Plex Media Scanner - not updating library (automatically or on schedule)

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Hi there,

 

I'm having a little problem with the updating of my PMS library of both TV Shows & Movies. 

 

To elaborate further, this is my current setup:

 

1. PMS installed on Mac Mini

2. Both TV Shows/Movies are housed in my Synology box

3. Folder is mapped onto Mac Mini via AFP. 

4. Folders and files to both TV Shows and Movies are in accordance to the recommended structure from Plex. 

 

Previously both auto and schedule library updates did automatically detect changes to both TV Shows and Movies folders when changes were made (e.g. Adding a new series or a new movie). 

 

I recently performed a reboot to my Mini and after which the updating of my media files became a bit wonky. The initial library update worked and the subsequent ones failed to be invoked. I've tried the scheduled (15 mins) and it fails as well. 

 

Any help would be much appreciated. 

 

 

 

2

have you optimized the database lately.

i would take a look at the server and scanner logs to see if there is anything fishy when a scheduled scan is supposed to take place

3

Hi BigWheel

Thanks for the reply. 

Yes, I have optimized the library, just yesterday hoping that it would solve this problem. I've combed through the Plex Media Scanner.log and could not find anything that would point to the scanner agent not invoking or being run. 

As for the Plex Media Scanner.log what should I be looking out for? 

One more question, for the updating of libraries and scheduled. Are they done together or at seperate intervals? 

One thing I did notice was that for example, I see my TV Shows got updated at 11:00AM but not the Movies folder. I just added a new movie into the Movies folder and can confirm that the auto library update is not working at all. 

I'm waiting to now see if the schedule one will run. Looks quite unlikely.  :(

EDIT: Ok looks like the movies scan ran at 15 mins on the dot. I'm quite afraid to change the time for the fear that it may not work again. 

4

Just to provide some additional updates to my issue.

1. Automatic updating of library no longer seem works. I've rebooted the Mini and adding a new series to a folder does not invoke any thing

2. Scheduled works however,  I have set the timer to 15 mins, but through my logs, I see that the intervals between scans are 30 minutes apart. 

Something is wrong, somewhere. 

5

I'm having the same problem right now.

My PMS (v0.9.11.7) is installed on Ubuntu. A few days ago I've had a mishap with the ext4 filesystem on my array that I use for my media. I was forced to reformat the array (I used ext4 with exactly the same settings as before). After recreating the directory structure PMS doesn't seem to react on any media change (I have automatic library updates turned on in the settings). It finds the media without problems when I use the manual scan. It also scans the library every 30 minutes (I have it setup currently to scan every 15 mins).

I've tried reinstalling the whole PMS from scratch, but that didn't help anything.

EDIT: Sorry, didn't see earlier that this was the Mac section - anyways after a couple of purge/install cycles it started to work again.

6

I also have this issue, except I am on Windows.

It used to auto update when a TV Show or movie was added to the directory, now it only runs on schedule.  I have force refreshed, optimized, restarted PMS, restarted PC, and restarted Hard Drive (Hardware Raid 5).

Any other suggestions?  15 minutes isnt terrible, but it would be nice to get it to work like it should and the way it used to (automatically)

1 Like
7

Hi, I have the same issue as grey_fox and couldn’t find a fix for it, also automatic updates will not work in most cases according to this support page: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200289306

8

Have the same problem, autoupdate of library doesn't work.

9

Not sure if anyone has resolved this issue yet...

I'm running the latest OS X on my macbook air. I have a workflow where my torrent client downloads via an RSS. Completed downloads are then moved to my "TV Shows" folder in Finder. In the past Plex has been good about detecting a change. As soon as I moved a file into the location it would automatically start the update process as I could see it in the OS X notification the popped up in my upper right screen.

Now nothing happens. Even if sometimes I unrar a file that got downloaded and the actual .mp4/.avi etc. file is new in that location. Nothing changes. It's really annoying especially since recently I've been using Plex on my iPad and on more than one occasion I thought I had the latest episode since I knew it downloaded in the torrent but it never got updated to Plex and therefore did not sync to my device. That was a boring flight...

10

Add me to the list. Looks like it started about 3-4 weeks ago.

Also, my TV Shows are not correctly displaying poster artwork. It is being downloaded for individual episodes, but when I check, each episode has a"blank" poster selected. I have to manually select the second "real" poster, then everything is displaying fine for that episode.

No posters at all will show up for new seasons of shows.

Anyone else having this issue lately?

11

Edit: Nevermind. After more testing and looking through the logfiles, I found out that I had issues on my fileserver with exporting the media directories to the plex server.

12

I also notice this issue. I'm running PMS 0.9.12.0.1071-7b11cfc on Synology NAS. I think it started happening some time after the update. I think TV shows update but not movies if I can recall. Anyone know what's causing this to happen and know how to resolve the problem? The problem looks like it's not tied down to a certain OS either. So far it looks like Mac, Windows, and also Linux users also have the same problem.

13

Same here. Library updates no longer working.

14

Same here on Ubuntu 14.04.1 server

15

Same issue, sever version 0.9.12.1 on unraid, automatically updates tv shows as I have sickbeard forcing it I believe however any other sections im having to do a manual refresh from the web client

16

looks like this issue is affecting more than just macs, more widespread than I though. Hope it gets fixed soon!

17

I can confirm that ever since I updated to plexmediaserver-0.9.12.1.1079-b655370.x86_64.rpm on May 4th Plex has stopped updating my libraries.

I have both update on change and daily periodic library updates activated, neither of which works.

If I manually force a scan via the Update Library Button in the WebUI it will find all the new TV shows.

I have tried turning both options off and on again hoping it would update or save some internal scheduler state but neither had any effect.

Checking the logs before updating there were always lines like

May 03 18:38:34 plex sh[1217]: * Refreshing Family Guy
on almost a daily bases. After updating that line never showed until I triggered a manual refresh today.
 
One thing that's new though are lines like
May 10 02:06:24 plex sh[3056]: GUI: Requesting metadata for 'Greatest Hits'
May 10 02:06:24 plex sh[3056]: GUI: Requesting metadata for 'Darkness on the Edge of Town'
May 10 02:06:24 plex sh[3056]: GUI: Requesting metadata for 'Born to Run'
Since the update Plex seems to be very interested in my Music collection. I have similar lines for the past week and never had them before. Also I haven't updated my Music in years (Spotify 4tw) so it's not like Plex finds anything new there.
18

there is a known issue with auto update on linux based systems right now we are hoping to get an update out soon but I do not have an exact eta

19

I've hacked together a script that I run via cron on my Linux system to update the Library periodically until the Problem has been fixed upstream. It takes any number of sections as argument and refreshes them. Feel free to use/modify if you find it useful. Don't forget to adjust the paths to whatever you're using on your system.

Example:

/etc/cron.d/plexscan (mode 0644)

0 * * * * plex /usr/local/bin/plexscan.bash "TV Shows" "Movies" > /dev/null 2>&1

/usr/local/bin/plexscan.bash (mode 0755)

#!/bin/bash
set -o errexit -o nounset -o pipefail

export PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR="/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support"

export PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_HOME=/usr/lib/plexmediaserver

export PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_MAX_PLUGIN_PROCS=6

export PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_TMPDIR=/tmp

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_HOME"

export LC_ALL=“en_US.UTF-8”

export LANG=“en_US.UTF-8”

ulimit -s 3000


function -h {

cat <<USAGE

 USAGE: $0 [options] *

  Scans the section and refreshes metadata.


  Options:

    -l    List section names

    -h    Print this help

USAGE

}; function --help { -h ;}


function -l {

  scanner --list | cut -d : -f 2 | sort

}


function scanner {

  “${PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_HOME}/Plex Media Scanner” “$@”

}


function sectionId {

  scanner -l | 

  awk -v section="$1" ’

    BEGIN { FS=OFS=":" }

    {

      gsub(/^[ 	]+|[ 	]+$/, “”, $1);

      gsub(/^[ 	]+|[ 	]+$/, “”, $2);

      if($2==section) print $1

    }’

}


function scan {

  scanner --scan --refresh --section $1

}


function main {

  [[ -z “$@” ]] && --help


  for section in “$@”

  do

    declare -i sectionId=$(sectionId “$section”)

    if ! [ $sectionId -gt 0 ] ; then

      echo “error: could not find section ID for section $section” >&2

      continue

    fi


    echo “scanning section $section with id $sectionId”

    scan $sectionId &

  done

  wait

}


if [[ ${1:-} ]] && declare -F | cut -d’ ’ -f3 | fgrep -qx – “${1:-}”

then “$@”

else main “$@”

fi
20

Thank you, Luu!