Many posters not showing (but show on edit screen)

Server Version#: 1.19.5.3035
Player Version#: Same on all devices

Many of the posters for previously fine shows have seemingly disappeared in both the TV and Movie sections of my library. It’s about 40% of the library and I’ve fixed it a few weeks ago by redownloading all metadata but it happened again. If I go to the edit screen, all posters are still available and I can click and restore them. For all missing ones, it has the posters, just doesn’t have one selected anymore. Other than clicking individually or refreshing the entire library, anyone have any thoughts?


Did you move your Plex data folder to a drive that has not been formatted with the NTFS file system, or which is a “pooled” drive?

I had moved it from a Linux system to a standard NTFS Windows drive now. Everything was showing fine initially after the move and all metadata for the entire library has been refreshed before and this issue re-occurs.

You mean before the move or after?

So I did the Linux -> Windows switch, noticed some missing metadata afterwards, refreshed all and it all was back. A couple weeks later this issue crops up where it has the posters for everything, it just has 40% of them not selected and showing blanks as seen in the two screenshots.

@sunnyd71

When moving between Linux <-> Windows, direction irrelevant, it is imperative to delete the contents of the “Data” directory.

Specifically, Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-in Support/Data/*

DO NOT accidentally delete the Databases directory as this contains the database and information which binds everything together for you.

  1. Perform this deletion with PMS stopped.
  2. Start PMS.
  3. Refresh All Metadata for each library section.

This is necessary because Linux End-of-Line character is different than Windows and the information in the Data directory contains text files which are used by the agents.

1 Like

Thank you, I’m doing the refresh now. Hopefully the problem does not re-occur. That step is not mentioned in your support article, so if it is vital, you may want to update it.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201370363-move-an-install-to-another-system/

A lot will be changing very shortly.

The matching and metadata retrieval mechanisms have been completely re-engineered.

Moving between distributions will no longer be troubled by issues like this.

The new movie scanner is great. Wonderful work there. Is a new TV scanner in the works that makes use of the same optimizations? Since my files are hosted remotely, the new movie scanner brought the scan time down from several hours to 5 minutes.

Yes, there is.

So it did re-occur and I can’t seem to figure out why. This is even with newly added content and libraries that I never had under the old Linux install. It’s the same where the posters will be on the edit screen but not selected. This also sometimes fixes itself where one day they’ll all be gone and the next all the posters are back.

The XML file for that episode is included if that helps troubleshoot.

This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="2" librarySectionTitle="TV Shows" librarySectionUUID="2676e3e4-40b4-42e0-bbe9-9769ab50544f" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1598507574">
<Video ratingKey="1043169" key="/library/metadata/1043169" parentRatingKey="1043168" grandparentRatingKey="1043167" guid="com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://73141/17/1?lang=en" parentGuid="com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://73141/17?lang=en" grandparentGuid="com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://73141?lang=en" type="episode" title="100 Years a Solid Fool" grandparentKey="/library/metadata/1043167" parentKey="/library/metadata/1043168" librarySectionTitle="TV Shows" librarySectionID="2" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/2" grandparentTitle="American Dad!" parentTitle="Season 17" contentRating="TV-14" summary="While running an errand in Little Columbia, Stan is confronted by his hidden past." index="1" parentIndex="17" year="2020" thumb="/library/metadata/1043169/thumb/1599029789" art="/library/metadata/1043167/art/1599029791" parentThumb="/library/metadata/1043168/thumb/1599029791" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/1043167/thumb/1599029791" grandparentArt="/library/metadata/1043167/art/1599029791" duration="1259884" originallyAvailableAt="2020-04-13" addedAt="1587181626" updatedAt="1599029789">
<Media id="1026912" duration="1259884" bitrate="1211" width="1280" height="720" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="6" audioCodec="ac3" videoCodec="hevc" videoResolution="720" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="24p" videoProfile="main 10">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="1165108" key="/library/parts/1165108/1586833798/file.mkv" duration="1259884" file="Y:\TV (Continuing)\American Dad!\Season 17\American Dad! - S17E01 - 100 Years a Solid Fool HDTV-720p.mkv" size="190643403" container="mkv" indexes="sd" videoProfile="main 10">
<Stream id="3656481" streamType="1" default="1" codec="hevc" index="0" bitrate="763" bitDepth="10" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codedHeight="720" codedWidth="1280" colorRange="tv" frameRate="23.976" height="720" level="93" profile="main 10" refFrames="1" width="1280" displayTitle="720p (HEVC Main 10)" extendedDisplayTitle="720p (HEVC Main 10)"/>
<Stream id="3656482" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="ac3" index="1" channels="6" bitrate="448" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" samplingRate="48000" displayTitle="Unknown (AC3 5.1)" extendedDisplayTitle="Unknown (AC3 5.1)"/>
</Part>
</Media>
<Director id="126728" filter="director=126728" tag="Shawn Murray"/>
<Marker type="intro" startTimeOffset="147445" endTimeOffset="176752"/>
<Extras size="0"> </Extras>
<Related> </Related>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>

Try disabling IPv6 under
Settings - Server - Network - ‘Show Advanced’

Then Refresh Metadata

Thanks but that appears to have already been off. Refreshing metadata fixes it but the problem returns.

I just wanted to follow up that the issue continues to occur intermittently with the latest update. The same blank posters in the edit screen screenshot in the previous post happens and disappears on it’s own. One day it might show the poster and the next it won’t and then it will again. Any further suggestions?

As previously mentioned, I did move the database from Linux-> Windows previously but some of these libraries have been created after the move from scratch.

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