New Merging/Not Merging Tactic is Buggy/Quite Annoying

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Previous to this Version 1.13.2.5154 PMS build (or thereabouts) duplicates, as in, upgrades, alternate versions, library moves, etc were Auto-Merged. I’m often upgrading old copies and this behavior makes the most sense as it doesn’t throw a new item into Recently Added, when it’s not really new, just upgraded. Merged items share the same poster and metadata (so if they have a Sort Title - THEY GO WHERE THEY SHOULD).

No More…

Somebody at Plex decided it was a good idea (or created a bug while doing something else) to make ‘some’ items not Auto-Merge… like MKV files, for instance.

Yes, friends MKV files do not Auto-Merge when duplicates are created, nor do they Auto-Merge when moving libraries (as I’m finding out while populating this new 8TB External). MP4 files continue to Auto-Merge just fine.

Now… an employee can try to explain:

  1. why this is better and is the expected behavior
    or
  2. acknowledge this bug and put a guy on the case of fixing it

Pick one.

Edit:
Upon further review the Merge/Not Merge behavior seems have gone totally random. Some items Auto-Merge, others do not. I can’t wait to hear why this current behavior is intended (New and Improved).

Further Editing:

In this nightmare scenario - I have copied the old library to the new location - then added the new library folder to the existing library. Like I always do. Previously I got a happy little ‘Blue 2’ as the machine buzzes and whirrs for a while as it shuffles all the new ducks into rows… Posters, Metadata, Sort Titles are all shared, nothing shows up in Recently Added and all is well. When things quiet down I can remove the old library folder, everything snaps into place as the ‘Blue 2s’ are removed and I can delete the old library folder from the disc. Easy, right?

Here’s New and Improved:

a1a560
a1a5601105×452 212 KB

The ONLY item in this view that was Auto-Merged is ‘The Misfits’. I can’t tell you why. It’s no different from any other item that didn’t get merged, except that I just added it the other day - probably after I upgraded to the current PMS build, but I can’t verify that.

Every other item in the library shared nothing, it’s all new, some even using different posters.

Oh, and guess what else is happening…
Yea… it’s ‘regenerating’ Video Preview Thumbs, that it once happily shared between the old and the new library - but no more.

Try doing this for a while and see if it doesn’t annoy ya.
Only 500G in this Video Preview Regen… yea, that’s new, but not improved, if you ask me.

Here’s some logs:

Plex Media (4.7 MB)

2 Likes
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Check the XML for these videos? Are you possibly using different agents? The merge feature only works with the same agent.

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Same agent. TMDB, as always.

It’s buggy, man. Easy to reproduce, if you want to.

1 Like
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Provide me the XML from both items.

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Here’s one that didn’t get merged (has been in the library for… ever):

The Fisher King - not merged.zip (2.6 KB)
(I do see this one is probably suffering from Plex Incuded Plex Movie Agent that was forced on me the other day.

Here’s one that did (recently added - like yesterday - under the new PMS Build):

Field of Dreams - merged.zip (3.4 KB)
(this one was added yesterday - after I changed everything back to TMDB)
(now what do we do about it)

Now that you mention that, I do recall last week when I couldn’t get anything to match suddenly, Otto looked at my logs and revealed most ALL my movies were Auto-Changed by Plex (upgrade by-product) from TMDB to Plex Movie.

I went through my entire Libraries - all 19 of them - and changed them back to TMDB from Plex Movie. All the libraries are now TMDB, but, of course I didn’t ‘Refresh Metadata’ (for all the good that would do) or Re-analyse my items in those libraries.

As I sit here in hour 6 of this unnecessary Video Preview Thumbnail Generation for 500GB of an entire library I’m moving (that once happened in about 10 minutes), I’m wondering what flaming hoop I have to leap nekked through to return control of this f*****ing operation to me, the hapless user?

1 Like
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I need both so I can compare.

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I edited above in order to get XML into a Forum that can’t use XML…

1 Like
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I still need both of the XMLs for the one that didn’t merge.

9

There are two XML Zip Files? One Each.

Perhaps you got there before the edit(s)…

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I mean, I need the 2 XMLs for the same movie that didn’t merge. i.e. Fisher King you posted above. And your Fisher King zip file above is blank.

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Oh… well, that would be a problem… stand by…

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Re-Edit (above) complete… zips now have content…

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Yeah, but stil only the one XML.

I’m not aware of that issue. This XML shows the Plex Agent used, so if you changed it back to TMDB, that would explain the duplicates.

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Dude - there are two zip files above now, both are different and both contain stuff.

Yes, we found the problem Plex Created when they forced Plex Movie on me.

Now you need to tell me what to do about it… do I need to:

  1. Re-analyse my libraries
  2. Refresh my libraries
    or
  3. something else.

I’m trying to move some libraries to a new, empty, and external drive and 7 hours of Video Preview Thumbnail generation, per library move, is really making my ass itch.

15

You provided the XML for Fisher King. I assume that means this did not merge and you have 2 copies of this shown. I wanted the XML from both of these un-merged movies so I could confirm that they were using the same agent. If they are using different agents, then it is expected that you will not be merged.

I don’t know how that happened. Even if somehow the agent got changed for a library, it won’t change the agent used to match a movie. That is set unless you Plex Dance it after changing the default agent or you do a manual match and pick a different agent.

If somehow this was done and all your movies got changed to the Plex Movie agent and you want to use TMDB, you will need to change them all back manually before adding the new one so the merge will work. There is no quick way to do this. You either need to Plex Dance the entire library or manually rematch each movie.

Try manually editing the DB instead. Much quicker. [HowTo] Plex database modification - Moving media the right/wrong way - #43 by sleepdepd_gmail.com

16

No thanks.

Every time something goes wrong I see a Plex Employee telling somebody to edit their registry, and now one wants me to edit the DB.

Mom and Pop Plex User don’t edit their registries (ever, under NO circumstances), nor do they edit a fackin’ DB.

This advanced user (Plex’s Nemesis - A Power User) does know how to Plex Dance, but that entails Video Preview Thumbnail Generation and if that’s all you can come up with as a fix for this issue PLEX CREATED - then I think we’re done here.

I made CERTAIN, long ago, TMDB was my Agent. I detest Plex Movie, way back then, and even more so now. I NEVER used Plex Movie - EVER. Until I discovered when things went down the toilet recently Plex had forced Plex Movie on me.

If I have to regenerate thumbs to stop from regenerating thumbs - I guess I could just regenerate thumbs.

Yea, I’m pretty sure we’re done here.

1 Like
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@dane22 is working on the next version of WebTools, where he wants to enable mass-change of agent in a library.
No release date known, sorry.

2 Likes
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@OttoKerner is correct here…

So far work is done for movie libraries, and currently working on Shows…

After that, we need to make the GUI front-end :wink:

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Of Course not…

Well, there’s 8TB of Virgin Land here that needs to be Pioneered into a working farm - so it looks like Video Preview Thumb Generation is in my immediate future.

1 Like
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I have no idea how the agent switch happened in the first place or how it could have affected your library. That is physically impossible to happen AFAIK. I was just trying to provide a fast way to fix your issue.

There is no way to guarantee your thumbnails will move along with your files. They are associated with the file and if PMS is able to identify that it’s the same file but just in a new location, the thumbnails should move along. If you are replacing files, then you will need to generate new thumbnails anyways.