I’ve been hovering around here for a bit, dealing with similar issues. Mac Mini (M2) that updated to Sequoia, then everything stopped working. I’m not using Synology or any other NAS. It’s just an external HDD, formatted NTFS, hooked up by USB.
After the update, a scan removed a lot from TV shows, and Plex won’t even perform a scan for movies. Out of curiosity, I tried another media server program (JF), and the same issues occurred, so this is definitely a Mac issue.
Updated to 15.0.1 and the issue remains. A scan will reduce the files to less than 1000 items. The same workaround of keeping the folder open is required.
I hope Plex is actively doing something about this and not just waiting for one of us to find the solution to this or hopefully Apple fixes it with future releases.
I installed 15.01 this morning and rebooted the system, no finder windows open and the initial scan on boot caused the issue to happen again. Opening the finder windows and doing a manual scan finds all content. so NO change with 15.01
Is every one who has the issue using “AutoMounter” ? I am running it, wonder if it is playing into this as well…
No, issue can be replicated without AutoMounter too (with just standard Finder mounted network volumes).
Hearing that this isn’t specific to Synology is actually good news, well not really… it just opens up more paths for attempting reproducing the issue.
Gotta look on the bright side, we just eliminated 33% of the potential issue point. Now we know for sure it’s down to macOS and/or Plex. I’d say this is good news and us definitely heading in the right direction.
As I can’t access anything via either of my Macs, I haven’t spent a lot of time trying to fix things. If you would like specifica actions to be tried, please make a note here and I’ll try them.
I can confirm this. since my last visiting this thread about 5 days ago, I started leaving 2 folders open on the host (movies and teevee). Music doesn’t seem affected.
Both those traits tell me that it’s a timeout issue. Larger folders (more content) that take longer to scan/index and no “keep awake” (or “wake up”) command from Plex to keep mapped paths open. I’d sure be temped to send a command to wake up a sleeping HDD, embed a wait time long enough for the slowest connections, then start the scan.
Given that music isn’t affected (lots of files but all smaller), that also seems to point to timeouts.
And another confirmation that 15.0.1 doesn’t fix it. It’s how Plex deals with macOS time outs on mapping remote drives.
I have noticed that (folders open to a sub-directory closing or reverting to the root) for a long time (years) on my Intel Mac Mini (2018). I often have remote folders open when working on projects. I often see one of them (at least) change back to the root directory of the drive while I’m working on something else. PITA for sure but not something that had been affecting (yet) on the Plex host where no other work is happening (no multi-app projects, little additional software, etc.).
And removed Automouter after not getting any results from it.
Just to throw into the mix, I’m also affected by this and the workaround of leaving a Finder window open and on the directory where all the movies reside temporarily resolves it (unfortunately, I didn’t know this would be an issue and it wiped all my metadata/collections so I now get to rebuild all this.)
I got blown up a few days ago by my discord bot as it re-added a huge chunk of movies to my library. Sounds like this was the cause.
If any logs/testing is needed, I’m happy to help as well.
To bump this thread, in hopes the start of the week gets some attention, where’s @ChuckPa ? He was gung ho fwo weeks ago and then vanished.
So far no staff member has asked for anyone’s database, that tells me they’re not looking internally for the solution. It looks like they’re hoping someone here finds an external solution so Plex staff doesn’t have to dedicate time and resources to this.
Not trying to spark arguments, just trying to spark some attention. I’ve seen several requests for updates and those requests have gone unanswered.
Just to clarify, I was asked for both my extended logs and my database very early on by @Atomatth during this investigation - just via DM.
For anyone coming new to this thread experiencing the issue, the current workaround seems to be to keep a MacOS Finder window open to the affected network share media library directory (i.e. /Volumes/Media/Movies) and the default library scan will work normally.
I trust the Plex employees are continuing to investigate this issue and that we’ll have a more permanent solution soon.
Very Interesting discovery, has anyone looked at the side bar Preferences? I have noticed on occasions the Media Drives/ External Disks can be flagged not with a Tick, but a dash. Not a blank but a (-), re applying resolves the issue.
Yes, we have been investigating this issue since it’s initial reporting. However, we have not been able to reproduce the issue on any of our environments that are running MacOS 15 with NAS storage. Yes, we have collected user’s DBs and logs. Of the tens of thousands of users running PMS on MacOS 15, it seems like this issue is only impacting a few. There is a workaround of leaving a Finder window routing to the data (NAS or USB) mount 
. So overall, this issue is very unique.
If there was any progress or change we would be updating this thread. The lack of any employee or ninja posting updates is due to the lack of anything to update. I don’t think posting “No update” everyday would be helpful or useful.
This issue is definitely a priority for us, however without a way to reliably reproduce the issue it makes it extremely difficult to understand what is happening and why. Having DBs and logs are great but sometimes even these are not enough to fully understand the how and why.
I appreciate everyone’s patience while to continue to investigate this issue.
The dash instead of check is by design, when a connected drive is removed/hidden from the side bar.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8194035?sortBy=rank
I have not noticed this behavior on either of my plex servers, but I will keep an eye out for it. If you are seeing this, and didn’t remove the connected drive yourself, then you may be onto something. Seems like this behavior might be tied to some level of external drive timeout. But all of that is simply a hunch.
M2 Mac Studio OS Sequoia running PMS, Synology DS920+ NAS for storage.
I have also been experiencing this issue since updating to Sequoia last week. Of my four Plex libraries, only my Movie library is affected. This happens to be the only library of the four with over 999 folders in it. I say that because when PMS loses its connection to my NAS, it somehow still maintains 999 movies on my PMS and in Finder. Perhaps it has something to do with the amount of folders within a library?
This has happened every night since updating. Keeping a Finder window open overnight does prevent this issue from occurring. Ticking the boxes in Finder settings does not prevent this issue from occurring. When this issue does occur, the only way to fix it is by quitting PMS, restarting my Mac Studio, restarting PMS, and reconnecting my Movie directory under the Edit menu.
I have noticed some other issues with Sequoia that lead me to believe this issue is not isolated to PMS and may need a fix from Apple. Many other apps I use that are not PMS-related that also access my NAS have been freezing, crashing, or resulting in Finder freezing or crashing.
As a user that has never gotten involved with forums, I just wanted to mention that I have the same issue. I think this is important so that the Plex team knows this is impacting more than just a few users. I have two very large databases with a total of more than 60k files and indeed, after the upgrade about 3/4 of the files disappeared. I am now debating whether to downgrade to Sonoma and rebuild everything while I wait for a fix. Very frustrating!
If you downgrade, you can just keep your current Plex data folder intact. It will work as-is; no rebuilding is needed. Just plop your Plex data folder back in. Make sure PMS is stopped if you’re copying the Plex data folder, otherwise you’ll get a corrupt database.
