Plex doesn't treat libraries as separate entities and duplicates watched status and on deck status

General Discussions
1

I don’t know why this happens but there is a bug (or feature?) with Plex when having the same content in multiple Libraries.
For my setup I have original version of shows and a downgraded one for users with limited Bandwith.

Creatively these libraries are called HD TV Shows and TV Shows respectively.

Now when I watch an episode of a show from HD TV SHows it also changes the watched status for the same episode in TV Shows.
And it also puts it on the Deck, now I have two of the same things on my deck and always have to check which is the downgraded and which is the original quality, this is very annoying, why aren’t the Libraries properly separated?

Server is running on Arch Linux btw, but same happened on ubuntu.

2

I can’t help you with Arch. It’s not a supported platform.

I can help you with Ubuntu.

Please provide the XML (hover over each item -> Get Info -> View XML) for each

If we find they are both matched by the same metadata agent, then duplication is correct and intentional behavior.
The reason this happens is because PMS sees the “metadata item ID” and finds it in two places. That’s why it shows up twice

3

9770.xml is the TV Shows file, 10415.xml is the HD TV Show file

4

Thanks.

Looking at both , we find:

grandparentRatingKey="10412" guid="com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://263365/5/8?lang=en"
and
grandparentRatingKey="9731" guid="com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://263365/5/8?lang=en"

It does look odd but that’s how they’ve chosen to implement it. PMS sees two entries and reports two icons. It tracks internally by the 263365/5/8 .

5

Plex doesn’t see them as files. It sees them as a TV series. And you have that series twice on your server. That it’s in two different quality levels is just a detail.

6

is there any way to make the server differentiate based on library?

or should I open a feature request?

7

There is no such feature.
There is a workaround: use TheTVDB in one library and TheMovieDatabase in the other.

8

that workaround is very limited as I have a 4K library too where the output is converted to HEVC.

9

Very interesting topic, With all the testing I been doing with Plex over the last year it never dawned on me that this was happening. Now I see what all the fuss is about and yes I agree with the OP (sort of)They should be treated as ‘separate’ as not to clutter up “On Deck” and “Recently Added” Look how messy it looks when we have the same media in more then one Library

umob6in8cacb.png924×302 240 KB

In this example I have two library setup, One called ‘TV Shows All’ and one called ‘Recorded TV Shows’ the same holds try for movies, I have one library called ‘Movies All’ and one called ‘Recorded Movies’ and that looks a mess also in regard to recently added.

10

Wouldn’t it be much better if the reason for creating those separate libraries got eliminated?
If the automatic selection of quality versions were smarter, you wouldn’t have to resort to separate libraries, to prevent Plex trying to transcode the 4K version for e.g. a mobile client.

11

True, But that does not solve my problem. I use multiple libraries for other reasons, My family does not want to go threw hundreds of movies per say to find the recorded content and since there is no way to filter based on folders I need to use a libraries to filter…

12

Just a thought… but could you not install PMS again and run it as a separate instance, as a sort of “remote streaming/family” version of all your files?

Would keep watch histories, on deck and all that kind of stuff separate.

Not ideal, and I don’t actually know if this would work (let alone the stress it might put on your server) but the added functionality and neatness might make it worthwhile.

13

Thanks for the recommendation and though that may work the added level of management and stress on the server I don’t think it would be worth it.

14

@Kamee,
Could you not change the agent involved in matching the show?
I mean, based on the info you provided and what @ChuckPA posted.

grandparentRatingKey="10412" guid="com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://263365/5/8?lang=en"
and
grandparentRatingKey="9731" guid="com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://263365/5/8?lang=en"

These 2 entries would be different and separated if you used a different agent to scrape the show.

15

@NewPlaza said:
@Kamee,
Could you not change the agent involved in matching the show?
These 2 entries would be different and separated if you used a different agent to scrape the show.

As far as I know only TheMovieDB and TheTVDB can be used, which is only two, but I have three versions: 4K, HD, 720p

as @OttoKerner said, if the PMS would be able to detect three files with different qualities and offer them for play might give a better solution, though for the less ‘technically gifted’ I have in my family it might cause confusion.

this way I can control which libraries to share with whom, for example people with low bandwith don’t get access to the HD /4K versions and people without 4K TV don’t get access to the 4K library, and the rest gets access to all 3.

16

Like @Kamee I have multiple versions with a lower quality version for those I share with limited bandwidth.

While I don’t have libraries defined by resolution, I do have a few sub-libraries by Genre, theme, etc. By default, this results in duplicate entries in Recently Added and On Deck and Continue Watching for the same reasons that libraries defined by quality All of the people I share with use clients that choose the proper version automatically (primarily Rokus) so I want the watched and progression status to be the same for both versions.

To get rid of the duplicates, I disable the “Show in On Deck” option in the advanced section for the sub-library. You can disable it when you create the library, or at any time by editing the library through the Plexweb interface. This works perfectly in my case, since the sub-libraries are part of the main library.

I didn’t know how it would work for “by quality” libraries, so I gave it a test run. Using a folder structure similar to the original post:

TV Shows <— Folder containing low quality versions
HD TV SHOWS <— Folder containing high quality versions

I then created 3 new TV libraries – “All Versions” and “SD Versions” and “HD Versions”

For the “All Versions” library, I added both of the folders from above, and left “Show in On Deck” enabled. For the “SD Versions” and “HD Versions” library I added only the folder that contained the version specific to that library, but disabled the “Show in On Deck” option. From the main page, Plex now correctly shows only one poster in on Deck and Recently Added, even though there are multiple versions. You will probably notice the little blue “2” in the left hand corner, indicating multiple versions.

Here’s the catch, if you don’t have a client that will automatically choose the correct version to play. From the Home Page, you will still have to choose the quality you want. But, if you navigate to one of the libraries specifically, or use the “Discover” drop down from the main page and select one of the libraries, the only available version to choose is version for that library.

As I said, this works perfectly for me because the clients automatically choose the correct version. It obviously won’t work properly every time for those clients that don’t have that feature. You might have to train your users to take that extra step to navigate to the proper library if they have access to all of the versions. For the users that only have access to only one of the versions, they probably are not going to see anything in On Deck or Recently Added, they will always have to navigate to the libraries to get that information.

I realize this isn’t exactly what you want, but it is a work around that might work until a better idea comes along.

17

@leelynds
Thanks for the great idea, I think this will solve my problem with multiple library. I have a master library called Movies All then I created a library called Recorded Movies and that was causing the same problem with duplicates showing.

Thanks for the great tip!

18

Thank you @leelynds! Ran into this issue also having duplicates. This helped tremendously. I do agree it’d be nice if Plex treated different library’s as separate entities, but least this fixes the duplicate issue.

19

I find it ironic that ACTORS are kept separate according to library, yet episodes/movies play status are joined together by GUID ACROSS separate libraries.

this situation should be the complete opposite.

ACTORS (and artists/directors/etc) should be a single GLOBAL across all libraries.

when you click an person, it should have ALL content related to that person listed. Not separated by library.

Where as play status, should ALWAYS be separated by library.

One example might be a kid library and adult library.

The kid library might include the EDITED version of SPAWN The animated series.

The adult library might include the UNCUT version of same.

There is ZERO reason why the status of one library should affect any other library.

This includes library separated by quality/resolution.

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20

Its a shame I can only like this ^^^^^ post once.

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