I restarted my laptop and almost half of my 1300+ movies disappeared and almost all of those that remain lost its metadata and now I will have to completely go back and redo the months worth of work I just did. I’ve deleted and re-installed my library. I’ve deleted and re-installed my server. I’ve moved the movies to a new folder then added a new library with that folder as the new destination. Nothing works! the same 789 movies just pop up. WTF Plex?!?! Why am I paying you money if there is no support staff to help your paying customers?
How did this go from “something happened to my library” to “why is there no support staff” within a single post?
Post logs, and recreate your library. Possibly your hard drive might be failing.
Because something happened to my library so why is there no support staff to help me figure it out? My external hard drive thats only half full and 3 weeks old isn’t the issue. Also all of my editing I had done on my library in regards to naming and posters is completely undone. I know for sure that has nothing to do with my hard drive.
did you recently connect some other external storage to your laptop?
Perhaps in a different order than you usually do?
What has happened is probably this:
You ‘media drive’ got a different drive letter by Windows, perhaps because its usual drive letter is/was occupied by a different storage medium.
As a result of this, Plex cannot find your media files anymore.
If you then also had this preference activated:
Settings - Server - Library - ‘Empty trash automatically after every scan’
Plex did throw out all the metadata it had in its database for the ‘missing’ files.
- Take a look into your movie library properties (‘edit’ the library, go to the ‘Add Folders’ tab, see which drive letter is referenced there for your media drive)
- restore the original drive letter in Windows: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-change-a-drive-letter-2626069
- Shut down Plex Server completely
- Take a look in your Plex data folder
- see if there is a database backup which goes back far enough, before the ‘blowup’
- restore it, thereby replacing your current database file
@OttoKerner said:
did you recently connect some other external storage to your laptop?
Perhaps in a different order than you usually do?What has happened is probably this:
You ‘media drive’ got a different drive letter by Windows, perhaps because its usual drive letter is/was occupied by a different storage medium.
As a result of this, Plex cannot find your media files anymore.If you then also had this preference activated:
Settings - Server - Library - ‘Empty trash automatically after every scan’
Plex did throw out all the metadata it had in its database for the ‘missing’ files.
Thank you for the clarification what that ment. Had no idea 
I did not connect some other external storage drive. It’s just the same one i’ve had hooked up. Now Plex keeps deleting movies and the they pop back up and then disappear. Also the edits I make to my movies both posters and info disappears as well.
Did you now disable this checkbox?
Settings - Server - Library - ‘Empty trash automatically after every scan’
Please enable debug logging on the server
Settings - Server - General - ‘Show Advanced’ - “Enable Plex Media Server debug logging”
Leave the check boxes below that empty, please.
Quit Plex Server
Restart Plex Server
Perform the Plex Dance with one movie.
Wait 2 minutes.
Grab server log files under Settings - Server - Help and post them here or send them to me per PM
