Problem — photo library don’t function at all on a new setup for quit a long time at least since version (PlexMediaServer-1.15.1.710-ece95b3a1-x86 ) if there scanner runs it corrupts the timeline and puts photos with no relevant dates and black boxs. Since this is a movie music and photo media player. that’s like saying 1/3 of your product has never worked.
I made an app that clears the meta data from jpgs then adds the date , to ALL date fields in the jpg, then optimizes the jpg(incase there is mild corruption) then labeled all the jpgs in that folder to the same date,(yyyy-mm-dd) with increments of 1. also have the folder labeled to same year format. i did this because the analyze function generally is what messes things up.
plex from scratch. create libraries, set features, mark play or played on all files, create playlist.( way to long to get it back to the way it was)
Start running regular scan, then analyze of the photos library, threw plexui multiple times. waiting each time for the scan to fully complete before running the next command.
if plex is working as it should and the scans are not messing things up. then gently shutdown plex services, then make a Full Copy of plex media server folder.
--------------------------My—Media Center---------------------------------
asus prime x470 pro
16 gigs ddr gskill pc4-25600
samsung ssd 970 evo plus m2 nvme - (for plex and os)
geforce gtx 1060 6gig
qnap 251 plus 2 bay with 6tb seagate nas drives
I am having a very hard time with this thread at the technical level.
The plex version you list is a Windows version for the Windows systems. QNAP is Linux. Linux file systems and Windows file systems are structured completely differently as well as all the storage locations are different.
I will not attempt to speak to Windows . I do not own Windows nor do I understand it beyond a very basic level. I have never installed Plex on a Windows system.
To backup your Plex Server’s internal data (all the metadata and databases) as a full, self-standing, image backup which captures PMS at that instant in time,
Also listed below is how to restore your Plex server instance and all its data.
Im retired Army and try to help where i can as well. im in the process for making a app for plex windows customers to effectively make a backup (free)
im using acronis locally. because the other methods didn’t work. photos timeline always gets messed up. there are plenty of unsolved posts over this issue. dates changing to something random and blackboxs at bottom of the timeline.
i almost have a solution. ive narrowed it down to the analyze scanner after restoring the databases. since the backup method is incorrect on your site, its causing more issues for other features and also causing the database to swell. but im not going to get into that. i agree the best method is to copy the entire folder not just the database. but that alone dosent solve this issue.
1 so far what works. turn off all scheduled events.
2 delete photo library and recreate
3 then you can run the scans ether from cmd prompt or threw the webUI.
im still testing at the moment. but im persistent as a honey badger lol when i want something to work.
i take it back to previous image, when plex was working perfect.
then tinker with what settings are interfering with it or what folders are needed at a minimum. but i don’t have to do that. i could just backup tens of thousands of files and multiple gigs of data for a backup. or see if there is a minimum backup method that could work.
yes my plex is installed on windows. if this is not your wheelhouse could you pass along to windows guy. but i can assume the solution will most likely help the Linux side as well. i mean they both use python code from what understand. and if it is the scanner that’s corrupting the database then…
What I wrote was targeted to QNAP because this is in the QNAP forum.
I cannot be of help regarding Windows and backups in any regard.
What little I remember of Windows was that if you backup all of an application’s data and its registry entries (which Plex has several) then you will get a successful backup.
yes i backed up the few main registry’s that have shown up in search’s threw the registry and forums. but i bypassed all that for now. because i made 2 images. 1 fresh windows plex not installed. 2 add plex from scratch and test working properly. if i feel its a registry issue then take back to image 1 then install plex.
I’m unclear what the backup/restore has to do, but there is an issue with the Timeline feature. This has been reported before. I don’t have any information on when it will be fixed.
well apparently, even with a perfect backup on a working photo timeline, it eventually gets messed up. i keep reproducing it, and sifting threw the logs. it seems the Plexmediaserver.exe is initiating a scan similar to analyze on the photo folder then miss aligning them.
funny thing is i turned off everything under the schedule section, in hopes no automatic scans would interfere with my testing.
