Wondering if others are having similar issues. When I Update Library, Plex will sometimes re-add albums that had been added months previously. When it does this, it will overwrite supposedly “locked” data fields such as Track Titles, which I have painstakingly edited by hand. It doesn’t happen with just a few albums either. Today it just re-added a number of artists’ entire discographies and overwrote all the data.
This has happened to me through a variety of server updates and I’m running the most current Mac server right now:
Version 0.9.16.0
Any one else having this issue? Any known solves? I tried to search for this issue but didn’t find anything.
Perhaps this issue is limited to you and your specific setup… no one else has chimed in with the same issue, maybe if you added logs you would draw more attention from those who need the logs to be able to track down the problem. Not enough information given to warrant a knowledgeable response from those who troubleshoot these types of issues. Hence the forum rules…
I couldn’t discover this issue discussed elsewhere, as I searched.
Given the above, and looking at the other forums available, this seemed to be the right forum.
I didn’t immediately upload the logs, thinking I’d see if there was any immediate advice. My bad on that one, I guess.
Truth be told, I’ve found these forums less helpful in general than many other technical forums I’m involved in. But I’m sure that has to be MY fault some how, which I am also sure people will point out in detail (as the only responses I get).
I’m back checking for help because the problem just happened again a few minutes ago.
And here are all the logs. But I’m not holding my breath.
Btw, I’m dealing with 141k music tracks, which, as a DJ, I’m editing relentlessly, so this is a big deal for me. And not that this will matter either, but I am a lifetime member, so I have committed to this platform.
I didn’t immediately upload the logs, thinking I’d see if there was any immediate advice. My bad on that one, I guess.
Don’t worry, I’ve uploaded logs many a time and still got no response. The support on this forum has been complained about many times before also.
The only things I can think of trying myself are the general things like reinstalling the server. I have no where near that amount of files but don’t have the issue personally. I wonder if its just with that large a library, although I doubt its thatas there are users I know have similar sizes and don’t report this issue.
Have you got any sync scripts or similar managing this music? Or is it just stored in one location. Its the only thing I can think of that might cause this. Something updating timestamps or something causing Plex to think the file is actually new. Bravo for doing that if you have as I have a slight problem with it picking up changes to tags ha. I’ll get round to looking into it properly one day. Still need to get logs.
Settngs - Server - Library - Empty trash automatically after every scan [ ] (UNcheck)
Settngs - Server - Scheduled Tasks - Refresh metadata periodically [ ] (UNcheck)
This applies to premium music libraries. It makes Plex re-download metadata for older albums, so you get updated artist photos or album reviews which didn’t download last time are filled in.
I can only assume that your library is a Premium Music library.
I assume further, if you add something to Plex and it is misrecognized by Plex, you are just overwriting the metadata within Plex, right?
This could be the problem. Plex still thinks the album you edited is something else. If now both options above are ‘checked’ and your file storage is not reliable (hard disk spinning up too slow, maybe?) then Plex throws out all your edits by hand and treats the album/files is if they’ve been deleted.
Upon next library update, the files are found again and scanned in as if they never have been in Plex before.
I urge you to set the checkbox ‘Use embedded tags’ in the properties of your music library (‘Advanced’ tab).
I also recommend to move the ‘Local Media Assets’ agent under
Settings - Server - Agents - Albums - Plex Premium Music
to the top, so metadata from within your files override metadata from Gracenote
I further urge you to keep the editing within Plex to a minimum. Always correct metadata directly in your files. Only after the internal metadata of your files are corrected, add them into Plex.
Thank you for your advice, I greatly appreciate it.
I do have a Premium Music library as you assume. I do not have any sync scripts running to manage the music. My music library is stored on an external 6TB USB 3.0 7200rpm drive.
I unchecked “empty trash automatically.”
I unchecked “refresh metadata periodically.”
I also am now using [checked] the “Use embedded tags.” My fingers are crossed that this one works out okay. Question, will this completely eliminate the Plex Premium music feature of auto-populating meta data information pulled from GraceNote?
I have had my “Local Media Assets” as the first item in the list.
Note about my process. I now use MusicBrainz Picard to clean and tag all my music files before adding to Plex; and I’m cleaning and retagging old music files as I can. However, with a library of this size, some of my legacy music files don’t have quality meta tags.
The only editing I do within Plex is the following:
Since Plex doesn’t let you see the track rating within the album view UNTIL you either edit the track info OR play the song, I add an asterisk to the *track name as the first character for my highly rated songs. This lets me see highly rated songs in the album view. Because I’m a DJ, I need a quick and easy method of seeing which tracks I have marked for potential play. This asterisk is what is being overwritten/removed when Plex re-adds the albums I’ve already added and edited. I don’t want to add this asterisk in the metadata, as I want to keep the metadata “clean”. I understand this is a clumsy hack and I am hoping that Plex will gain the functionality to display ratings for each track within the album view at some point.
NOTE: I don’t DJ from Plex, I use pro DJ software [Traktor] but I prefer to use Plex to manage, view, sort and filter my large music library. I dislike iTunes and have decided to concentrate all of my media within the Plex ecosystem. When I DJ, I take copies of my music files which I copy to a separate hard drive.
I also will manually add an album review [from allmusic.com] if Plex has not successfully populated the review field within the Album information.
I also add an album rating
I will also correct the album “originally available” date
I will manually add album/artist Poster images if Plex has not accurately done so.
Again, thank you very much for your suggestions and I will respond with how things go. It might take awhile to get real feedback as I’ve gone for weeks without Plex doing this [the re-adding of albums and the overwriting of track names]. I don’t know why it does it sporadically.
Just following up from the April 29 post. It’s been about 20 days and I haven’t had more overwrite issues so far. Not sure which change solved the problem, but so far, so good.
Well, unfortunately, it just happened again for the first time in ages, not sure why. I haven’t changed any of the recommended settings and I have been regularly upgrading the server. It happened on the release just PRIOR to the latest (v1.0.1.2396). Plex re-added 57 albums I had already added and hand edited. So I’ve got 57 albums (like my whole Kraftwerk collection) to redo. Joy.
It happened again this morning, running Server Version 1.0.2.2413. I checked a variety of the artists and no, there are no special characters in the folder [artist name] nor the [album name] or file names [song files]. I’m now rechecking all the previous settings you suggested to see if new server updates have possibly reset anything.
So I don’t understand why Plex resets settings that I have saved. I hope this gets fixed. You had suggested the following settings and I found that at some point, probably during a server update, Plex resets the settings. I have now set them back to your suggestions and will watch Plex’s actions:
Settngs - Server - Library - Empty trash automatically after every scan [ ] (UNcheck)
