I found out that Plex keeps waking up my old HDDs because some files fail the intro detection, and Plex will retry this a couple of times, but not all shows at once for some reason.
Now I use autopulse (successor of autoscan) to only trigger small changes to my library (which is on SSDs and HDDs) to make sure not the wake the HDDs. However since the only option for detection and other features are ‘as a scheduled task’ and ‘as a scheduled task and when media is added’ it means I can’t check only when new media is added. Setting the option to never, never scans for intro detection, even when analysing the file manually. Would it be possible to add this feature, or another way to check for these options without the scheduled task running? Another option would be to set the retry limit for detecting these files.
You should set it to ‘As a scheduled task’ this process is then performed during the maintenance hours you have set in Plex Settings > Scheduled Tasks.
And yes, you want to allow Plex to perform it’s maintenance tasks so that it can optimise your server etc. for smooth running.
It will wake your HDD’s during this time. The default is 2am → 5am, but if you have more than 1000 Movies or so, then give it an extra hour or more.
Note: It may not process all files each night and that can mean that newly added files do not get processed straight away, it may take days or weeks to get to them depending on number of files etc.
If you want them processed straight away, then set it to ‘As a scheduled task and when media is added’.
If Plex is failing to process the files, it may indicate a problem with the file/s in question.
In that case, I would advise you to re-encode the files to H.264/AAC using Handbrake or similar or simply download another copy of the file from a different source.
My whole issue is that I don’t want my drives to wake up every night just because Plex doesn’t only have an option for when media is added. These hdds normally would only see activity maybe once a month, but most likely less. It is a waste of energy and lifespan to wake them up just to check old files that never change.
I have checked my library with tdarr and the files plex has an issue with did not show up on the extended health checks (which checks the whole file).
