I am running Plex version 1.19.4.2935 on a Synology NAS box and I’m noticing that custom collection tags that I’ve added to movies are disappearing, seemingly randomly.
I’ve seen a few discussions on this but there has been no official fix given or bug created and the topics are now locked.
What I have tried:
Settings>Library>Disabled “Empty trash automatically after every scan”
Settings>Agents>Moved “Local Media Assets” to the bottom of all lists and unchecked them
Settings>Agents>Plex Movie Settings>Confirmed “Use collection info from the Movie Database” is disabled
I’ve confirmed all movies/shows are named “Movie Title (Year)” matching the movie & tv databases naming convention exactly
When I add a collection tag to a movie, I confirm the field is locked (lights up orange) and click save
Even with all this, I often notice that movies which previously appeared in my custom collections are losing all collection tags. This seems to only happen for recently uploaded movies and seems to happen the most when uploading new content. All other movie info (including custom posters) stays in place, but the collection tags are repeatedly being removed.
Some of the items I’ll add the tag a day or so after uploading but they’ll still get wiped when adding new content…this is definitely a bug that should be addressed
The Return of the Pink Panther [1975].mp4
Man of Steel [2013].mp4
Leprechaun Returns [2018].mp4
Repo! The Genetic Opera [2008].mp4
These are a few of the random ones I think I’ve seen it happen to recently. I’m just realizing these all happen to be mp4’s. I do have mkv’s and avi’s as well but I’m not sure if tags have gone missing for these as well. Any reason you can think of that mp4’s in particular would be causing trouble? I’ll have to monitor more as they happen, to see if I can pin down a file pattern/structure for the ones it happens to. In any case, this shouldn’t be happening.
Plex is looking inside those mp4 files for their embedded title field and not even seeing your file names - which are broken, BTW… everything in [Brackets] is ignored by Plex - the YEAR field goes in (These).
After you fix all your file names…
Demote LMA to the bottom of the Active Agent List under every tab in shows and movies…
Report what happens in a few days… I don’t know exactly what is going on, but it’s not odd that the only files that escape the collection are mp4 files. Not odd at all. Considering Plex’s DEFAULT location for LMA is right at the top of the list - so every person on Earth using MP4/M4V files will basically be UNABLE to use Plex as it’s designed… and in 20 years not ONE of us has been able to get that message through to Plex.
Hot Tips for those with file naming issues - like you:
I already moved LMA to the bottom of all lists, but I’ll go ahead and re-enable it. I had assumed turning it off entirely would be best, but I guess not.
Plex does actually still pick up the year inside brackets. I have a few movies with the exact same title, different year and it sorts them as expected. I had started using brackets for years long ago since some movies have parentheses in the titles and I thought this was confusing with the year in parentheses as well.
Then you get titles like:
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020), which I guess is fine, but I think Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) [2020] looks better. I think in a rare few cases the movie even has a number inside the parentheses with the title so I wanted to make sure the year looked unique. I have a batch renaming program though, so if I absolutely had to I could fix those quickly.
