.plexignore not working

General Discussions
1

Hi guys, I’ve a shared folder called “Downloads” where all my downloaded files go. Inside there’s one called “[incompleti]” where there are the ones not yet ready. Structure is this:

Downloads
 - [Incompleti]

I’m trying to set up a .plexignore rule to skip that subfolder contents, but all my tries have not effect on Plex.

I’ve tried the following ones:

# Ignora "Incompleti"
[incompleti]/*
"[incompleti]/*"
\[incompleti\]/*
[incompleti]/
[incompleti]

None of them work and Plex keeps on scanning the contents of that dir.

Plex%20ignore

Unfortunately I cannot change directory name and I can’t move the two folders at the same level. My only solution is force Plex to ignore that dir.

Any idea? Thanks

Update:

*[incompleti]/* hides some video files both in the root and in the subfolder. :frowning:

*[incompleti]* hides everything, even files and folders at the root level :frowning:

2

Suggest trying *incompleti*

3

Thanks ChuckPA, I tried it and it hides everything from the library.

Sorry, dind’t noticed you suggested to omit the bracket. I’ve just tried it but id does nothing: I still see all the video files.

4

The use of the bracks [ is the problem.
These are special characters in the regex

Have you considered renaming the directory to anything else or even adding a period ?

e.g. .incompletei

The scanner natively ingnores “dot” directories and files in accordance with Linux conventions.

5

Yes, ChuckPA, I’ve considered everything. Too bad I can’t intervene on directory names or position.
I don’t know anything about regex, is there any way to codify those brackets in any way? In Unix I can use \[

6

Linux uses the same regex engine as Unix. The base C code is the same.

You can go into FileStation and rename the directory to .incompleti and then also turn on `show hidden files and directories in DSM.

It’s the equivalent of ls vs ls -a

7

Thanks ChuckPA

8

Also, as an alternative, best practice is to have your in-process downloading area somewhere Plex does not monitor. When download is complete, the final action of the download tool is to move the completed binary into a Plex-monitored area.

9

Yes, I know; and usually I do that with my “official” movie, tv series, etc. libraries.
This download one is a special one, and I can’t change its structure. That’s why I was trying to make .plexignore work. :slight_smile:

10

We have been having problems with handling all the “exceptions to the rule” because there are some characters which are truly reserved. It’s impossible to to get folks to write them correctly.

Although I’ve not tried it, \\\[incompleti\\\] might work because the \\ escapes to produce \ and the \[ then escapes as [. This results in \[ which is intended. Think of how bash works in sh -c \'command\'

11

It doesn’t work, but many thanks for the efforts. :slight_smile:

12

I don’t understand how you can have a client which must work inside a Plex-monitored directory since such directories are specified by the end-user.

13

It’s because that dir is an all-purpose-one I use for several things, not specifically for Plex.
But I’ve thought it could be useful to be able to monitor it thru Plex too, just to see if any video is ready.
It’s not that I can’t change the folder structure, it’s just I can’t do it now, because I’ve several apps here and there monitoring those two folders, and I should stop everything, move everything, and it’s not a quick task. I was hoping to find a way to make Plex ignore that dir, it sounded easier. :slight_smile:

14

Have you considered writing some shell scripts which run in Task Scheduler ?

It’s a nice easy interface to the underlying shell.

15

My computer level is way too low to understand scripts and Task Schedulers.
But thanks anyway. :slight_smile:

17

Thanks Trumpy81,

unfortunately none of them seem to work.

19

Yes, I think I’ll do that.
Thanks. :slight_smile:

20

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