Hey guys!
Quick and simple:
Will the PMS scheduled tasks run 24 hrs a day if I set it, for instance, from 7am - 7am? I wanna have the quickest possible way to have all my video preview thumbnails generated and I’d like to have this happening every day, the entire day until all of it has been created. It’s taking forever with only a few hours per day 
Have a good one, Plexians!
Logic dictates that’ll work. Logic, however, may not apply here.
Try 7 to 6.
I like doing my thumbs when I add stuff and when the setting allows, new items are ‘thumbed’ until they are done regardless of the maintenance period. I also allow thumb-gen during maintanance, so any missing thumbs are generated if necessary - and occasionally some are missed in the heat of battle.
I am somewhat sure, if the setting to allow thumb-gen when added is enabled, when an ‘Analysis’ of an item or a group of same is triggered the process will start until that item or group is finished. You’ll have to try that (with a few) and see what happens.
If that works you can analyze the entire library - if that’s what you want to do - and you won’t have to have a 24 hour maintenance session. <— there may be something in there you won’t want running all day. Don’t know.
Would this work?
Settings → Library
As a scheduled task and when media added.I wouldn’t run auto with periodic. Could be a Me thing. I wouldnt run periodic, definitely a Me thing.
Also it has been my experience that a vanilla scan won’t generate thumbs if missing, but Analysis will.
Thanks guys for all of your suggestions.
Well the thing is that I’m somehow missing sort of flexibility in doing the prev-gen. I could do it for an entire library - but this will cause my computer to run for weeks with the content I have upped.
The best thing in my situation would be to just trigger it for a specific show or several at once, but afaik this is not possible on a show level. I think I will end up having it generated for the entire libraries all at once and let my computer glow in the dark 
I haven’t even thought of this option lawl.
Thanks guys for the suggestions!
If you’ve no existing previews generated, then the first run will take a long time. After that, it will shorter, only for new media.
Note that you can enable/disable preview generation for individual libraries.
This would let you space out the initial thumbnail generation.
For example, disable generation for all but one library, generate thumbnails, enable for a second library, generate thumbnails, repeat until enabled for all libraries.
To enable/disable video preview thumbnail generation for a specific library, edit the library (mouse over the library name, click on the three vertical dots to the right of library name), Manage Library -> Edit -> Advanced. There’s a checkbox for video preview thumbnails.
you can also do this from command line.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201242707-plex-media-scanner-via-command-line/
Yea, that may help.
If you know how select most or all of the items on a page - select one, hold shift and select another to create a gang, then analyze those, you’ll probably find that preferable to weeks of CPU fun.
For instance, you could filter for titles by year/decade, select all of those and analyze, or do all the “A” films, then "B"s and so on. Analyse in groups big enough to knock out large chunks of the work load, while not taking a month.
Another big thank you to all of you guys!
I end up starting with the movies all at once. I have ~2500 movies and I’ve started analysis for the entire library. We’ll see how long that takes, especially because I have ~250 4k HEVC movies and HEVC movies in general and to my findings the VPT generation takes a looot more time than x264 or xvid, whatever. We’ll see 
As for my TV shows library this might take even longer and I think I’ll do it just manually for the episodes for each show, as I’ve heard that it’s not possible to trigger analysis for a season/show, so…yeah. Quite a bit of work for more than 60k files, but let’s go
Thank you all for bringing up your ideas. I like the cmd one pretty much. That’s very handy and good to know! Thank you all guys <3
TV Shows can be analyzed at Show, Season or Episode levels.
Just hit the ‘dots’…
If you do it for a season or a whole show, it won’t create the video previews during analysis. That only works on single videos.
Well… that seems like a rather serious shortcoming to me - and I will file that info away in the ‘Things about Plex that really annoy me’ cabinet.
…with no way to test the theory (without blowing all the VPTs), if the file names are such they can be instantly matched it would almost (probably) be better to Plex Dance a show or two at a time so you:
One thing is certain - once you endure this process it’ll probably teach you all the things you love and hate about VPT generation, so it’s best to start thinking about those B4 you gather 20TB of media… lol
Think a bit about it. Particularly how big a cpu load it can produce on weaker systems. It is wholly intentional and a good thing.
So the only options are one at a time or the entire library.
I am thinking about it and I’m not a bit surprised suddenly.
The “Power User Work-Around” is the Plex Dance for as many TV Shows as you want to do in a ‘Batch’.
Note: that’s really gonna mess up your recently added TV Show list, but it’s an excellent way to see what has had brand new VPTs generated - and it’s a great time to check those filenames and structures, so perhaps you only have to do this ONCE.
(Four Time Loser Here)
Hey juice!
I’m not quite sure how the Plex Dance will help me generating VPT? Could you go into a little more detail?
However, I came to find that having VPTs generated for an entire library isn’t that bad and probably the quickest way - apparently. I can just trigger the analysis of the TV show or movie library whenever I feel like letting the computer run for a couple of days and, if I wanna switch it off I just exit PMS and can continue where I left off.
This will probably take forever, but it’s still the quickest way, amirite? Thinking about ~60k files this will be, oh boy! Now Emby comes to my mind where you could set the intervall of VPTs (Like 10s, 20s, 30s, etc). This only took me 4 days total with 10-20s. Plex is doing VPTs in what? 0,5s? 1s? So this will signiiiificantly take longer But I’m ready!
Thanks again guys, it’s a pain in the ass when starting a server anew, but once the vast majority of files has VPTs, it will be easy
Plex Dance shows, seasons or groups thereof - with the obvious and mentioned caveats/benefits.
(if the setting is to allow thumb-gen when stuff is added - and you make Plex think it’s just been added… well…?)
(your watch-states will remain intact as they’re stored in a place no man has ever feared to tread - except Otto - so theoretically you should be fine).
Yes, VPTs are addictive. Once you have them you have the VPT Viper on your back. Nobody has ever kicked the habit to my knowledge… If you’ve quit booze, tobacco and heroine and think you’re good - The VPT Viper will laugh in your face and grind you under her stiletto heels as you do her bidding. lol
Dude wtf lmao
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
