# Plex Optimized Versions keep getting marked as "Deleted" and I'm not certain why **URL:** \ **Category:** Metadata & Adding Files\ **Tags:** plex-web\ **Created:** [December 1, 2020, 3:30am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997 "2020-12-01T03:30:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ecleptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/77aa72/32.png) [@Ecleptic](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Ecleptic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2020, 3:30am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/1 "2020-12-01T03:30:20Z")
Server Version#: Version 4.47.1 I’ve recently been adding a lot of tv shows & movies to my optimization list, but i’ve noticed that some episodes keep getting marked as deleted in plex. the mp4 is still there under the plex versions folder, but plex doesn’t seem to know. I’m not modifying the file or the directory, but it does seem to happen after a library scan. I’m at a loss here. I just keep having to re-optimize shows that already have the optimized file. Each episode can take up to an hour sometimes. it’s quite a lengthy process taking days. ---
**Author:** ![anon18523487](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@anon18523487](https://forums.plex.tv/u/anon18523487)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2020, 5:29am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/2 "2020-12-01T05:29:39Z")
Are you touching the original file in any way? The optimized version is tied to that, so if you do something to the original, it may delete the optimized version. ---
**Author:** ![Ecleptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/77aa72/32.png) [@Ecleptic](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Ecleptic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2020, 4:06pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/3 "2020-12-01T16:06:34Z")
Not at all. I checked a few last night. and set some to re-optimize. Woke up this morning, and another couple shows are showing as not-optimized. Nobody else has access. I did have some files in queue to move into that library, but nothing went into that directory. It was a completely different show. ---
**Author:** ![Volts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a5b964/32.png) [@Volts](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Volts)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2020, 5:13pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/4 "2020-12-01T17:13:47Z")
What are a few of the original and optimized file names? There’s another thread, which I’m not finding immediately, that discusses a similar-but-different problem. I think the finding there was that Plex uses a portion of the original file name when creating the optimized file name, and conflicts can occur. ---
**Author:** ![Ecleptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/77aa72/32.png) [@Ecleptic](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Ecleptic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2020, 5:49pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/5 "2020-12-01T17:49:32Z")
I haven’t seen that. I haven’t touched the names at all. but some of them have underscores instead of other characters like exclamation marks and colons. I have them saved in folders with original items. ---
**Author:** ![anon18523487](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@anon18523487](https://forums.plex.tv/u/anon18523487)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 4:33am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/6 "2020-12-02T04:33:24Z")
Can you provide me your PMS logs? [Plex Media Server Logs | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250417-plex-media-server-log-files/) What show did you notice was now missing the optimize versions? ---
**Author:** ![Volts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a5b964/32.png) [@Volts](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Volts)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 6:21am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/7 "2020-12-02T06:21:24Z")
This was the other thread I remembered. It applied to shows with date-based episode numbering & multiple episodes on the same date. > [@Optimized Version naming issue](https://forums.plex.tv/t/optimized-version-naming-issue/656922): > > I like to record all the NFL games and watch them. However, my tuner generates .ts files that are rather large. I’d prefer smaller files so it works smoothly across multiple clients. I decided to set my Recordings directory (where the tuner puts all recordings) to optimize to a smaller file. However, all of the optimizations have the same name (the air date of the game). This means that all of the games are optimized and then deleted until one final game is left standing. This poor file naming h… Sounds like your issue is something different. Just wanted to share because I referenced it previously. ---
**Author:** ![Ecleptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/77aa72/32.png) [@Ecleptic](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Ecleptic)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 4:11pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/8 "2020-12-02T16:11:28Z")
(File removed) Beyond The Boundary is one I noticed yesterday morning. and Wandering Witch Sometime in the afternoon I noticed had been deleted as well. ---
**Author:** ![anon18523487](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@anon18523487](https://forums.plex.tv/u/anon18523487)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 11:59pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/9 "2020-12-02T23:59:45Z")
How have you set these to optimize? Did you create a filter then chose to optimize the results or did you just click the optimize button on the video? ---
**Author:** ![stmty9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@stmty9](https://forums.plex.tv/u/stmty9)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2020, 2:43am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/10 "2020-12-03T02:43:48Z")
It might be something similar to my post that @Volts mentioned. In my case, I think that the optimization is actually writing over existing files of the same derived name. It has nothing to do with the original file name on the system, but instead the derived name. Since Plex Optimization uses the season/episode (or in my case, date) as the name of the file, there is a chance at collisions. In my post, I advocate for a change to this logic, but I am obviously not aware of the decision making that went it into it. The way I’ve been ‘solving’ this is to use a custom optimization with a different name for each file manually instead of the Library level optimization. You might try doing that to see if it is the same problem? ---
**Author:** ![Ecleptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/77aa72/32.png) [@Ecleptic](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Ecleptic)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2020, 4:50pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/11 "2020-12-04T16:50:49Z")
I’ve been selecting the show/season -\> optimize -\> original -\> in folder with original items. Not via a filter ---
**Author:** ![Ecleptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/77aa72/32.png) [@Ecleptic](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Ecleptic)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2020, 4:51pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/12 "2020-12-04T16:51:23Z")
I’ll try this. Thank you @stmty9 ---
**Author:** ![stmty9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@stmty9](https://forums.plex.tv/u/stmty9)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2020, 10:49pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/13 "2020-12-07T22:49:41Z")
@anon18523487 Changing my Recordings Library to be of type Other Videos has its own challenges: 1. I cannot set a Library of type ‘Other Videos’ as a recording destination. This means I have to have 2 different libraries pointing to the same directory. One to ‘receive’ the recordings, and the other to handle optimizations. 2. This means I have an unused Library that I just hide all the time. Kind of pointless 3. (Edit 12/8) Since I am watching them from ‘Other Videos’, these do not get marked as Watched in the TV Library, so they are not automatically cleaned up after watching them either. 4. I had to update my library to scan automatically. This might not matter to some, but I have other systems trigger the scan instead of relying on system events. (Edit 12/8) I am going to go back to doing manual optimizations because this is just not workable. PLEASE FIX THIS =(. Not everything no TV is a clean series. Plex is so feature rich, so issues like this really frustrate me. I am a software engineer, so I understand what goes into product decisions, but I am also a customer with needs, ha! ---
**Author:** ![Ecleptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/77aa72/32.png) [@Ecleptic](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Ecleptic)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 7:17pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/14 "2020-12-20T19:17:06Z")
Update: The problems seem to be specific directories, not necessarily files. I put a video from a show that wasn’t optimizing correctly into one that was, and it wasn’t deleted automatically. I also changed the specific videos in the show that was having issues, and it still would optimize then immediately say “deleted”. I’ve named the actual videos the same as one that worked and that didn’t help, obviously I couldn’t duplicate the directory name because plex would pick it up as a different show. ---
**Author:** ![anon18523487](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@anon18523487](https://forums.plex.tv/u/anon18523487)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 9:47pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/15 "2020-12-21T21:47:10Z")
Edit the show and check these settings. ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/6/b/6b2dea3bf82ef82ab3136ef1002799029f6e9606.png) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2021, 9:47pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-optimized-versions-keep-getting-marked-as-deleted-and-im-not-certain-why/659997/16 "2021-03-21T21:47:22Z")
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