Plex Media Scanner Not Scanning A Library

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#:1.41.0.8994
Player Version#:
<If providing server logs please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only debug logging should be enabled>
Things had been working without issue, multiple Movie folders, multiple TV folders.
Recently (sometime after an upgrade to the latest version), only one of my TV folders is not behaving. It contained content I had loaded it with, but any Library Scans would not detect anything new, heck not even look like they started. The latest scan even unmatched some details from a couple shows, but shows no log activity.

I’ve modified settings back and forth, trying different Plex Scanner Agents, but it remains that this 1 TV scanner library will not work. I deleted all logs, then tried to scan it, and look throuhg the logs, but it legitamately will not show any activity for Shows-Regular. It will show some scan activity for Shows-Anime, and I even uploaded a new movie to Movies-Regular with some automatic library changes detected scanning on.

Adding a new show shows no activity, and hell, I hit Scan Library Files between each step of doing nothing, after an optimize database, after a clean bundles, and after adding the Red Sparrow movie it automatically detected. None of those manual Scan Library Files showed.

Any help from someones more knowledgable?

Plex Media Server Logs_2024-10-15_23-22-08.zip (7.0 KB)

2

The log files you uploaded are incomplete.

Please do the following:

  1. Configure the library to use the Plex TV Series scanner and Plex Series agent.
  2. In Settings → Library, enable Scan my library automatically & save changes.
  3. Stop Plex Media Server and wait one minute for the server to settle.
  4. Start Plex Media Server.
  5. Wait 3 - 5 minutes for the server to fully start and log the startup sequence.
  6. Scan the TV show library.
  7. Pull server logs in Settings → Troubleshooting.
  8. Attach the entire ZIP file to the thread.
3

Steps 1 and 2 were already configured this way as I was attempting my steps.
I had deleted the log files before starting this process so I could isolate just the activity around what wasn’t working (was my thought process).

  1. I used systemctl stop plexmediaserver on my Ubuntu box, and waited 2 minutes
  2. systemctl start plexmediaserver
  3. Waited 5 minutes like you asked (3:18 - 3:23 local time)
  4. I manually clicked the 3 dots for my shows-cartoon library, then Scan Library Files (twice!)
  5. Settings > Manage> Troubleshooting > Download Logs
  6. This has more log files, due to startup and whatnot.

I saw several lines referencing an error with 2 shows in the suspect directory, with ONI and Rick and Morty. I removed these files and tried a stop and start again

I cleaned some info out that I didn’t want on a public forum, sorry. But most of it shouldn’t be related, minus the movie that had an error that I moved off the Plex server.
Plex Media Server Logs_2024-10-16_03-25-15.zip (1.2 MB)

4

Looking for path match for [/milk/shows-anime/Nights With a Cat [2022] {tmdb-199928}/Nights with a Cat - S01E08.mkv]

Issue #1: you are enclosing the year in square brackets, which effectively hides it from the Plex agent and cannot be used to match the item. You are adding the tmdb ID in the correct way though, which would normally alleviate this. But only if the ID is correct and points to a record of the right type (series vs. movie)
Issue #2: There are frequently no season folders, but something that looks like one subfolder per episode. This is not supported in Plex.

Please give a hint about which show should appear in your library. It appears that your fetching of the logs is either incomplete, or it overlapped with the server maintenance period. Which floods the logs with a flurry of activity which are not related to the issue and thus make looking for the problem at hand more difficult.

Steps you can take immediately:

Keep in mind that Plex in a Series library will ignore files that are named like a movie, and vice versa.

5

Thanks for the log files.

To add to Otto’s post…

Plex is scanning Shows - Regular. From Plex Media Server.log:

Oct 16, 2024 03:23:05.710 [140656166673208] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity cc49ac0e-a13b-4b3f-bc50-0b87321db0b9 - completed 0.0% - Scanning Shows - Regular
...
Oct 16, 2024 03:23:06.171 [140656166673208] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity cc49ac0e-a13b-4b3f-bc50-0b87321db0b9 - completed 100.0% - Scanning Shows - Regular

Please provide a specific example of a show that is not appearing in the library. Include how the show is named and organized (directory listing, etc.).

Also, some shows have directories in the Subtitles directory. What is that and what is in it?

Example: Falling Skies [2011] {tmdb-34967}/Season 02/Subtitles/Falling.Skies.S02E02.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG

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@OttoKerner
#1 - woops sorry about that. I must have missed that in the plex documentation or been lazy and continued. I changed every square bracket I could find. I should have each library labeled correctly and only movies in movies and shows in shows. Give or take 1.
#2 - I’ll work on correcting issues where there are no season folders and weird folders per episode or subtitles.

I made sure the plex user and group have full permissions on the directories. I tried a scan of Shows - Cartoon again but it still failed.

@FordGuy61
A specific example would be a great idea! Attached shows the start of my Shows - Cartoon directory. Animaniacs does not show in the other snip of the interface. I’ve scanned the library files multiple times, before and after all of this.

I think literally a directory for subtitles per episode. It seems I should go through and format it correctly, which I will later.

More logs too.
I cleared them all, shut down plexmediaserver, started it, waited several minutes, scanned Shows - Cartoon, then downloaded the logs.

Plex Media Server Logs_2024-10-17_20-38-55.zip (95.0 KB)
example_of_missing_show
no_animaniacs

7

Thanks for the log files.

There is no need to clear the log files. Doing so prevents seeing what was happening before the last restart, which can sometimes help troubleshooting. For example, were PMS to crash, clearing the log files before restarting deletes the files that might contain the reason for the crash.

Plex rotates the log files when launched. Look for BPQ: [Idle] -> [Starting] at the top of Plex Media Server.log and rollovers, .1 to .5. That shows when Plex was launched.

Is Scan my library automatically still enabled? If not, please re-enable it. It adds the DEBUG - [Notify] Now watching... entries in Plex Media Server.log. This shows which media directories Plex scans when launched, which can aid in troubleshooting.


Regarding the cartoon files:

Plex Media Server cannot see files in /milk/shows-cartoons. There are either permission problems or the files are not available (moved, unmounted, etc.).

Check that the directories are correctly mounted and that Plex has at least read-only permission to the media files.

The Plex Linux Tips has several entries that may help with mounting drives/shares and setting permissions.

From Plex Media Server.log. Notice the “marking media not available” entry.

Oct 17, 2024 20:38:25.369 [140497338256184] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity 0ca382cd-1cc3-4d8f-aebb-e092179800f4 - completed 0.0% - Scanning Shows - Cartoon
Oct 17, 2024 20:38:25.391 [140497338256184] DEBUG - Scanning Shows - Cartoon using en-US(Plex TV Series) with 5445 current media items and 1 section locations in the database.
Oct 17, 2024 20:38:25.391 [140497338256184] DEBUG -   * Scanning /milk/shows-cartoons
Oct 17, 2024 20:38:25.391 [140497338256184] DEBUG -   * Marking media not available in /milk/shows-cartoons
Oct 17, 2024 20:38:25.691 [140497338256184] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity 0ca382cd-1cc3-4d8f-aebb-e092179800f4 - completed 99.0% - Scanning Shows - Cartoon
Oct 17, 2024 20:38:25.722 [140497338256184] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity 0ca382cd-1cc3-4d8f-aebb-e092179800f4 - completed 100.0% - Scanning Shows - Cartoon

From Plex Media Scanner Analysis.log. Notice the ERROR “could not parse … no such file” entry.

Oct 17, 2024 20:38:27.215 [140230766546688] DEBUG - Analyzing media parts for item 14543 (Episode 1): 14555
Oct 17, 2024 20:38:27.215 [140230766546688] DEBUG - [ID 22779] Media part analysis: /milk/shows-cartoons/Futurama [1999] {tmdb-615}/Season 10/Futurama - S10E01.mp4
Oct 17, 2024 20:38:27.228 [140230766546688] DEBUG - [MI] Opening input file: "/milk/shows-cartoons/Futurama [1999] {tmdb-615}/Season 10/Futurama - S10E01.mp4"
Oct 17, 2024 20:38:27.228 [140230766546688] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - Opening '/milk/shows-cartoons/Futurama [1999] {tmdb-615}/Season 10/Futurama - S10E01.mp4' for reading
Oct 17, 2024 20:38:27.228 [140230766546688] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - Setting default whitelist 'file,crypto,data'
Oct 17, 2024 20:38:27.228 [140230766546688] ERROR - Exception analyzing media file '/milk/shows-cartoons/Futurama [1999] {tmdb-615}/Season 10/Futurama - S10E01.mp4' (Could not parse /milk/shows-cartoons/Futurama [1999] {tmdb-615}/Season 10/Futurama - S10E01.mp4 (error=-2): No such file or directory)
Oct 17, 2024 20:38:27.228 [140230766546688] ERROR - Failed to successfully analyze part 22779.
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I’ll stop clearing them, my bad. Makes sense what you said.

I re-enabled Scan my library automatically. It’s been on while I’ve been adding a couple shows to shows-cartoons, making sure permissions are good enough on Ubuntu, and reading through more of those Linux tips. I also manually stopped and started plexmediaserver and reboot the host Ubuntu machine. Even turned on scan every 15 minutes.

I’m also at only 50% roughly of the max number of directories.

I changed the owner and group of the directories to the plex user and a group I created. I set the inherit flag too.

Logs
Plex Media Server Logs_2024-10-18_12-29-53.zip (3.1 MB)

9

Mystery solved team.

I originally had the directory named shows-cartoons.
All of the others had the second part singular, so I changed it.

I forgot to update it in Plex.

I appreciate y’alls time and efforts. I’ve learned more about Plex.

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