Server Version#: Version 1.29.1.6276
Player Version#: Version 4.92.0
Those of us who have used plex for years know about this procedure → https://support.plex.tv/articles/201154537-move-media-content-to-a-new-location where you copy (not cut) you media from one location to another so you can preserve metadata etc… I’ve done this countless times with movies and tv so fully know how it works
I discovered today while doing some testing ahead of a NAS move that this does not work for music media, well at least it did not for me. Instead of merging the files (albums) it ended up scanning and adding everything a second time, so I ended up with double albums for everything.
All my media is tagged with musicbrainz picard and I’m using embedded tags via Prefer local metadata. Nothing is unmatched both at the artist and album level. Plex auto matches everything, there is no manual fix match needed for anything.
Is this just a known limitation for music or is there some other wizardry required when moving this type of media?
BTW… goal for me here is to ensure guid="plex://xxx is maintained 100% after the move of the music media. I may try a complete delete of the library and re-create with same settings. Basically a plex dance of the entire music library but am looking for a recommendation on what would be best for this scenario. Thanks.
After a couple of days of testing I have finally successfully moved my music media from one location to another and preserved all the metadata including the guid="plex://xxx for artist, album & track which I was worried about.
Using the procedure I linked above from plex did not work for me. It works for movies & tv media but not music. Anyhow, I ended up with duplicates of everything, had problems saving changes to the library settings once I added the new path to the new location of my media and it took WAY longer.
I opted for a plex dance approach for my entire music library (minus 1 album as you need to keep 1 there so plex will process a scan). Then after the empty trash step I changed the music library to point to the new target music location. After it completed the final scan and matching everything linked up correctly. You can check that via the dashboard history as the history for your tracks should link to the actual media. If it failed then these will be greyed out.
Leaving this here in case its of help to anyone in the future.
I’m in the middle of this now and experiencing the same issue with Music… duplicate albums and many albums seen as “new” with different matching (not all but many). Very frustrating as moving media for music is definitely different than movies or TV shows despite what that article says…
My movies and shows did alright adding the new library path of the copied Movies\TV and scanning except any movies that were unmatched I had to merge which does make sense a bit but I was disappointed having the exact file name didn’t line it up (select original first and then the “new” one when merging to keep history).
The other issue with Movies I ran into was I started using the “edition” feature recently but Plex saw those in the new path as new titles without an edition instead of matching to the existing title and edition even with the edition flag in the file so I just had to merge those manually too (which was annoying but not horrible to fix).
*** SEE EDIT BELOW ***
If I have it right for worked for Music for you was this:
Turned off Empty Trash After Every Scan
In Music Library you had 1 directory (original path) in Folders listings and removed everything from that directory but one artist->album folder
Scan the library :: Library will appear empty now except for that one artist\album
Empty Trash :: DO NOT CLEAN BUNDLES
Edit Music Library and remove original directory path from Folders and add new path as the only folder\directory
Scan Library
Check the one album that was left untouched from original directory as reference
Fix any Unmatched albums (merge or manual update)
Clean Bundles\Optimize Database
Does that sound right?
Did you have any particular issues with Unmatched albums or did they pick up too?
I didn’t have any problem when I moved Plex DB to the new library and left the old path that didn’t work anymore in and added a new path so I’m thinking your process replicates that to an extent blending a copy with a move.
*** EDIT - Similar but different success ***
I had epiphany after this and tried a different method which worked similarly to the Plex Dance method you performed and depending on your environment and move might work just fine as well.
Moving from NAS1 (Synology 218+) to NAS2 (QNAP TS-664)
Moved Plex install following the instructions from NAS1 to NAS2
Added NAS1 Network Shares to relevant Plex Libraries, i.e., Movies Library now had original path that doesn’t work and new network share path that does in the Folders listings
All library media matched and working as expected
Copied media from NAS1 to NAS2 and added the folders to Plex following the move media article instructions :: TV Shows and Movies mostly worked just fine (some unmatched and the editions issue present)
Now, at this point I removed the old folders from TV Shows and Movie libraries and did the scans and empty trashes and it all went pretty smoothly. Started adding my directory on NAS2 with the copied music content and it went sideways like you experienced as well. The thing is – it worked just fine matching up content from the old dead file path and the network share… and your plex dance worked… so… I did this.
Removed the NAS2 directory from Music Library
Scanned and emptied trash
Only library reference is the old non-working original directory and the network share to the original directory
Removed the original dead directory - scanned and emptied … no problems.
Clean bundle and optimize database
Stopped Plex service
Disconnected network share to original music folder
Started Plex service
Tried to play file - can’t, file not found.
Added NAS2 local directory to Music Library and left the path to disconnected network share
Scan library
Files are matching back up to exiting albums just like they did when I originally moved Plex and pointed at the network share
In the past I didn’t have space to do the copy option when changing directories for re-organizing and had to move files instead and as long as the ‘empty after scan’ was turned off and it was done while Plex service was stopped and don’t remove the old paths from Plex until after scanning the new directory… it would work pretty well so I think that’s what your method and my method I did here is replicating and triggering.
Thanks for mentioning your fix … if you hadn’t mentioned it I wouldn’t have stumbled on either method and I’d have been super annoyed. Otherwise, moving servers was pretty painless overall. Hopefully they’ll update the documentation to include treating Music a bit differently or include the ‘move’ vs ‘copy’ option as an alternative.
Turned off Empty Trash After Every Scan (I always have this off along with Scan my library automatically and Scan my library periodically, plex just runs better with them off)
My source music folder was is /data/Music Collection and target will be /data/MediaServer/Music Collection after the move. I left /data/Music Collection in place with ONLY 1 artist and 1 album moving the rest to the new TEMP location (not final target location), it can be anything. Lets say /data/Music Collection Temp.
Scan the library :: Library will appear empty now except for that one artist\album
Empty Trash, Clean Bundles & Optimize Database - I also restarted plex media server to cleanup any memory allocation.
Now, take the source 1 artist, 1 album from /data/Music Collection and move it to the new target location /data/MediaServer/Music Collection.
At this point I then Edit Music Library and remove original directory path from Folders and add new path as the only folder\directory. Plex will pickup the 1 artist and 1 album again, ALL GOOD SO FAR. You can scan here if you want, won’t hurt but also not needed.
Now move the rest of the music library from the TEMP location /data/Music Collection Temp to the ending target location /data/MediaServer/Music Collection
Do your scan Library (which will take a while depending on the size of your library and its settings).
Fix any Unmatched albums (merge or manual update)
Clean Bundles\Optimize Database
I found the three step move was best, source → temp → target leaving the 1 artist/1album in place to fool plex. I’ve everything tagged with musicbrainz with good naming so my current 3,500+ albums all come in again fully matched but your own mileage will vary here. Rating etc… are all kept, again due to good matching.
Plex should update the doc as its lacking when it comes to the specifics of music media, as I’ve learnt over the past months. Anything else feel free to reach out over DM if you wish. Good luck with the rest of your move.
