Server Version#:1.32.5.7210
Player Version#: 1.73.1.3905-c1a43e18
About 6 months ago I started experiencing an odd problem where the Plex library was losing some movies that were both manually and auto added. Not a lot, but enough to be annoying. They would pop up as a new item and I would have to manually add them back to make it right. Then a month or so later it started happening on some personal home videos where I had spent time generating a nice thumbnail and all the metadata I put in was lost. I would add it back and a few days later it would reoccur. Point to make is that it was completely lost in the database and had to be added back to the library manually. It occurs infrequently, but again, enough to be quite annoying. The files that it loses are sometimes random and sometimes the same files over and over again. About a month ago, there was a slight twist. It would rescan the library and would find ‘new’ movies to tag. Some it autotags and gets correct, some I have to fix, and some for whatever reason are not recognized. The twist is that the database has not lost the old metadata, so there are two instances of the same file in the database. I found a way to fix it by merging the new entry with the old into a single entry. Then I delete one of the files in “Get Info” followed by opening the recycle bin on the computer and restoring the file. Plex is able to only see one file and everything is OK. It is all very inconsistent and unpredictable. Sometimes it occurs when I do a hard drive scan, but other times nothing at all triggers it. It just pops up with 10-15 entries that are new that I have to go in and fix. I thought that maybe if I would do more routine database cleaning and optimization it would fix it, but today that seemed to be the trigger. Or could be coincidence, who knows? Anyone have a clue as to what is happening? More importantly how do I stop it from happening?
Ensure that Settings - > (Server Name) → Library → Empty trash automatically after ever scan is disabled (unchecked).
Ensure that your file/folder naming/organization strictly follow the guidelines outlined here: https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-movie-media-files/
There are some things which are optional (using TMDB/IMDB IDs though there are times where they are helpful, particularly when there were movies by the same name release the same year), but others which are not. And no, it doesn’t matter if it worked before. If you ever have to manually match or rematch, it implies there is a problem.
Thanks. My Empty Trash enabled. So I unchecked that. I’ll check the file naming of my files too, but some are snippets of movies that I setup and I add a comment so I can keep track of it. (i.e. Star Wars: Stormtrooper Hits Head While Walking or Avengers: Endgame (Final Battle in 4K Atmos). These are what are typically getting lost as well as some old home movies I converted to digital. So naming conventions are atypical for this type of file. I’ll see how it goes with the empty trash unchecked. However, does that not imply that my trash (wherever Plex stores it) will start to pile up?
The trash should be cleaned up during scheduled maintenance
Usually this happens when a drive becomes unavailable while the server is running. Plex thinks you deleted it, so after a scan the trash gets emptied which removes the record of it.
After the drive is available again Plex thinks it’s a new addition and matches it to an actual movie. This is worse because your files actually contain the title for a real movie and get’s treated as a duplicate.
Home movies should be put into an “other videos” type library to prevent this. There is no agent there to match things to an online database. Enabling “prefer local metadata” in the library advanced settings may help if you don’t want to do that
Given the nature of the files you mentioned for movies I would consider treating those as extras. Named properly they would be displayed inline with the movie on the details page and not be subjected to an agent trying to match it during a scan
When there is trash which needs to be emptied, a red trashcan image will appear over the appropriate items’ poster(s) in your libraries. At that point, you can choose to manually empty the trash, if you determine that the items marked should indeed be removed from your library. This gives you a chance to fix whatever issue there is which caused it to appear to be missing. My personal opinion is that that setting should always be disabled (it shouldn’t even exist).
