I’m not sure exactly when this started, but it is certainly happening with Version 1.32.7.7621 of the Plex server (on Windows 10)…
I need to manually tell Plex to scan for new media after adding a new episode or movie. In the past, this happened automatically within a minute or two of the new media files having been added … sometimes it even started before I was finished adding (for example all episodes of a whole new series.)
I haven’t changed the settings that I know about in the server’s library settings, where I have the Scan my library automatically and Run a partial scan when changes are detected checked.
I was messing with some settings about showing single seasons and stuff for TV shows, but I cannot see why those settings would’ve affected scanning.
So… is there a new setting that I need to enable to continue using this previously working feature or is something else broken? I can live with this, it is just annoying to lose yet another good function from the package.
So… no comment at all. Sigh. I was hoping that someone would at least be able to offer some ideas of things to check that might interfere with Plex detecting new media files.
The strangest thing is that sometimes I add a new episode of a show and Plex detects it within seconds but most of the time it doesn’t detect it AT ALL. To test, I’ve even waited a full 24+ hours so that the scheduled tasks would run. …hmmm… I just checked and for some reason “Update all libraries during maintenance” is (now was) unchecked. Maybe that setting affects the automatic detection shortly after copying the media onto the drive?
I’m using server version 1.40.0.7998 and I’m finding the same problem. Particularly in my music libraries, but it sometimes affects other libraries. I’ll grab some logs next time it happens, but as you say, it’s not consistent. Sometimes works, sometimes not.
Do you have a large library? (Like, absurdly large?)
iNotify (Linux) has a folder-count limitation on folders it can watch for new content, I hear. I’d assume the Windows equivalent would also have a limitation like this, but I doubt it’d be a small number. That’s why I asked the question up above.
To experiment, try to detect if there is a consistency to when a new episode or movie will be detected. Is the folder that is not detected a new folder, compared to others? If an episode is automatically detected, do all episodes in the same folder detect automatically as well, or do they randomly work or not work?
I offloaded my Plex server to a separate computer from my NAS several years ago, and I miss automatic detection. But I set the scan to every 6 hours and it isn’t too bad. If I want a newly added item to show up ASAP, I’ll trigger a manual scan, or otherwise I’ll wait for the time-based one.
You mention waiting for maintenance to run, but I don’t believe it scans during maintenance, but I think it does it periodically, as seen in the 4th option of the “Library” menu in settings.
I’m running a Windows 10 server. I don’t know if there is a limitation on a Windows system, but I doubt my Music library is considered a large library. There are 1256 artists in the library, and a total of 2835 albums split among those artists. But even if I was over the limitation, if it exists, I wouldn’t think a manual scan would find it either… it would run into that same glitch, no?
iNotify has to give the operating system a list of exact folder names to monitor for them. If any change happens to the listed folder, the OS will send a nudge to the application that asked to monitor it. This list by default is only so big, but it I think has to be absurdly large, and is usually hit by people with large music libraries. The number itself… I don’t know. Could be 10K, or maybe 100K.
Nothing would prevent Plex from choosing to iterate through all the folders one by one looking for “date modified” being since the last scan, or “archive bit” being unset, and if any change is noticed it will then scan each file. This process does not involve iNotify, since that is an OS-side register, while a scan is straight program looking at the disk.
No, but doesn’t it use a similar feature? Googling, Windows has something similar for .net called system.io.filesystemwatcher. If Plex uses that, then they have a similar setup, and might have a similar restriction?
Anyway, I just wanted to throw some suggestions for ways to try to narrow down why this is happening.
FWIW, the basic Windows API includes ReadDirectoryChangesW(), which I use extensively in one of my applications to monitor a number of folders for changes.
To answer the question of how many folders I monitor, I think my MOVIES library has the most, with 27, named D:[#A-Z] (that’s a pattern for a single letter include # and every individual letter from A to Z). My other libraries may have as many as 10 folders, one for every drive that has been added to my plex server as more space was needed.
Plex just seems to notice much more quickly sometimes. I have not yet found a pattern to which drives/folders take longer. I’m not sure that any are consistently longer or faster, but I am sure that, from time to time, Plex simply doesn’t notice new files until I manually tell it to look.
