I did a scan library at some point in the last few days and then noticed a few minutes ago that a few films were not there in one of my collections. No problem, only a few. So I re-scanned my library again and it found not just those few but hundreds that I didn’t realize were also suddenly missing. So now these are all treated as newly added, breaking my collections, custom sort titles, artwork selections, etc. Is there any way to lock in the library so that even if a particular film is removed it will always retain that info when re-added? At this point my library will probably just go disorganized because this was hours of time wasted, especially if it could just happen again.
Disable Settings > [Server Name] > Library > Empty trash automatically after every scan. This way, if episodes/shows are not available during a scan, Plex will not immediately remove the items (incl. all your manual changes) but keep them in its database until you manually tell Plex to delete its Trash.
Items from a drive that is e.g. not connected will then be displayed as Unavailable or show a trash-can icon on top of the poster.
I used to have this disabled and it ended up causing an issue where I’d remove a film and then even after manually emptying the trash it stayed in the library. Does that still happen?