# Pesky bug with auto content scanning

**URL:** <https://forums.plex.tv/t/pesky-bug-with-auto-content-scanning/661421>\
**Category:** Plex Media Server\
**Tags:** server-mac, server-synology\
**Created:** [December 4, 2020, 10:09pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pesky-bug-with-auto-content-scanning/661421 "2020-12-04T22:09:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![AliveKiller](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/alivekiller/32/142191_2.png) [@AliveKiller](https://forums.plex.tv/u/AliveKiller)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2020, 10:09pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pesky-bug-with-auto-content-scanning/661421/1 "2020-12-04T22:09:56Z")

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Server Version#: 1.21.0.3711 (Replicated in PSM for NAS and also MAC)  
Player Version#: 1.24.0.1483-714cba36

Want to report this bug hoping someone from PLEX will fix in future releases…

**Issue:**  
When Movies library got multiple folders added, the auto scanning not working when content added to the folders. Once the content is copied, I always need to scan the content manually.

Note that I have already enabled auto content scanning via PMS settings.

My Settings as below and hope you guys will fix this soon…

 ![Screen Shot 2020-12-05 at 9.08.35 am](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/6/5/659de36a9a1ad9febf917c056a6b41f1eff30106.png) ![Screen Shot 2020-12-05 at 9.08.07 am](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/f/a/fa260a62f21547e634fdfdbe32056c96451e8406.jpeg)

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**Author:** ![Volts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a5b964/32.png) [@Volts](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Volts)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2020, 2:23am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pesky-bug-with-auto-content-scanning/661421/3 "2020-12-05T02:23:01Z")

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I don’t understand, @trumpy81. What’s the problem with adding multiple folders to the library?

I would suggest that it’s more correct to add each of the “Movies YYYY” folders, rather than adding a higher-level folder.

@AliveKiller, how is **Movie\_Belly** mounted? Is it a USB drive, or a mounted NAS share?

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**Author:** ![Volts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a5b964/32.png) [@Volts](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Volts)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2020, 2:47am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pesky-bug-with-auto-content-scanning/661421/6 "2020-12-05T02:47:36Z")

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That matches my understanding and experience, and I think it’s what the OP described.

@AliveKiller, I am curious if automatic scanning works correctly for you on the Mac, when some media files are in local directories. If your media is on a network share, I’m wondering if that’s contributing to the problem.

For instance, I have one Library with multiple folders. Changes are detected in local folders immediately. Change in network folders are not detected.

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**Author:** ![AliveKiller](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/alivekiller/32/142191_2.png) [@AliveKiller](https://forums.plex.tv/u/AliveKiller)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2020, 8:23am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pesky-bug-with-auto-content-scanning/661421/7 "2020-12-05T08:23:53Z")

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Thanks all for your feedback. Much appreciated.

@Volts: To test the issue, below is the setup.

1. All Movies are in NAS

2. PMS Running in NAS mounts are as below. They are directly mounted to local folders.  

3. PSM Running in imac mounts as below. They are also mapped as local volumes as per MAC functionality  

Notes:

1. I like to keep my folder structure as I got over 4000+ movies and I don’t want to scan them again.
2. My TV-Shows lib only got 1 folder and Auto Scanning working. This is why I assumed this as a bug with when you have multiple entries.

Happy to provide any logs.

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**Author:** ![AliveKiller](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/alivekiller/32/142191_2.png) [@AliveKiller](https://forums.plex.tv/u/AliveKiller)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2020, 8:28am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pesky-bug-with-auto-content-scanning/661421/8 "2020-12-05T08:28:58Z")

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If I add the parent folder, will all movies will scan again? Coz I don’t want to scan them again due to the size of the movies lib. Metadata folder is 85GB.

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**Author:** ![Volts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a5b964/32.png) [@Volts](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Volts)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2020, 8:45am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pesky-bug-with-auto-content-scanning/661421/9 "2020-12-05T08:45:59Z")

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I am wondering if you have two related-but-not-identical issues -

On the Mac, I’m not sure if automatic scanning of network shares works. If it does, it also relies on support from the NAS. (I’m not optimistic. I suspect it would require a different mechanism + polling. Maybe somebody can speak up.)

And on the NAS - what is the NAS, by the way? Synology? - you might be running into a limitation with the maximum number of directories that can be monitored automatically.

Generic Linux, plus some background information:  
[https://forums.plex.tv/t/increase-the-number-of-directories-linux-can-monitor-notify/209156](https://forums.plex.tv/t/increase-the-number-of-directories-linux-can-monitor-notify/209156)

If Synology:

> [@Synology FAQ - Questions, Answers, and How-To's](https://forums.plex.tv/t/synology-faq-questions-answers-and-a-few-how-tos/490215/22):
>
> FAQ 16: Increase the number of folders Plex can monitor Applicable to all supported versions of DSM. When the Linux ‘inotify’ table fills up, this will cause when Plex to stop automatically detecting new media you add to the server. It will also manifest when there are transcoder problems with Dolby audio codecs. Linux has a default table size which is static. We can increase this at will. On some versions it’s 8192. On newer kernels, the default is 65536 folders. This is easy to incr…

Either way, it’s worth following those instructions to identify how many directories are in use, and if applying this fix would be worthwhile.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AliveKiller](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/alivekiller/32/142191_2.png) [@AliveKiller](https://forums.plex.tv/u/AliveKiller)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 12:44am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pesky-bug-with-auto-content-scanning/661421/11 "2020-12-06T00:44:32Z")

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> [@Volts](#):
>
> Synology

Thanks. Yes I do have a Synology NAS. I did try the steps to increase the table size as per the steps but no Luck.

Any other things I should try? or am I stuck with manual scan…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AliveKiller](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/alivekiller/32/142191_2.png) [@AliveKiller](https://forums.plex.tv/u/AliveKiller)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 8:06am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pesky-bug-with-auto-content-scanning/661421/12 "2020-12-06T08:06:24Z")

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Thanks. If other options didn’t work I will add the parent folder. My lib is clean and don’t have any unmatch items.

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 8:06am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pesky-bug-with-auto-content-scanning/661421/13 "2021-03-06T08:06:24Z")

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