Server Version#: Windows Server 2016 Standard
Plex Version #: 4.72.0
I’ve been running Plex Server for years.
I always make sure my media is matched after I load it. If it doesn’t match automatically, I always manually match it.
Suddenly yesterday, I had 100s of movies that were no longer matched. Movies that I know for a fact were matched the day before.
I spent 3 or 4 hours, matching them all again.
As of last night, all movies were matched. (I run a query against the Plex database to check)
Suddenly today, 600 movies are no longer matched. Many of them, the same movies I just matched for a second time yesterday.
Why has Plex suddenly started dropping media matches?
When I fixed it, and I manually match them, they should stay linked, but they didn’t even stay linked for 24 hours.
SELECT title
FROM metadata_items AS MI
INNER JOIN library_sections AS S
ON S.id = MI.library_section_id
WHERE guid LIKE 'local://%'
AND originally_available_at IS NULL;
Yes, I have over 500 that all matched Tuesday, and Wednesday they were unmatched.
I manually matched all of them, and now, I have over 500 unmatched again. Many the same, not all.
Here is one for example. I first loaded this one about 2 weeks ago. I know it was correctly matched at that time, I always verify my loads.
Suddenly Wednesday, it was no longer matched, so I matched it again (and 500+ others)
Now today, I see this again.
I click ‘Match’
The first hit is the correct one.
So I click it, and now it’s correct in plex. But I did this yesterday, and they are unmatched again today.
I don’t know how helpful this is going to be, this is going to be like looking through a needle in a hay stack.
As an FYI, I did kick off a few scans manually, to try to correct the problem after I saw the problem. I scanned media a couple of times, and refreshed meta data AFTER I saw that meta data was missing. I was hoping to find some way for PLEX to correct the problem without me having to manually match 500+ movies.
Sadly, so far, I haven’t found a way to get PLEX to correct the problem it created. Logs.zip (707.2 KB)
Which folder have you added to the library? You appear to have your Movies in “letter” sub-directories, for this to work you will have to add each letter folder, and not the parent Movie folder.
Your TV naming convention could use some work too.
I have 15,000 movies I don’t want that many files in a single folder, so I organize them by first letter. It has worked perfectly fine for years. I don’t think there is any problem with it.
I do the TV episodes exactly per the recommendation. What do you mean it needs work?
Having movies split by letter sub-directories is fine, however you must add each letter sub-directory to the library individually and not just the parent Movie directory. If you have just added the Movie directory to the library, then the fact it has previously worked is pure luck. Follow the guidelines and matching will work 99.9% of the time. On that note, it is recommended to have each movie in it’s own directory, rather than multiple move files in one directory - this saves uneceassry file scans when an item in a folder is added/changed.
/Movies [do not add this to the library]
/A [add this to the library]
/Avatar (2009)
Avatar (2009).mkv
/B [... and this]
/Batman Begins (2005)
Batman Begins (2005).mp4
Batman Begins (2005).en.srt
poster.jpg
As for TV Shows, this
D:\TV Series Standard Active 1\American Auto (2021)\Season 01\S01E04 - 720p WEB h264-GOSSIP rarbg.m4
is not
D:\TV Series Standard Active 1\American Auto (2021)\Season 01\American Auto - S01E04 [720p WEB h264-GOSSIP rarbg].m4v
I just want to chime in that the same thing happened to me, and I do not use letter directories. I have “movie” directory on each of the drives I use to store my content. I, too, ensure everything in my library is matched - a lot of which I match manually (I have a lot of fan edits, 35mm preservations, etc.). And literally hundreds have randomly unmatched themselves, with seemingly no reason. Everything was matched 24 hours ago, and now I have hundreds unmatched.
I have a suspicion of what the problem may be. I need some Plex developers to weigh in on this.
Plex used to match to TheMovideDB.org.
Now, it matches to the Plex Movie database.
I never do a meta data refresh on movies. I suspect Plex did it on it’s on a few days ago for the first time since this switch.
Since that time, I’ve done it 2 or 3 more times hoping it will fix the issue, but so far, it hasn’t.
I noticed that the ‘year’ of release is different on some movies (not all).
I also noticed that the ‘near matches’ on the Plex Movie site is a little different from The Movie DB…
This makes me think, maybe there are internal links that we (as users) don’t see.
Those links might have gotten crunched when Plex shifted from TheMovieDB to the Plex Movie source.
That’s a hunch, I have nothing to back that up, just a ‘gut feel’.
Is there a way to shout out to the Plex Developers to have them take a look at this?
I matched everything again (for the 3rd time) on Sunday.
today, I have about 16 or so that plex unmatched. Movies that I for sure had matched yesterday. This is getting dang annoying that I have to manually match these every 1 or 2 days. Why on Earth does Plex keep ‘unmatching’ them, after I manually match them?
I’m now to the point where I go to this screen every day to see what Plex is breaking on me.
A screenshot of the full file path and file name for both “Undergods” and “USS Seaviper.”
Given a library which matches Plex’s naming guidelines closely, you should rarely need to perform manual matching. The need to do so suggests something fairly fundamental is going wrong.
I’ve always kept up on my movie matches and cover art. Just after the last update when I hit “Scan library” all of my matches disappeared. I restored the database 3 times and it only lasts as long as I don’t scan the library. What’s up?
I know there was an earlier suggestion that I should put 'UnderGods (2020) in a folder called ‘UnderGods (2020)’ rather than ‘U’, otherwise, plex can’t find it.
But that’s not the problem. #1) What does it matter if the folder name is ‘U’ or ‘UnderGods (2020)’ #2) I have 16,000 or so movies. Why do 15,500+ behave, and a random smattering of a few 100 constantly get unmatched? #3) This has worked for years, and only about a week ago this started happening.
