Plex still accessing files even though all background processes are turned off

Plex Media Server
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1

Server Version#: 1.21.3.4021
Player Version#: N/A

I have a cloud server accessing music from B2, and due to excessive bandwidth costs I’ve started looking deeper to find that Plex is accessing media when it’s not supposed to.

What should be happening is bring the media in during the initial scan, grab metadata at the same time, then leave the files absolutely untouched until something is served to a user.

Am I seeing a bug? Is there some setting I’m missing?



Of note for other users: By default Plex does all sorts of scanning and rescanning: volume leveling, chapter thumbnail extraction, watching for library changes, etc. If you’re paying per GB, disable these before you start adding media.

Individual Library Checklist

  • Scanners are “Personal Media” / “Local Media” only
  • “Prefer local metadata” is checked on all libraries
  • Album Art is “Local Files Only” on all libraries
  • Genres are “Embedded Tags”

On the “Library” section of the server’s settings

  • “Scan my library automatically” is Unchecked
  • “Run a partial scan when changes are detected” is Unchecked
  • “Include music libraries in automatic updates” is Unchecked
  • “Scan my library periodically” is Unchecked
  • “Generate video preview thumbnails” is Never
  • “Generate intro video markers” is Never
  • “Generate chapter thumbnails” is Never
  • “Analyze audio tracks for loudness” is Never

Under “Scheduled Tasks”

  • “Time at which tasks start to run”: 2am
  • Checked:
    • Backup database every three days
    • Optimize database every week
    • Remove old bundles every week
  • Unchecked:
    • Remove old cache files every week
    • Refresh local metadata every three days
    • Update all libraries during maintenance
    • Upgrade media analysis during maintenance
    • Refresh music library metadata periodically
    • Perform extensive media analysis during maintenance
    • Fetch missing location names for items in photo sections
    • Analyze and tag photos

Plugins

  • No plugins installed

Here are the Plex logs for 2am

-Feb 13, 2021 02:01:21.343 [0x7f383ded3700] DEBUG - Completed: [127.0.0.1:41780] 200 GET /identity (5 live) 0ms 398 bytes (pipelined: 1)
-Feb 13, 2021 02:01:26.252 [0x7f38197fa700] DEBUG - Sync: uploadStatus
-Feb 13, 2021 02:01:26.582 [0x7f3812ffd700] DEBUG - Request: [127.0.0.1:41782 (Loopback)] GET /identity (4 live) Signed-in
-Feb 13, 2021 02:01:26.583 [0x7f383e6d4700] DEBUG - Completed: [127.0.0.1:41782] 200 GET /identity (5 live) 0ms 398 bytes (pipelined: 1)
-Feb 13, 2021 02:01:31.818 [0x7f3812ffd700] DEBUG - Request: [127.0.0.1:41784 (Loopback)] GET /identity (5 live) Signed-in
-Feb 13, 2021 02:01:31.819 [0x7f383e6d4700] DEBUG - Completed: [127.0.0.1:41784] 200 GET /identity (5 live) 0ms 398 bytes (pipelined: 1)
-Feb 13, 2021 02:01:31.987 [0x7f382e7fc700] DEBUG - Butler: we're in the window, starting.
-Feb 13, 2021 02:01:31.987 [0x7f382e7fc700] DEBUG - Butler: Waking up!
-Feb 13, 2021 02:01:31.988 [0x7f382e7fc700] DEBUG - Butler: Scheduling randomized task 'RefreshEpgGuides' in 130 minutes.
-Feb 13, 2021 02:01:32.215 [0x7f383ce34700] DEBUG - The butler generated 0 blur hashes.
-Feb 13, 2021 02:01:37.060 [0x7f3812ffd700] DEBUG - Request: [127.0.0.1:41786 (Loopback)] GET /identity (5 live) Signed-in
-Feb 13, 2021 02:01:37.061 [0x7f383e6d4700] DEBUG - Completed: [127.0.0.1:41786] 200 GET /identity (5 live) 0ms 398 bytes (pipelined: 1)

At the same time, this is s3fs

There are hundreds of these entries

...
s3fs    | LOOKUP /Various Artists/VA - Hospitality 2010 (FLAC)
s3fs    | getattr /Various Artists/VA - Hospitality 2010 (FLAC)
s3fs    |    NODEID: 54182
s3fs    |    unique: 476612, success, outsize: 144
s3fs    | unique: 476613, opcode: ACCESS (34), nodeid: 54182, insize: 48, pid: 0
s3fs    | access /Various Artists/VA - Hospitality 2010 (FLAC) 01
s3fs    |    unique: 476613, success, outsize: 16
s3fs    | unique: 476614, opcode: OPENDIR (27), nodeid: 54182, insize: 48, pid: 0
s3fs    | opendir flags: 0x58000 /Various Artists/VA - Hospitality 2010 (FLAC)
s3fs    |    opendir[0] flags: 0x58000 /Various Artists/VA - Hospitality 2010 (FLAC)
s3fs    |    unique: 476614, success, outsize: 32
s3fs    | unique: 476615, opcode: READDIR (28), nodeid: 54182, insize: 80, pid: 0
s3fs    | readdir[0] from 0
s3fs    |    unique: 476615, success, outsize: 1936
s3fs    | unique: 476616, opcode: READDIR (28), nodeid: 54182, insize: 80, pid: 0
s3fs    |    unique: 476616, success, outsize: 16
...
2

I don’t do a lot of music in Plex but,

If a file is not matched:

  1. Plex Music Scanner will keep trying.
  2. Scanning, if it cannot match by name – Reads the file and fingerprints it.

Therefore, suggestion is to

  1. Dance the media being “hammered”
  2. Verify the name and structure do return a MusicBrainz match (i use Picard)
  3. If tags are used, make sure they are correct
  4. Perform Empty Trash & Clean Bundles to remove old info from DB
  5. Move the albums back
1 Like
3

Aha these are helpful insights, thank you.

Two questions if you don’t mind:

  1. Where can I see the logs of the trying?
  2. If I specify local metadata only, then what does it matter if the specific tags are correct according to MusicBrainz?
    Example: If I add an Mp3 with an ID3 artist tag of “EWOIFkjNnewUEk29” and an album tag of “Thunder”, I would expect Plex to simply add that artist and show the album when I click “EWOIFkjNnewUEk29”.
4

Since you’re using Docker,

  1. /config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Logs
  2. I don’t definitively know the answer to that.
    a. either it will override you and put the correct artist
    b. or not match at all.
  3. Gut feel , based on my limited use of the new scanner, with what I’ve read about how it works –
    a. It will use what it can of your names and tags.
    b. If it cannot get a proper match – it will acoustic fingerprint 2 files in an attempt to identify the album.
    c. If those two are insufficient to make a match, it will fingerprint all files and try again.
5
  1. Oh sorry, I mean which file?
    These are the logs that changed in the past 24 hours:
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.lastfm.log
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.lastfm.log.1
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.lastfm.log.2
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.lastfm.log.3
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.lastfm.log.4
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.lastfm.log.5
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.localmedia.log
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.localmedia.log.1
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.localmedia.log.2
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.localmedia.log.3
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.localmedia.log.4
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.localmedia.log.5
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.none.log
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.none.log.1
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.none.log.2
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.none.log.3
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.none.log.4
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.agents.none.log.5
	modified:   PMS Plugin Logs/com.plexapp.system.log
	modified:   Plex Media Server.1.log
	modified:   Plex Media Server.2.log
	modified:   Plex Media Server.3.log
	modified:   Plex Media Server.4.log
	modified:   Plex Media Server.5.log
	modified:   Plex Media Server.log

And I can’t find any reference to Hospitality in those (or any other log files in that directory)

2&3: The idea that Plex would insist on looking up the match from an online source is very confusing to me. There was a time when premium libraries were introduced and added some real consistency to music (and those are awesome, I have a couple of them), but I have so many albums and non-albums that are made by friends over the years and they chose not to have those in public databases. I thought I was configuring Plex to not match at all and just add as-is because I trust the in-file metadata.

What should Plex do then? There’s no lookup that could be correct even a fingerprint lookup.

Shouldn’t “Local metadata” be just that? At least in some cases those files are tagged correctly according to the artist.

6

Quick update: I did “Empty Trash” on all libraries yesterday, then “Clean Bundles”.

There was another flood of accesses last night at 2am, and there seems to be nothing in the logs.

Example:

opendir[0] flags: 0x58000 /FLAC/Bachelors Of Science - Warehouse Dayz (HZNCD005) 2010 FLAC
unique: 536757, success, outsize: 32
unique: 536758, opcode: READDIR (28), nodeid: 62151, insize: 80, pid: 0

Yet when I do grep -ir "dayz" /Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Logs/ (search all files, case-insensitive), there are 0 results.

7

Further update:

I enabled VERBOSE logging as well, then reviewed line by line, and there is no mention of file access.

This feels like a bug where the scanner is not respecting LogVerbose="1".

8

Update:

Still getting lots of file access at 2AM
Also getting file access at random times of the day. Yesterday was 07:10, 15:44, and 22:24.

I can only imagine how much this is costing people who run cloud servers and have enough users that they think the bandwidth costs are normal.

9

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