Greetings, I have been using Plex for a long time and I love it.
Among other uses, with Plex I manage my personal movie collection. I have about 5000 movies and documentaries that I use in my work. The problem is that the database loses the identification information of the movies or documentaries and I have to identify them again, updating the covers and the rest of the information, since it does not retrieve them by itself.
This loss has been partial, but last time it was almost complete (80%).
It is strange, but this does not happen with another series folder. The movies and documentaries are on an external HDD that is always connected to my pc (windows 10) and the series on an internal SSD. I watch the content on a Samsung TV with the Plex app (latest version).
I would appreciate help with this, as manually updating the information for almost the entire library is a lot of work and I don’t want to replace Plex for this.
Thanks in advance.
Live long and prosper.
Server Version#:1.32.8.7639
Player Version#:
<If providing server logs please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only debug logging should be enabled>
Sounds like a combination of your server being configured to automatically empty its trash after every scan and your media HDD being slow when spinning up while Plex attempts to scan your library.
If your drive is completely off, Plex will ignore „missing“ files… but if the drive starts reacting properly halfway through the scan (or 80% through the scan in your last attempt), Plex will interpret that the previously checked files are actually missing, mark them as removed and clear the related library items.
The items might reappear during s subsequent scan, but all your manual edits (metadata, playlist/collection assignments, ratings…) will be gone.
I strongly recommend to disable automatically emptying the trash if that’s frequently happening for you (Settings > [Server Name] > Libraries > Automatically empty trash after every scan).
Greetings, I tried the solution you propose but it did not work. On two occasions, Plex has lost some of the movie database information.
It seems to happen when the external HDD, where the movies are on goes into hibernation. That would explain why the series folder, which is on an internal ssd, does not have this problem.
The strange thing is that the external HDD has always been set to hibernate when not in use and Plex did not lose the information.
Now only part of the library appears and I have to set Plex to search the entire database for movies, after a long while it detects all the movies, but does not retrieve the covers or other metadata.
I keep the suggested trash cleanup disabled.
Greetings.
I summarize the problem for clarity.
My library is divided into series and movies, which are on two different disks.
The series on an internal ssd so it is always available to Plex.
The movies are on an external hdd, which sometimes goes to sleep to save power on win10. This feature has always been in operation.
For some time now, Plex does not detect all the movies there are (5500) and only shows 200 or 500. This coincides with the hdd being in hibernation. To retrieve them I have to use “Search files in library” and so it starts showing the missing files. But it does not show the cover of all movies, their correct name and other metadata (actors, director). This affects 40% of the files. The solution is to identify each movie again, which is a lot of work.
When I started using Plex, some time ago, I identified each movie with this metadata, but now they are lost.
I disabled the delete trash option as you suggested, but still the movies and their metadata are lost. It has happened 2 times already.
Plex does not maintain library integrity after a disk hibernation. This didn’t happen before, sometimes metadata was lost for some movies, but never so many.
The solution would be for Plex to maintain library integrity after a hibernation and failing that, it could restore an image of the library so that it doesn’t have to identify movies one at a time.
Thanks
From what I can see, Plex skipped your Peculias library because J:\CINE wasn’t connected/available when you scanned all libraries after midnight on Feb 4. When you rescanned all libraries the night after, the drive as available but Plex didn’t recognize any changes (5263 movie items)
A few notes:
Have you already checked the library for Duplicates (filtering by Duplicates)? Given the many extra subfolders you’ve included in your library folder, there’s a significant change Plex might be merging some of them as different versions of the same movie – especially with many movie files not having additional hints like release years in their name.
You’ll get better (and faster) scan results if you properly organize your TV Show media. It appears you’ve stored most episodes flat in the library folder (with only very few show/season folders). At best this means your server will be slow scanning that library; at worst it’ll get into trouble matching items.
Thank you for your response.
1.- I did a duplicate check and found few cases. In several of them it was a movie that was divided into two files.
2.- About the organization, as I indicated before, the series and TV programs are on an internal ssd and the movies on an external hdd which is the one that presents problems. Before knowing Plex I organized, so much in the Ssd and the Hdd, everything in well ordered folders.
But when I started using Plex I realized that it was not necessary, since it recognized everything well, regardless of the folders. So today I have a mixed organization between very organized folders and then an input folder on the Hdd where the movies go and another one on the Sdd. That’s how it has worked for two years at least, no problems.
I understand, correct me if I’m wrong, that the problem happens because the Hdd of the movies goes into sleep and therefore Plex as not detecting it. That’s why it can’t check the library. Also Plex does not “remember” the state of the library if the disk is not active. That’s why when reconnecting the hdd it only captures a very small part of the movies.
The simple solution, but not very efficient is to keep the disk always active, so it does not go to sleep.
Is there a way for Plex to “remember” the entire scanned library?
Currently, I have to rescan the entire library so that it detects all the movies, but the cover art is lost and there are faulty IDs.
Thanks for your attention.
