Multiple version icon shown incorrectly

General Discussions
1

So I keep seeing this little icon all over the place:

Firstly, it would be great if Plex could add a tooltip, as it took quite a lot of searching to actually find out what on earth it’s supposed to represent. :slight_smile:

I finally found a thread which explains that it’s there to show multiple media files existing for the same episode or movie. However, I’m seeing this icon for shows where there is clearly only one media file. For example:

Both files have exactly the same path, and therefore represent the same file. Why is Plex displaying the multiple media icon for this? It seems like a bug to me - and I see it extremely regularly across my collection.

2

Edit your tv show library
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200289266-editing-libraries/
go to the ‘Add Folders’ tab
How many paths are listed there?
If more than 1, do they overlap?
Have you changed something on this tab in the past?

If there are no overlapping folder paths, the only known cure is to perform the Plex Dance with the affected files.

3

There are no additional folders. The folder only exists once in my library. And I’ve never touched that tab (didn’t even know it existed until you mentioned it).

I’m aware I can probably fix this with a Plex Dance. I’m not really inclined to do that though, particularly as this affects potentially hundreds of files in my collection. My point in posting was for the Plex guys to say “Ah, yes, that’s really dumb and should never happen - we’ll fix that in a future release”.

4

AFAIK they could not reproduce this error. So they don’t know what to fix, yet.

What is your system config, particularly the platform of your server and how are the media files stored?

5

It’s a Synology NAS, running the latest 64-bit server. I have a single top-level folder in my library (the /volume1/video/TV folder you see in the screenshot). There is only one file for this episode in the folder, and has only ever been one (a single download from Sonarr was moved to that folder last night).

o6ukm3slbkte.png884×302 34.6 KB

The issue is on the server, not the client - as you can see from the screenshot above from my library - and the ‘multiple files’ icon shows up both on Plex Web and in the MacOS Plex Client.

Is there anything else you need for them to be able to diagnose the problem?

6

Ideally, the logs files covering the time frame when the ‘duplicate’ was recognized by Plex server.
(With ‘debug’ logging enabled, but not ‘verbose’. This kind of logging must have been already enabled when the bug occured.)

7

Logs attached, but I’ve only just turned on debug logs, I didn’t have it enabled by default. The TV show in question was added to the library at 22:59 yesterday (10 May 2018). I’ll leave debug logs on, and if I see it again with a new show I’ll upload new logs.

8

@“Mark Otway” said:
Logs attached, but I’ve only just turned on debug logs, I didn’t have it enabled by default.

Then there is not much of use in there, unfortunately.

a single download from Sonarr was moved to that folder last night).

Do you let Sonarr download directly into your media folder(s)?
Or does it download first into a different folder (which is not watched by Plex)
then performs what ever postprocessing it does and only afterwards moves the finished file into the Plex library folder?

9

The latter. Sonar downloads to

/volume1/video/Downloads

and then after post-processing then moves the finished file into

/volume1/video/TV/{show}/{season}

10

FYI, here’s the XML from the affected show:

<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="1" librarySectionTitle="TV Shows" librarySectionUUID="36eb1526-c761-46d0-8d2e-df496ce9ea6a" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1525435222">
<Video ratingKey="8619" key="/library/metadata/8619" skipParent="1" parentRatingKey="8542" grandparentRatingKey="8541" guid="com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://346464/1/2?lang=en" librarySectionTitle="TV Shows" librarySectionID="1" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/1" type="episode" title="Episode 2" grandparentKey="/library/metadata/8541" parentKey="/library/metadata/8542" grandparentTitle="Britain's Best Home Cook" parentTitle="Season 1" summary="The best nine cooks battle it out over their finest fish dish and improvise with squash or rice before the weakest face a tricky dessert elimination round. At the end of the challenges, one cook must say farewell." index="2" parentIndex="1" year="2018" thumb="/library/metadata/8619/thumb/1525989637" art="/library/metadata/8541/art/1525989638" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/8541/thumb/1525989638" grandparentArt="/library/metadata/8541/art/1525989638" duration="3478440" originallyAvailableAt="2018-05-10" addedAt="1525989581" updatedAt="1525989637">
<Media videoResolution="480" id="8137" duration="3478440" bitrate="1695" width="960" height="540" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="h264" container="mp4" videoFrameRate="PAL" optimizedForStreaming="0" audioProfile="he-aac" has64bitOffsets="0" videoProfile="main">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="8504" key="/library/parts/8504/1525989468/file.mp4" duration="3478440" file="/volume1/video/TV/Britain's Best Home Cook/Season 1/Britain's Best Home Cook - S01E02 - Episode 2 SDTV.mp4" size="736848945" audioProfile="he-aac" container="mp4" deepAnalysisVersion="2" has64bitOffsets="0" optimizedForStreaming="0" requiredBandwidths="1695,1695,1695,1695,1695,1695,1695,1695" videoProfile="main">
<Stream id="18302" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="1596" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" colorPrimaries="bt709" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="bt709" colorTrc="bt709" frameRate="25.000" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="540" level="31" profile="main" refFrames="4" requiredBandwidths="1601,1601,1601,1601,1601,1601,1601,1601" streamIdentifier="1" width="960"/>
<Stream id="18303" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="aac" index="1" channels="2" bitrate="98" audioChannelLayout="stereo" profile="he-aac" requiredBandwidths="95,95,95,95,95,95,95,95" samplingRate="48000" streamIdentifier="2"/>
</Part>
</Media>
<Media videoResolution="480" id="8138" duration="3478440" bitrate="1695" width="960" height="540" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="h264" container="mp4" videoFrameRate="PAL" optimizedForStreaming="0" audioProfile="he-aac" has64bitOffsets="0" videoProfile="main">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="8505" key="/library/parts/8505/1525989468/file.mp4" duration="3478440" file="/volume1/video/TV/Britain's Best Home Cook/Season 1/Britain's Best Home Cook - S01E02 - Episode 2 SDTV.mp4" size="736848945" audioProfile="he-aac" container="mp4" deepAnalysisVersion="2" has64bitOffsets="0" optimizedForStreaming="0" requiredBandwidths="1695,1695,1695,1695,1695,1695,1695,1695" videoProfile="main">
<Stream id="18304" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="1596" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" colorPrimaries="bt709" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="bt709" colorTrc="bt709" frameRate="25.000" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="540" level="31" profile="main" refFrames="4" requiredBandwidths="1601,1601,1601,1601,1601,1601,1601,1601" streamIdentifier="1" width="960"/>
<Stream id="18305" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="aac" index="1" channels="2" bitrate="98" audioChannelLayout="stereo" profile="he-aac" requiredBandwidths="95,95,95,95,95,95,95,95" samplingRate="48000" streamIdentifier="2"/>
</Part>
</Media>
<Extras size="0"></Extras>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>

One other thing, I’m noticing this a lot for shows in the last few days, possibly less before then. Is it possible it’s a bug in the latest Beta?

11

@“Mark Otway” said:
One other thing, I’m noticing this a lot for shows in the last few days, possibly less before then. Is it possible it’s a bug in the latest Beta?

Not to my knowledge. It has been reported several times in the past already.

Do you let your libraries update automatically or periodically?

Or have you included a command in your sonarr script which calls up the Plex API after it’s finished?
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201638786-plex-media-server-url-commands/

12

Libraries update automatically with a partial scan (and periodically).

And yes, I have Sonarr trigger an update using the Plex option on the connect settings. Perhaps Sonarr is triggering an update, and then Plex picks up the file change shortly afterwards, and somehow the two conflict? I’ll turn off the Sonarr connection and see if it goes away for shows in the next few days.

13

I’d say you should update as few times as possible.
If your script includes an update command, there is no point in having it update periodically or automatically.

14

All true, and I’ll disable the Sonarr auto-update (I occasionally manually add files, so I’d rather leave Plex’s auto-update running).

However, none of this is any excuse for Plex’s inability to avoid dupes. Adding an episode should be idempotent, and it shouldn’t matter how many times it’s updated, it shouldn’t result in duplicates if the code is written correctly.

15

@“Mark Otway” said:
All true, and I’ll disable the Sonarr auto-update (I occasionally manually add files, so I’d rather leave Plex’s auto-update running).

It is also very easy to trigger an update manually, for those few times.

16

Not if I’m copying the file in via a terminal session remotely, and don’t have VPN web access to Plex.

But I’m still not really sure what the point is that you’re getting at. Yes, I can mess around with the settings, use manual updates, disable sonarr API updates, and so on, and so on. But the key point is that it should matter whether I do one manual update, or have 50 triggered updates via filesystem changes, Sonarr API calls or anything else, the behaviour being seen here is a bug. So let’s stop derailing the point of the conversation - which is that for some reason Sonarr is duplicating records within its database for the same files, and that’s just bad code.

I’m not sure whether you actually work for Plex, or are just a senior forum member and have a close relationship with them, but either way your time would be better spent getting the development team to investigate and fix bugs, rather than telling me different ways to configure my setup, none of which should - if the code is written correctly - have the slightest effect on the problem at hand. :slight_smile:

17

Quick update for this thread - turning off the Sonarr refresh-by-API call appears to have solved it, so it looks like the issue is that when multiple refreshes happen, they’re not idempotent, and so the same file is picked up twice, incorrectly.

Bugfix please, Plex!