Plex creating duplicate entries for the same file

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

Server Version#: 1.29.0.6244-819d3678c
Plex Web Version#: 4.92.0

The “new” Plex Music agent has the annoying issue of creating duplicate entries. This happens most often with multi-disc albums. It will simply create multiple entries for the same album (sometimes 4 entries for 2 discs) and merging them has me end up with duplicate tracks.

Has anyone found a solution for this?
Plex Music Agent bug

Plex Music Agent bug2
Plex Music Agent bug2730×430 97.7 KB

2

Can you go into the Edit Library dialog and screenshot the ‘Add Folders’ tab?

Is Plex configured to prefer local metadata? If so, can you screenshot your tag editor showing these fields:

  • Album
  • track title
  • disc number
  • track number
  • album artist
  • track artist
3

Ah, you may have found the bug.
Two of the music folders were listed twice in the Folders tab. Not sure how or why, but I’ll have a wait to see if that fixes the issue.

4

In the end… If I delete the duplicate folders and hit [Save], Plex adds them immediately back. So: I cannot delete the duplicate folders.

5
  1. activate debug logging (not ‘verbose’!)
  2. quit Plex Server
  3. wait 1 minute
  4. start Plex Server
  5. wait 5 minutes
  6. fetch log files and attach them here

Or inspect them yourself. Take a look at the Plex Media Server.log file and seek for messages about database corrupt or malformed.
If you find these, you may have to repair your database.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/repair-a-corrupted-database/

6

Thanks for willing to help.

I’ve looked at that specific file, but nothing mentions “corrupt” or “malformed.”

Here’s about 5 minutes of logs (I forgot to come back after 5 minutes, so deleted a long list of Scanner activity.)
Plex Media Server.log (940.6 KB)

7

Sorry, truncated logs are quite useless.

Which app did you use to do this?
Use the hosted web app. Reload the web app before editing the library.
Use a regular web browser and not a specially “locked-down” one which blocks certain features.
Disable browser add-ins.
How many folders in total have been added to the library?

8

Sorry, Otto, I’ve must’ve missed the last notification email about this reply.

Yes, I’ve always been using the app.plex.tv webGUI via FireFox.

In the end I gave up, closed down PMS and edited the SQL database by removing the duplicate folders.

I let PMS rescan everything and 48h later everything was looking back to normal.

Not sure how the folders ended up being duplicate or what prevented the duplicates’ deletion, but at least the workaround worked.

9

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