Server Version#: 4.104.2
Player Version#:
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I have noticed that when I add a few movies to my Library folder, my Plex Server will randomly drop a movie from my database.
For instance, I had 332 movies in my library and added 3 new titles. Now my library shows 334 titles (only 2 added) but if I check the library all 3 of the films I added show up. This means that 1 of the other preexisting films has disappeared.
This has happened a few times and I found the missing title by cross-referencing all the films in my database against the filenames in my library folder. Once I find the missing title I can change the filename and rescan to get it to add back to the library.
Is there something I can do to stop this from happening? Printing out a file list and cross-referencing titles one-by-one is really frustrating.
The number at the top of your library refers to the visible items – not the cataloged files.
The number can deviate from the number of files if there’s…
multiple files considered to be different quality versions of the same movie
multiple files considered to be sequential parts of the same movie (1 movie split across different files)
collections displayed inline within your library
You can filter your library for duplicates to identify items that have different quality versions.
You can change the sort order of your library to anything but By Title in order to remove potential collections (or items hidden inside a collection) – collections will only show inline with the other library items if the library is sorted By Title.
Edit: what I mean to say is… check those first; those are more likely to be the cause of this confusion than Plex actually dropping files it had previously cataloged.
I get what you are saying, but the file count in my library and the available movies in my Plex server are always only different by 1 (Plex is always 1 less than my library folder). And both times i’ve reconciled, I found 1`film that had been previously present and was now missing from the Plex Server.
And by reconcile, I mean print a list of everything in my library folder and compare to the content items in my server 1 by 1.
The most recent disappearing film was Jumanji (1995) in MP4 format. Previously it was The Last Samurai in MP4 as well.
Its like it was there, and when i dropped 3 new films in my library folder it kicked out something that was already in the database when the new films added.
Take a look at Find Media in WebTools-NG. It might help you find the missing media files.
The Find Media module allows you to scan your local folders and compare the list of local files to the list of files held in your Plex Media Server database in order to locate files that may exist locally, but have not been found or included in your Plex Media Server library.
Check the log files for database corruption.
Pull the log files, Settings → Troubleshooting. In Plex Media Server.log, and .1.log to .5.log, look for ERROR entries that mention corruption or malformed (search for those terms).
Do you have the library configured to Prefer Local Metadata?
If configured to do so, Plex reads metadata from MP4 files. If the metadata is incorrect or misleading, it will cause problems with media recognition.
It is not set to “Prefer Local Metadata”, and I don’t really think its a duplicate problem. I only have 1 duplicate item (2 different quality levels of the same film for testing) and I made the filenames very different.
I’ll look at that Webtools-NG. If nothing else, it will make it easier to find which film was dropped from my database than a pencil and checklist…
Not the titles are of interest, but the actual file names.
And also whether they are sharing a folder with other movies or whether you already have 1 dedicated subfolder for each title.
So, if my movie files are all standalone files (MKV or MP4) then according to the Naming and Organizing information, it is acceptable to keep them in a single folder.
It is acceptable, but not recommended.
You could use the folder names to overcome the poor naming of your files, by sticking closer to the recommendation Complete, official Title (year).
And I was primarily taking exception at your file names.
My filenames primarily are just the film name without the date.
And, out of curiosity, why would that filename have caused an issue? It isn’t similar to anything else in the folder so it shouldn’t cause confusion.
PowerRenamer in Microsoft Power Tools is helpful for simple renaming with pattern matches or regular expressions. It makes quick work of tasks such as adding a year to file names, removing undesirable text from multiple files, etc
So I reformatted my file structure to put everything into individual folders and incorporate the year into the filenames as advised here.
Now, making library changes (changing Poster or “sort title” takes FOREVER. I used to click the “edit” button for feature and it popped right up…now I have to wait like 20-30 seconds to load, then another 20-30 seconds for the poster options to load when I click the Poster button.
Is it normal to cause these delays by putting files into individual folders?
