Any way to lock movie posters so they don't get changed when Plex rescans? I keep getting some wrong posters or ones that don't look good and have to manually change them.
This is one of my biggest beefs with Plex. I have the posters that I like on the server, on the disk, in my library. But Plex continuously makes changes. I still want Plex to grab other stuff from the web, like synopses, studios and other details, just not the posters and fanart. I'll do that myself. How do I LOCK the posters?
Anybody? Is there a way to keep Plex from 'updating' posters and fanart? I have -all- posters and fanart in the form of .jpg's on my disk, named exactly the same as the movie, I 'attach' them to the movie and it works okay to begin with, but Plex sometimes randomly drops them, sometimes in favor of an 'agent' poster, sometimes they disappear when I play the movie, and are replaced with a random scene from the movie. I have unchecked all the agents I can. Actually I still want the metadata, just not the art. Anybody?
Anybody? Is there a way to keep Plex from 'updating' posters and fanart? I have -all- posters and fanart in the form of .jpg's on my disk, named exactly the same as the movie, I 'attach' them to the movie and it works okay to begin with, but Plex sometimes randomly drops them, sometimes in favor of an 'agent' poster, sometimes they disappear when I play the movie, and are replaced with a random scene from the movie. I have unchecked all the agents I can. Actually I still want the metadata, just not the art. Anybody?
I wasn't actually aware this was happening because I change the ugly posters all the time through the PLEX web interface and the little pencil edit button when you hover over the media. You're saying it periodically changes them back when it scans the library?? If so count me in on the list of people that want this changed.
I wasn't actually aware this was happening because I change the ugly posters all the time through the PLEX web interface and the little pencil edit button when you hover over the media. You're saying it periodically changes them back when it scans the library?? If so count me in on the list of people that want this changed.
Yes. I use the little pencil button to manually "attach" a poster.jpg and -fanart.jpg from my disk. It has replaced them with "web" posters, fanart, and sometimes, after I actually watch a movie, the poster is replaced with a random screen-capture from the movie. I don't know why. I have disabled all the agents as much as I can (you can't disable some of them) but I still want the other metadata--just not art changes...
Yes. I use the little pencil button to manually "attach" a poster.jpg and -fanart.jpg from my disk. It has replaced them with "web" posters, fanart, and sometimes, after I actually watch a movie, the poster is replaced with a random screen-capture from the movie. I don't know why. I have disabled all the agents as much as I can (you can't disable some of them) but I still want the other metadata--just not art changes...
Ah, okay. I was unclear, you're editing the same way although the main difference is that you're grabbing local content rather than what's pulled down by the agent. I did some testing last night with posters then re-scanning and it seems like the selected poster stays if you're picking from what's pulled down by the agent.
Hopefully they can provide some help with what you're trying to do.
Ok, the OP is 11 months old, and NOBODY (either Guru, Ninja, Lurker, nor any Plex employee) has an answer or fix for this very frustrating problem.
In the “Agents” I have done everything to elevate “Local Media Assets” to the top, and unchecked everything that can be unchecked. I have local .jpg’s for EVERYTHING. I don’t get odd, foreign artwork or screen captures anymore–only -very- rarely, but sometimes (quite often) either the poster or the background image just DISAPPEARS, replaced with the blank grey arrow (poster) or just nothing in the case of background art. I thought -maybe- locking the ‘name’ and ‘sort name’ might tell Plex to keep hands off, but no. Also, the background are most commonly disappears after I have actually played the movie.
Which version of PMS are you using?
“Which version of PMS are you using?”
Always the latest version. Always the same behavior. This has been happening to me since day-1 (years ago.) I -exclusively- have my own .jpg’s for posters and backgrounds, agents are set correctly for this purpose. The database (I’m guessing) just drops the link to the .jpg, or something. Some posters and/or backgrounds just disappear. Replaced with grey “arrow” box. I have three Plex servers, one for backup, one for portable, one main. This happens on all of them on different movies. If a few days go by, multiple posters and/or backgrounds are just gone.
I’ll just chime in to say that I have never, to my knowledge, experienced this. When I set a jpg (either local or downloaded but usually the only ones I have to change have to be local as the agents could not find the correct movie. I have a number of older, rather obscure movies) for a poster it sticks just fine. The only time I have had one reset on me was when I replaced the movie with a better copy and I guess Plex detected the change and treated it as a new movie.
I had to manually match most of the old Shirley Temple shorts and a couple of the Bulldog Drummand movies a few years ago and I just checked and the posters are all exactly how I set them.
I have been experiencing this exact problem.
Every time I update my library I’m stuck sitting in front of my computer editing movie posters. I wish PLEX would simply retain my desired selection rather than reverting back to a screen-grab from the movie.
This seems like such a simple fix!
PLEX staff?!
If you are manually choosing your own poster/fanart, that act should lock the poster in place. I’ve only seen locked items get changed under 2 circumstances.
1 - The movie/show is unmatched. Instead of fixing a bad match, the movie/show is left unmatched and the metadata is manually edited. In this case, Plex will try tomatch the show the next time it updates the library. If it finds a clsoe enough match, it generates a new entry in it’s database to add all the data, then deletes the current entry, thereby removing any customizations. The fix is to fix the match or if there is no match, in the advanced search options, set the agent to personal media for that movie/show.
2 - I’ve seen a bug in some 3rd party scanners that can cause this. If you are using a 3rd party scanner, I would contact the dev of that scanner to see if they are aware of the issue.
I’m the OP of this long ago thread and I never use third-party scanners, all of my movies are matched. I’m a bit OCD about these things, that’s why I notice. A lot of the covers are very low resolution so I am always redoing half the covers to get nice ones.
@MovieFan.Plex said:
If you are manually choosing your own poster/fanart, that act should lock the poster in place. I’ve only seen locked items get changed under 2 circumstances.1 - The movie/show is unmatched. Instead of fixing a bad match, the movie/show is left unmatched and the metadata is manually edited. In this case, Plex will try tomatch the show the next time it updates the library. If it finds a clsoe enough match, it generates a new entry in it’s database to add all the data, then deletes the current entry, thereby removing any customizations. The fix is to fix the match or if there is no match, in the advanced search options, set the agent to personal media for that movie/show.
2 - I’ve seen a bug in some 3rd party scanners that can cause this. If you are using a 3rd party scanner, I would contact the dev of that scanner to see if they are aware of the issue.
Neither of these things apply to me. I don’t use my own local content for posters and backgrounds, but I do manually select different posters and backgrounds through Plex Web by clicking on the pencil and picking a different poster provided by the metadata agent.
And yet, without fail, Plex will eventually overwrite my preference and revert the poster back to the original default image available from the agents within weeks or days. I’ve got around 2,000 movies in my library, and it’s unbelievably annoying having to go in and manually change all of the posters back to my own preferences, especially knowing it’s only a matter of time until it happens again. I’ve pretty much given up trying to get Plex to respect my poster choices, so now I’ve got a library with 2,000 crappy looking movie posters that I’m stuck with.
Just doing a basic Google search on this annoying bug, I see that it has been a problem for many users over the last 6 years. Why I don’t see is a useful fix to the issue so that I can select all the movie posters I would prefer and rest assured that they won’t all be getting randomly changed automatically sometime in the near future.
So what’s the story, Plex people? Why is this happening, and what can I do to make it stop happening?
I am not sure what public database Plex agents are pulling from exactly but here is what I think happens when you “select” a poster that the agent provides. The poster you select is lets say for the sake of example the 3rd most popular poster from the public movie poster database. So all is good as long as the poster you have selected stays poster the 3rd most popular poster on the database. But now for whatever reason the 3rd most popular poster changes on the database to another poster, one you didn’t select. Well when Plex scans that database and finds a new 3rd most popular it updates your poster to that new one that you DID NOT select. A real pain in the ass. I think the only way to keep the posters\backgrounds you want is to manually download them from another source and then drag and drop them in Plex to upload new custom image to your Plex database. This really completely defeats the purpose and usefulness of the whole artwork selection system.
I think a lot of people invollved with Plex don’t realize how much time and effort many users put into customizing all their artwork, titles, descriptions, etc etc. They sort of assume no big deal if your whole Plex Database is lost. Just start again, load your media, hit scan and live with whatever that agents come up with. It is sort of disappointing.
Nope, it doesn’t work that way. Plex downloads the posters in the order given by the agent. The first one, which is usually the most popular, is used as the default poster by PMS. If you do nothing to your collection, this will never change. If you Refresh your movie, then yes, it may pull new data and if the poster from the source has changed, so will the one used by PMS. If you however, manually edit your movie and select a different poster, that one will be chosen and locked. This locked poster will not change, unless #1 in my comment above applies.
@Elijah_Baley said:
I’ll just chime in to say that I have never, to my knowledge, experienced this. When I set a jpg (either local or downloaded but usually the only ones I have to change have to be local as the agents could not find the correct movie. I have a number of older, rather obscure movies) for a poster it sticks just fine. The only time I have had one reset on me was when I replaced the movie with a better copy and I guess Plex detected the change and treated it as a new movie.I had to manually match most of the old Shirley Temple shorts and a couple of the Bulldog Drummand movies a few years ago and I just checked and the posters are all exactly how I set them.
That’s because you and I use perfectly named files and folder structures and once matched successfully Plex never tries to match them again - blowing our edits ('cause we never have to do any/many) out of the water.
I do have a couple of shows that aren’t listed anywhere and every single time that library is scanned Plex works up a sweat trying to match what is unmatchable and would blow my edits out of the water if I actually made any edits. I learned a long time ago editing the unmatchable is futile, so I created a poster image, named it show.jpg and stuck it in the main folder and that’s where I stopped.
Plex still tries and fails to match the unmatchable, but then tries to explode my non-existent edits, but eventually gives up displays show.jpg and life goes on.
Do a manual match and change the agent to personal media. It won’t try matching again after that.
… and then change it back 10 minutes from now when the next thing goes on…
That’ll probably become tiresome at some point.
If you change the agent, it should not rematch the movie so the poster won’t change. As mentioned above, I’ve only seen this happen when the movie stays unmatched. Unmatched to the movie agent is not the same as matched to the personal media agent. They are both not tied to an online agent, but PMS treats them differently.
