I’ve been using Plex for some time now and, out of nowhere, i’ve installed it on a completely clean machine (Just installed Windows 10) and now (immediately after scanning media) it’s bringing up duplicates. This has NEVER happened before. It’s not going anything to do with my library content (because it’s never happened before). I’m logging in under Plex web server interface and seeing all this. I’ve got to fix it because i’ve got family who rely on this for entertainment.
This seems to me like a “new version” bug because, like i said, i’ve been using it for years and it never happened before and i use the same install i always use.
It’s probably that helpful ‘Collections’ update - wherein many of your items now belong to a collection - with only one thing in it… and the collections view is on by default… or something like that.
I think Tony is right (about your “duplicates” being collections).
If you had just started over from scratch… consider creating this library again and take care to disable Advanced > Use collection info from The Movie Database during the setup. This should avoid any unwanted collections from being generated in the first place.
The best way to see all the collections at once is by switching to collections view:
If you’re ok with the collections (e.g. Plex didn’t create only single-movie collections) but don’t want to show them as “duplicates” – you can edit the existing library (also in the Advanced tab, look for Collections and set the dropdown to either disabled or hide items which are part of a collection).
Personally I like those collections a lot… they help to better organize a library if you own movie series/franchises such as James Bond or Star Wars movies, allowing to group all those movies in a single item in your library.