Plex Duplicates Movies 2-4 Times

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 1.25.1.5286
Player Version#: Any - TV, Chrome, Mobile

Long time Plex Pass user with this being my first real problem (enough to reach out for help).

I recently reimaged my QNAP NAS and reinstalled plex (current version). I add my movie library and when it gets done “ingesting” the initial movies, it is going back again, multiple times, and seems be be creating “collections” but they are not collections. They are 2-4 versions of the same movie, some with the file as the name, some with the plex agent naming etc. but all “extra” versions only show thumbnails.

  1. i have collections turned off
  2. i have thumbnails turned off
  3. all files are in root of the “movie” folder on the NAS shared LUN
  4. this wasn’t an issue before i re-imaged the NAS (which was also running the current version of plex)
  5. there are no duplicate files in the folder and only have 1 path set for this library
  6. I have blown away the plex installation on QNAP and installed fresh from download on plex site
  7. problem shows on library and recommended section
  8. issue is across all devices: Chrome, TV & iPhone

Not sure if i can send logs to help?
Screenshot below

2

@Immer

Do you have

  • Empty Trash after every scan

Enabled ?

Are you using the Multimedia share AND a real shared folder ?

3

Yes that is enabled. I am using the real path “/share/CACHEDEV2_DATA/MOVIES”
.
I watched it happen the last time i re-installed PLEX. it got the end of the movie count (287ish), adding them all normally , then started back at the beginning and i started seeing all the “extra” versions get added.

You can see that some are not duplicated, like Air Force One

4

May I have the logs please (ZIP file) –

downloaded AFTER “Scan All Files” ?

There must be a symlink in there somewhere. DEBUG logging will let me see it walk through all the directories.

5

Plex Media Server Logs_2021-12-07_21-04-21.zip (1.6 MB)

FYI when i click scan library files it doesnt look to be doing a full rescan… stops in a second or two.

I restarted plex on NAS and still did same thing. now restarting the entire NAS and will retest and export

6

here are my findings…

this is the log after i ran clean bundles and optimize
After Optimize and Clean Bundles Plex Media Server Logs_2021-12-07_21-30-01.zip (1.7 MB)

this is after i restarted the NAS and started plex and removed the library
After Library Removal Plex Media Server Logs_2021-12-07_21-31-10.zip (1.7 MB)

this is after the library add back (noticed that all i ever saw in the activity was updating metadata)
During Library Add Plex Media Server Logs_2021-12-07_22-10-22.zip (2.4 MB)


I have a video showing the crazy in action

7

link to the video showing the issue happening after the last actual movie was added. goes crazy and starts adding the dupes

8

That is bizarre.

I’m going to get some help to go through your logs.

My first thought is that there is corruption in the QNAP volume’s file system (cross linked directory)

My second thought is the matching agent was changed (upgraded the library agents)?

9

When I first saw it happen I tried everything within the movie settings/options including using the older agent options.

But this should have been ruled out after the fresh install on the NAS.

It was a total NAS initialization so nothing was left over from previous setup. TheRAID was wiped/lost and started over.

10

@Immer

We’ve looked at the video (thanks).

The ONLY thing we can think of is you have “Optimized Versions” of those films?

Did you optimize those specific films?

11

No. Brand new installation, nothing special. No versions

12

Thanks.

Are those files MP4 or AVI ?

I’m asking because Plex reads the metadata (name & title) from MP4 and AVI but not from MKV.

Please look at the “Get Info” for one set of duplicates.

Are they different file paths or the same file ?

13

I can report that I’ve seen the same behavior. I have 647 movies, a mix of SD and HD, but all .mp4 format. Not sure after which update it started but I have opened up the app on Roku and AppleTV and noticed that it showed I have 700+ movies. Scrolling down I could see a bunch of duplicates with weird names like “PlexMovie2343ofahf.”

I manually deleted each one and I’m currently rebuilding my Plex on a different NAS. I’m hoping this isn’t a recurring issue after manually deleting the dupes.

14

@RangerDoc275

Can you get the XML and a screenshot of the title for one of them?

The XML → Hover over it → Ellipsis - Get Info - View XML.

Grab the top part <media ... → </media and post here in </> (code formatting button at the top of the Reply window).

15

its a mixture of everything… mkv mp4 avi

working up to this most recent release i think, so not the files themselves

16 
<Media id="35145" duration="5867882" bitrate="2924" width="1920" height="1038" aspectRatio="1.85" audioChannels="6" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="hevc" videoResolution="1080" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="24p" audioProfile="lc" videoProfile="main">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="35145" key="/library/parts/35145/1563573636/file.mkv" duration="5867882" file="/share/CACHEDEV2_DATA/MOVIES/@Recently-Snapshot/GMT-05_2021-12-08_0100/13 Going On 30.mkv" size="2146140671" audioProfile="lc" container="mkv" deepAnalysisVersion="6" requiredBandwidths="6222,4508,3853,3132,3091,3091,3091,3091" videoProfile="main">
<Stream id="72329" streamType="1" default="1" codec="hevc" index="0" bitrate="2378" language="English" languageTag="en" languageCode="eng" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codedHeight="1040" codedWidth="1920" colorPrimaries="bt709" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="bt709" colorTrc="bt709" frameRate="23.976" height="1038" level="120" profile="main" refFrames="1" requiredBandwidths="5612,3898,3243,2572,2537,2537,2537,2537" width="1920" displayTitle="1080p (HEVC Main)" extendedDisplayTitle="1080p (HEVC Main)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="72330" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="aac" index="1" channels="6" bitrate="546" language="English" languageTag="en" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="5.1" profile="lc" requiredBandwidths="588,588,588,588,588,588,588,588" samplingRate="48000" displayTitle="English (AAC 5.1)" extendedDisplayTitle="English (AAC 5.1)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="72331" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="2" bitrate="0" language="English" languageTag="en" languageCode="eng" requiredBandwidths="1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1" displayTitle="English (SRT)" extendedDisplayTitle="English (SRT)"> </Stream>
</Part>
</Media>```
17

tried deleting them and one example, had 4 extra copies and all failed to delete

18

Thanks for the info.

file=“/share/CACHEDEV2_DATA/MOVIES/@Recently-Snapshot/GMT-05_2021-12-08_0100/13 Going On 30.mkv”

This was a bug which is now fixed in 1.25.2.5319

It will now ignore anything in @Recently-Snapshot.

If you install, Scan files, empty trash, clean bundles, then optimize db, they will be gone.

19

Confirmed fix. Thanks

20

3 posts were split to a new topic: Collections and FAQ