Plex detecting same Movie as a duplicate movie in the same library

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Server Version#: 1.16.6.1592 FreeBSD
Player Version#: 3.83.1

I recently added a new storage volume and wanted to migrate my Movies library over to the new volume to better balance out the space usage.

In the past to move a library I would:

  1. Duplicate the library folder to the new location using Rsync
  2. Add the new folder path to the library
  3. Let it scan and match all of the movies.
  4. Then remove the original path from the library.

This lets me keep all of the statistics like date added, view count, rating…etc.

Example.

My Movies library reads from the path:
/mnt/media/xbmc/Movies/

The new volume I’m moving the Movies library to is:
/mnt/media/xbmc2/Movies

I used the below rsync command to duplicate my Movies folder over to the new volume:
rsync -va --delete --progress /mnt/media/xbmc/Movies /mnt/media/xbmc2/Movies/

Then, I added the new folder to the Movies library and let it scan.

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However, about 340 of them are being picked up as the same movie, but showing up as a separate movie in the library. So, in some cases, I have a movie that shows up twice in the library, and its the exact same file. The naming is the exact same since its a 100% duplicate of the original file, just in a new path.

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But other movies are being picked up as they should and match against an existing movie in the database and properly display the Version number available in the upper left of the poster.

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Does anyone have any idea why this is happening, I found a few other threads like this but no real solutions and their issues were slightly different in that they were adding a slightly differently named movie to the same relative path as the original movie.

In my case, both movies at 100% identical in name and content. The same file size, the same bit-rate..etc.

I tried to look in the logs and it seems to see that its already there, but instead of rolling it into the same entry, its displaying it as as separate movie.
Plex Media Scanner.log (770 Bytes)

2

From your second picture it looks like you are using a different agent for some and not all.
example
batteries not included displays separately makes me believe the matching agents(PlexMovie, TheMovieDb) are not the same while 10 Cloverfield Lane displays a duplicate.

Look at the xml for both batteries not included items.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201998867-investigate-media-information-and-formats/
Look for GUID= for both entries. Are they the same?

3

How can it pick a different agent when both folder paths are in the same library? Shouldn’t the library itself control which agent is used to scan? Plex Movie is at the top of both Plex Movie and TMDB agent settings.

GUIDS from both.
/mnt/media/xbmc/Movies/Batteries Not Included (1987).m4v
guid=“com.plexapp.agents.imdb://tt0092494?lang=en” librarySectionTitle=“Movies”

/mnt/media/xbmc2/Movies/Batteries Not Included (1987).m4v
guid=“com.plexapp.agents.themoviedb://11548?lang=en” librarySectionTitle=“Movies”

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4

That explains why you have two entries for that movie. Plex sees them as different because they are matched by different agents.

The Plex Movie agent wasn’t always there. At least it wasn’t when I started using plex so many eons ago.

Agent Settings from v0.9.8.6

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Unfortunately, the characteristics of the original movie will not carry over to the new “duplicate”(all manual edits, all the statistical data like date added, view count, rating…etc.)
You may(I mean may) be able to ‘fix match’ and select ‘auto match’ and use the same agent as the original used.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201018497-fix-match-match/ (scroll down to Auto Match)
That may then get plex to detect it’s a duplicate and merge it with the original movie. That way you can keep all custom edits and statistical data.
I’m actually pissed that I can’t test right now but I am very curious to know if this would work.

Though, this will require alot of time & effort on your part.

5

One of the reasons I add the duplicated folder to the library is that it will transfer all the database statistics.

When I’m home I’ll try to manually fix match to either IMDb or tmdb and see if that fixes the duplicate records

6

Sorry. Different strokes for different agents.

7

That doesn’t help much.

Is there a way to force an entire library to match against either IMDB or TMDB?

I went into the Agents settings and under The Movie Database, I disabled Plex Agent, leaving only TMDB as the source. But refreshing all metadata didn’t combine all of the duplicates.

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8

No, not really. They are already matched. You would have to unmatch all the duplicates before you could update library. And even then there is no guarantee that will work either.

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