching success though). One thing you have to ensure is correct though is the paths you add to the library, in your examples it should be fine if these paths are added for the library:
\NAS\Movies\The I-R\ \NAS\Movies[Unorganized]\
If you have just one path for the library like \NAS\Movies\ then it will break.
Edit the library, then go to the Add Folders and check/correct the paths there.
Oh, no I have 33 subfolders under Movies and can create more. I wouldn’t want to add the libraries at that level, which is why I have a single one at the Movies level. What is telling PLEX that these files I am listing above are the same movie? Nothing in them resembles the other. And it’s always the same ones that do this.
I forgot to mention I also have only 1 movie per folder/subfolder.
Your naming is so bad that I am not surprised you get bad matches. The file should be named:
The Prestige (2006) .mkv
or if you really want the extra junk:
The Prestige (2006) [m720p.x264].mkv
The square brackets tell Plex to ignore everything inside them.
While Plex can work with file names with a lot of extra crap in them the extra dots and the nearly meaningless junk like “m720p.x264” means nothing to Plex or to just about any other media manager I have ever seen.
Fix the naming for all your files and, probably, after a re-scan (you may need to “Plex Dance” the files involved) you matching should get a lot better.
Plex is pretty good at matching but the further you are from “standard” the poorer the matching will be.
BTW: I would not worry about “why” I would just fix the file names and go from there.
For the “Rain Man” file the name should be “Rain Man (1988).mkv” Your directory structure looks OK it is just the file names that are bad.
Plex uses the filename and the directory structure to get matches. From my experience it seems that the naming of the directory is most important for TV series but, for movies, the filename itself seems to be the most important.
This explains a lot. Notice how those extra files are all in the [Unorganized] folder? That’s because exactly that, I haven’t organized them, which includes renaming them. I didn’t know (remember?) PLEX ignored stuff inside [brackets], but, coincidentally, I always add brackets around that other junk when I organize my files. That’s why the dups usually (maybe always) involve files in my [Unorganized] folder. I am going to take the time to clean these up, rescan and if there’s still some giving me trouble even after keeping all this in mind, I will come back and report it.
I think at least a part of these duplicates could also be caused by:
downloading/ripping movies directly into a folder which is being “watched” by Plex. Don’t do it. Cure this with the Plex Dance – particularly if your library is still using one of the old Python-based metadata agents.
preferring embedded meta data over metadata supplied by Plex. You can cure this as follows:
Go to
Settings - Server - Agents - Shows - TheTVDB
In there, grab the line ‘Local Media Assets’ with your mouse and drag it downwards, so it ends up being at the bottom of the stack of active agents.
Repeat the same under
Settings - Server - Agents - Shows - TheMovieDatabase
Settings - Server - Agents - Movies - Plex Movie
Settings - Server - Agents - Movies - TheMovieDatabase
If the library in question already uses the new metadata agents, do this instead:
I only move files to these PLEX-watched folders after preparing them. The one exception was everything I have in that old [Unorganized] folder and, as per my previous response, that seems to be the culprit of my issue. User problem.
I didn’t know the Plex Dance term but now, after seeing the link you provided (thanks), I have learned to do a few of those things in the past. At lease, move the files out of the watched folder, refresh, move them back and refresh again. What I hadn’t done is Empty Trash and Clean Bundles. Not sure what those do, but will read on them right now.
I didn’t know about reordering the agents. I just went though all of them and moved the local media assets to the end as you suggested. Makes a lot of sense too.
Thank you all for you very knowledgeable and helpful responses. This is definitely where you come for PLEX support.
