Plex sees old TV episodes as new when new shows are added

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 4.132.2
Player Version#: n/a

The Problem

Good morning. I have Plex running in the lscr.io/linuxserver/plex Docker container on my Synology DiskStation 918+ with the latest DSM 7.1.1 and I’m accessing it on my LAN through the SWAG reverse proxy. I’ve had this setup for years and it has run flawlessly. I’m super-happy with Plex.

Recently, however, I have noticed odd behavior with Plex. Whenever I add a new TV show series to the server, Plex also ‘tags’ a few other specific shows as ‘just added,’ even though they’ve been on the server for years. The older shows that keep getting this ‘just added’ status are “The Monkees”, “Doctor Who (2005)”, and “Doctor Who (2023)”. It’s just these three shows, for some reason. And it doesn’t seem to do this when new episodes are added for shows that already exist on the server; only for a show that didn’t previously exist.

I see this happening because I also run Tautulli, which monitors Plex for any new ‘just added’ items and sends out notifications listing what was added to Plex. To be clear, Tautulli is just reporting on what it sees happening in Plex; I know it has nothing to do with the root cause, which is somewhere in Plex.

For example, when I recently added “Knight Rider” to my Plex server, Plex reported at the same time that “The Monkees - Specials” (Season 0) was just added, as well as “Doctor Who (2005)”.

Another time, when I added “Freddy’s Nightmares”, Plex also reported “The Monkees - Specials” (yes, again) and “Doctor Who (2023)”.

Attempted Solution

So far, I’ve tried moving those three shows out of Plex’s monitor library folder, then moving them back in a little bit later to let Plex reconstruct its metadata for them, hoping that might clear up any corrupted data (assuming that was the problem). Unfortunately, it didn’t help.

I suspect it has something to do with at least one of the Season 0 episodes in those three shows. I’ve been told elsewhere that some of the episodes might be ‘unmatched’ somehow (even though they appear correct in the Plex UI) and Plex thinks they are new after each scan (at least, each scan for new TV shows).

What To Do?

Is there any way to fix these shows (which might only be rooted in one or two episode files) so that Plex won’t recognize them as ‘just added’ anymore when a new show is added? Or even to have Plex ‘ignore’ these shows and stop scanning them altogether?

2

Clear the checkbox “Empty trash automatically after every scan”.

3

Thank you for the suggestion, I’ll give that a try soon.

Could you also please provide some explanation? Like, why is this only happening within the last several months, and with only those three shows? Why is it only happening when new shows are added? And why would changing that option stop it (if it does)? Adding a new show doesn’t trash any other show’s episodes, does it?

4

There is also a slight chance of mismatches if you keep adding more and more media – if you started out with not adhering to the best practices regarding folder organization and file naming.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/your-media/

5

I finally found the culprit! And I didn’t even have to change the “empty trash automatically” setting.

For whatever reason, Sonarr had created more than just the two typical hardlinks to the same inode (one for the torrents directory and one for Plex’s library directory). There were some episodes that had three hardlinks, so I went through those episodes and deleted the extra links from the directories where they didn’t belong.

I just added a new show to Plex with Sonarr and, indeed, I didn’t get those multiple reportings anymore about those three shows. Hallelujah!

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