# PMS: Phantom duplicates **URL:** \ **Category:** General Discussions\ **Created:** [May 17, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295 "2017-05-17T13:57:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lattice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lattice](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Lattice)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/1 "2017-05-17T13:57:44Z")
Last 5 added files are all showing duplicates, but there are no actual duplicates on file for any of them. Get info shows that each file is absolutely identical, which shouldn’t be possible in the same folder. Version 1.6.1.3722 ---
**Author:** ![ChuckPa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/chuckpa/32/79710_2.png) [@ChuckPa](https://forums.plex.tv/u/ChuckPa)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2017, 12:44am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/2 "2017-05-18T00:44:03Z")
To start the debugging process. Hover over the media, click the ellipsis, click ‘Get Info’ and see the pathnames. ---
**Author:** ![Lattice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lattice](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Lattice)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2017, 2:31pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/4 "2017-05-18T14:31:26Z")
> @ChuckPA said: > To start the debugging process. > > Hover over the media, click the ellipsis, click ‘Get Info’ and see the pathnames. Pathnames are identical. > @trumpy81 said: > Make sure you have `Empty trash automatically after every scan` enabled in Plex settings-\>server-\>library, don’t forget to ‘Save Changes’ if needed. > > With that set, then perform the following in order: > > 1. Optimise Database > 2. Empty Trash > 3. Clean Bundles > … > > Wait for each step to complete before moving to the next step. > > Fingers crossed, that should remove the phantom entries. You may need to repeat once or twice and/or refresh the browser page before it cleans up. > > If the above does not help at all, then please provide your Plex logs. Go to Plex settings-\>server-\>help and click on the download logs button and attach the .zip file to your next post, thanks. No change, have attached log. ---
**Author:** ![Lattice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lattice](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Lattice)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2017, 5:08pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/5 "2017-05-20T17:08:56Z")
One other thing I noticed today. A new movie showed as duplicate, so I went to its page and then looked at get info. which showed only one file. Then when I went back to main page it wasn’t showing duplicate anymore. A tv show added today is showing duplicate with the usual identical path and filenames, this doesn’t disappear. ---
**Author:** ![Lattice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lattice](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Lattice)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2017, 10:07am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/7 "2017-05-23T10:07:27Z")
Might have to do that. Will deleting and rebuilding the libraries erase watched status? ---
**Author:** ![Lattice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lattice](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Lattice)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 12:03pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/9 "2017-10-25T12:03:05Z")
Ok as the duplicate issue was never fixed, I decided to nuke the library and start again. And it’s now back. As usual, Plex believes a piece of media that was just added exists in two identical places. ---
**Author:** ![ChuckPa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/chuckpa/32/79710_2.png) [@ChuckPa](https://forums.plex.tv/u/ChuckPa)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 12:37pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/10 "2017-10-25T12:37:01Z")
If the ‘duplicate’ problem is ‘back’, either a) your media or b) you have a symlink / hardlink causing a duplicate resolution path. Duplicate paths is the most common error ---
**Author:** ![Lattice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lattice](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Lattice)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/12 "2017-10-27T17:00:13Z")
Ok put some more time into this and found others with similar issues like: > **[Episodes are showing duplicates but info points both files to the same link](https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/257079/episodes-are-showing-duplicates-but-info-points-both-files-to-the-same-link)** > > Hey guys, It wouldn’t let me select Synology NAS Drive for some reason so sorry for the post in the wrong forum. So I’ve been having this issue ever since i set up plex on my Synology server, most of the tv shows i put into plex are showing as a... > **[Plex Showing The Same File Twice](https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/267017/plex-showing-the-same-file-twice)** > > Recently my Plex Server has started to show two versions of the same TV episodes recently downloaded. When I look at the web interface and go to properties, both versions show the exact same file path and name. I recently updated to version 1.4.x and... Problem is that neither of the solutions apply here. I do use Sonarr and Sabnzbd. Issue happens when Sonarr is turned off anyway, but also not got it tied into Plex like one poster there. Sab downloads onto system drive, but then moves the completed file into the library Plex scans which is on another hdd(s). Had it setup in a similar manner for years. EDIT: Ok noticed that if I disable automatic library updates the duplicate doesn’t happen. But of course this is a bad solution. Last two added files have however been automatically added but assume this is because Library is so new and I noticed it fetching metadata for another series? Presumably when it settles down without the auto switch the Lib will have to be updated manually. ---
**Author:** ![Lattice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lattice](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Lattice)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/14 "2017-10-27T17:41:52Z")
I did look into Filebot but discovered it was commercial software. I’m not going to buy software to fix this unless it was definitely related to renaming. This happens to new library files and not existing ones, which do not have any problems being added to library whatever their name is. Why would this be working for years and then suddenly Plex doesn’t like the name format? Just to clear the naming point up though, I will change SAB naming to Plex compliance and see how that goes. ---
**Author:** ![Lattice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lattice](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Lattice)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 6:01pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/16 "2017-10-27T18:01:49Z")
Well I didn’t bother with the renaming because it seemed highly unlikely to be at issue and didn’t make any sense. I have now just run that test with adding a file to the Library with the Plex naming scheme and the issue is still present, so yes we can now discount that idea. ---
**Author:** ![Lattice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lattice](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Lattice)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 6:14pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/18 "2017-10-27T18:14:05Z")
Well it seems your guess was wrong as well, so unless you have a better one it might be a good idea to stop posting about an idea you had from some outdated log, which doesn’t have as much relevance now. ---
**Author:** ![Lattice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lattice](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Lattice)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2018, 1:16pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/20 "2018-01-09T13:16:16Z")
Ok think I finally solved this. Noticed in logs that hardware acceleration was having trouble, which lead me to documentation about NSSM (non sucking service manager) causing problems with this due to the way it ran the session. So I went with Plex as a service ([https://github.com/cjmurph/PmsService/releases](https://github.com/cjmurph/PmsService/releases)) which I have actually used before, and now I get no duplicates at all. So it seems the NSSM session also caused duplicates to be created, and as such is a bad solution for running Plex as a service. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 11:16pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-phantom-duplicates/192295/21 "2020-01-07T23:16:36Z")