Plex sometimes forgets to use the .plexignore file

Plex Media Server
,
1

Server Version#: Version 4.146.0
Player Version#:
<If providing server logs please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only debug logging should be enabled>

I have this issue sometimes where I notice my Plex is randomly scanning my library for hours upon hours. I finally tracked it down. For over a year I’ve had a symbolic link to my Movies folder in my TV Shows folder. I have a .plexignore file in the TV Shows folder to ignore \Movies. It worked, and it still does sometimes, but every once and a while it loses it mind and includes it and starts scanning it as a TV Show.

If I restart the Plex service on Qnap server, it realizes its mistake and removes the directory from TV Shows again.

What else can I do or is this a software bug?

Location for TV Shows library (according to Plex) Location: /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/TV Shows

Nested symbolic Link folder
Location: /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/TV Shows/Movies

and the contents of the .plexignore file located in /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/TV Shows

Ignore all files with “trailer” in the name

#trailer

Ignore files with the extension “.cr2”

#*.cr2

Ignore directories called “Modified”

/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/TV Shows/Movies
Modified/*
$RECYCLE.BIN/*
@Recycle/*
Movies/*
Movies
@Recycle
$RECYCLE.BIN
Modified
share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/TV Shows/Movies
CACHEDEV1_DATA/TV Shows/Movies

Ignore all “.tif” files in the “thumbnails” subdirectory

#thumbnails/*.tif

2

oof you’re just asking for headaches. What’s the reason for symbolic links?

3

Use FileStation and move the Movies to their own shared folder.

Create shared folder “Movies”
Move the movies there
Remove the directory and symlink.
Add the real top level directory to the appropriate library section.

4

I have a Windows app that automated Movies and TV show DVD/Bluray Rips to a single drive letter /directory. So T: is TV Shows and M: is movies but I can’t automate that individually so I nested T:Movies as a symbolic link under TV shows.

If the ignore file worked it would all be fine.

Currently I’m left with exporting Movies to a temp folder under T (root of TV Shows) then have to wait till early morning hours to run a daily batch file to move anything in that temp folder to M:

5

For what it’s worth, I am having a very similar issue.

I have files that are expected to be in an exactly specific pattern by another app, but unfortunately this pattern doesn’t play well with Plex at all. I expected being able to hard-link files with names that works with Plex to the source, and keeping the original structure in a file that is ignored by .plexignore.

Unfortunately Plex ignores the .plexignore file and instead adds entries based on the ignored directory name which ends up creating a TV Show with completly wrong items in the library.