Library scan keeps marking shows as unwatched, and removing seasons

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 1.42.1.10060
Player Version#: 4.147.1 (via Firefox)
Player Version#: 10.30.5.4094 (1b82b1be) via a Firestick

I’m having some strange issues with my TV library.

Earlier today I added a file to my storage but I added the TV episode in question to a different show’s folder. I then rescanned the library. Skip forward about six hours and I noticed that some of my shows have had seasons removed, or entire seasons marked as unwatched. It’s the same two shows that are having issues, House M.D. and Star Trek: DS9… I’ve never had any issues with them before. Plex is also unable to pickup the new season folders that I’ve added to each show, without me first adding the season’s folder to the folder list. The parent folder is already in the list though.

I’ve tried removing the single episode file from my storage, restoring the com.plexapp.plugins.library.db from before I noticed the issue. After restoring the .db, the House and DS9 are marked as correctly watched but as soon as I scan the library, the problem occurs again.

The only other change to my server that has effected my library would be upgrading the server version from 1.30.1.6562-915986d62 to 1.42.1.10060-4e8b05daf after the recent data leak… but that was 10 days ago and I don’t remember any issues up to this point. It is possible I haven’t rescanned my TV library since then though.

Does anyone know what is going on?

2

I had similar things going on. I had two different TV shows being identified as duplicates. I splitted them manually, but then marking one’s episodes as watched had the other’s episodes also become “watched”.

I Plex danced both shows… taking them away from where Plex sees them, cleaning all traces within Plex (aka Plex dance), then renamed the individual file names to something completely new and added them back. Plex problem circumvented for me…

3

I’ve tried creating a new TV library, with just DS9 and House, and when I scan that library, it’s picking DS9 episodes up as being House and vice versa.

If I repeat the scans on my main TV library, it will seemingly randomly add and remove entire seasons of the shows…. Plex has always been wonky for me, when it comes to whether it picks up a sub folder here and there but it’s never been this perplexingly bad.

Thank you for the suggestion @rossinior. I might give it a shot when I can find some time but it sounds like a very big job, to fix something that shouldn’t happen in the first place… it’s such a basic, fundamental part of what Plex does. Surely it should be a rock solid part of PMS?

4

How are your files organized? Sounds like you might have something mixed up there.

Also, the watched status is based on the show not the files, so adding the correct files later will still be watched.

5

I have a single parent folder for all my TV shows. Then I have a sub-folder for each TV show. These subfolders can contain different versions of the show in question, as is the case with DS9. More often than not, the sub-folders have another folder in which I store the files. If the show in question has multiple seasons, then there are more sub-folders for each season. For example-

/Media/Televisions/House/House DVD Rips/Season 1
/Media/Televisions/House/House DVD Rips/Season 2

or

/Media/Televisions/DS9/DS9 DVD Rips/Season 1
/Media/Televisions/DS9/DS9 Upscaled TEST/Season 1

All the folders mounted into my Plex container have the correct permissions, including the execution bit on the directories themselves. I do choose to mount them read-only though but this has never cause and issue in all the years I’ve been using Plex.

I should also note in regards to how my files are organised…. nothing has changed aside from adding a couple of seasons to each show (which were their in the past anyway). I did not have this issue in the past, when I had the exact same filenames and folder structure.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. Could you please explain?

6

I’m not sure if naming shows that way works. There is a way to do thins but it’s been a while since I looked last so I can’t remember. It’s possible the “DVD Rips” and “Upscaled Test” are messing things up, since PMS does use all the words in the name as the title. I would recommend putting any extra descriptors in brackets so they get ignores.

/Media/Televisions/DS9/DS9 [DVD Rips]/Season 1
/Media/Televisions/DS9/DS9 [Upscaled TEST]/Season 1

If files are matched to the wrong show, say House S2 as DS9 S2, and you mistakenly mark the House S2 as watched, then rematch these as DS9 S2, DS9 S2 will not be marked as watched. You then add the correct House S2, these will be marked as watched since they were marked as such before. PMS will remember from before.

7

Plex Documentation → Your Media → Naming & Organizing Your TV Show Files

This is an organization issue. The season folder must be immediately below the main show folder.

Eliminate the House DVD Rips folder.

You can add [DVD Rips] to the show folder if desired. Use square brackets so Plex will ignore it when matching.

/Media/Televisions <-- folder added to tv show library
  /House (2004) [DVD Rips]<-- show_name (intro_year)
    /Season 01
      /House (2004) s01e01.mkv
    /Season 02
      /House (2004) s02e01.mkv
8

Plex does not handle Editions for TV Shows like it can for Movies. This leads to problems you are having with DS9.

Organize as @MovieFan suggests and also follow Plex naming requirements. You may need to Plex Dance after renaming.

/Media/Televisions <-- folder added to tv show library
  /Star Trek Deep Space Nine (1993) [DVD Rips]
    /Season 01
      /Star Trek Deep Space Nine (1993) s01e01.mkv

  /Star Trek Deep Space Nine (1993) [Upscaled Test]
    /Season 01
      /Star Trek Deep Space Nine (1993) s01e01.mkv

Plex will initially combine the series. You can split them apart so they appear separately. Plex will still consider them one show, so play progress, watched status, etc. will be the same. Continue Watching may also mix the shows. You may need to choose the desired version from the library instead of the home screen.

See this post: How to specify the versions names of same episod on a TV show? - #2 by FordGuy61

9

Correct. My comment was more towards making sure the matching worked, which it should even with that type of file structure.

1 Like
10

Point of order ?

With the old scanners DS9 would work
With the new scanners, we have to be more exact Deep Space Nine

A bit of a pain but far fewer mismatches than before

Star Trek Deep Space Nine
├── Season 01
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E01-E02 - Emissary.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E03 - Past Prologue.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E04 - A Man Alone.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E05 - Babel.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E06 - Captive Pursuit.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E07 - Q-Less.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E08 - Dax.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E09 - The Passenger.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E10 - Move Along Home.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E11 - The Nagus.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E12 - Vortex.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E13 - Battle Lines.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E14 - The Storyteller.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E15 - Progress.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E16 - If Wishes Were Horses.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E17 - The Forsaken.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E18 - Dramatis Personae.mkv
│   ├── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E19 - Duet.mkv
│   └── Star Trek Deep Space Nine - S01E20 - In the Hands of the Prophets.mkv
11

Haha. I wasn’t even thinking of the actual name, just the concept, but you are correct. For DS9, it has to be spelled out to match properly.