Server Version#: 1.25.2.5319
MacOS Version #: 12.1
Last week I transferred my Library from a 2012 to a 2014 Mac mini, everything works fine except this major issue:
Plex keeps clearing all shows in my TV Shows library. It will then take a few hours to re-add/scan everything before clearing it again in an endless loop. I’ve tried completely deleting and adding the TV Shows library but the problem is still there.
This issues does not occur with any of my other libraries and I’ve never experienced it before. What’s going on?
Ensure that you have the following option cleared/unchecked:
Settings → Library → Empty trash automatically after every scan
If that is enabled, and the drive on which your media is stored becomes unavailable during a scan, Plex will assume the media is gone and remove it from your library.
With it disabled, in the same situation Plex will just mark the media as missing; it will not permanently remove it from the library. So, when it’s available again, it’s still there in the library.
As to why the media is seen as missing to begin with, is it stored on an external, or network, drive? Is it possible that that location is intermittently unavailable for some reason?
Ok I’ve disabled that option as a precaution (though it has never been a problem before). The files are stored on a Synology, but it connects in exactly the same way as the other Mac Mini (autofs) and should always be accessible.
Keep an eye your library for any posters which show a red trashcan overlaid. That means that Plex detected that the item was missing during a scan (but has kept its information in the library).
As you said, disabling this setting is just a precaution to prevent a fairly specific cause of items disappearing from your library. Perhaps others will have different ideas.
Depends on how quickly the NAS responds, Im pretty sure Plex only waits a short period, and if the drive is in a low power mode it might take it a bit longer to spin the drives up/respond. That extra couple of seconds might cause plex to think the drive is MIA, and then remove the items. Once the drive is active that response time is now lower and plex then properly scans/indexes the library. With newer hardware the PC might now be fast enough that where it might be able to do the same thing 20% faster, which could also contribute to the disk read timeout.
It doesn’t seem to be a connection issue, since my other libraries don’t suffer from this problem.
I’ve take the advice to not let It empty the trash and I’ve noticed a few times that suddenly about 75% of my TV Shows library of +/- 100 shows had a red trash can. So it doesn’t actually clear all my shows… The weird thing: the 25% of the shows that stay are always the same shows. I’ve tried looking for a link between these shows (are they new shows? Do they have different file permissions set up etc.?), but there does not seem to be any.
Then, when I select “scan library files” it will find everything again after scanning for about an hour.
