I am ending up with multiple recordings of the same show but duplicated on the filesystem. This is a huge waste of space and it exists all over for multiple shows so I know it isn’t a single messed up recording schedule.
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1008253400 Feb 12 2017 American Dad (2005) - S01E07 - Deacon Stan Jesus Man (copy 1).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1012030320 Feb 24 12:33 American Dad (2005) - S01E07 - Deacon Stan Jesus Man (copy 2).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 3152501688 Apr 15 03:33 American Dad (2005) - S01E07 - Deacon Stan Jesus Man (copy 3).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1013118652 May 10 12:03 American Dad (2005) - S01E07 - Deacon Stan Jesus Man (copy 4).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1053389568 Aug 8 10:33 American Dad (2005) - S01E07 - Deacon Stan Jesus Man (copy 5).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 955158815 Jun 23 23:32 American Dad (2005) - S01E07 - Deacon Stan Jesus Man.mkv
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1007204548 Feb 11 2017 American Dad (2005) - S01E07 - Deacon Stan Jesus Man.ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 3234129220 Apr 18 03:33 American Dad (2005) - S01E08 - Bullocks to Stan (copy 1).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1011923724 May 11 10:33 American Dad (2005) - S01E08 - Bullocks to Stan (copy 2).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1053203448 Aug 8 11:02 American Dad (2005) - S01E08 - Bullocks to Stan (copy 3).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 954366706 Jun 23 23:02 American Dad (2005) - S01E08 - Bullocks to Stan.mkv
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1013874036 Feb 24 13:03 American Dad (2005) - S01E08 - Bullocks to Stan.ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1007657252 Feb 14 2017 American Dad (2005) - S01E09 - A Smith in the Hand (copy 1).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1013420016 Feb 27 10:33 American Dad (2005) - S01E09 - A Smith in the Hand (copy 2).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 2905446376 Apr 19 03:33 American Dad (2005) - S01E09 - A Smith in the Hand (copy 3).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1013321316 May 11 11:03 American Dad (2005) - S01E09 - A Smith in the Hand (copy 4).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1054566260 Aug 8 11:32 American Dad (2005) - S01E09 - A Smith in the Hand (copy 5).ts
-rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 953015029 Jun 26 22:03 American Dad (2005) - S01E09 - A Smith in the Hand.mkv
I believe if you just let it run on repeats and new airings it will record everything and that show is on all the time and based on the dates it looks like they just rerun the hell out of that show and you record any and all episodes…
Yes, I record all repeats and new airings but this seems like a huge bug to record something already recorded. Any other DVR would not do that as it is a waste of space.
I do not get multiple recordings recorded and I leave my shows on New and Repeat Airings. That is why I was asking about if you were doing any post processing or optimization. Optimization will create multiple versions and if stored in the same location as the original it would have to denote the different versions in some manner for the filesystem.
There is an option in the DVR to replace lower resolution items with higher resolution items so you would think it would know the episode already exists.
There is also an option to only keep X episodes so if @johnm_ColaSC has that option checked it may not generate as many duplicates if any…
I swear I was missing a handful of episodes from a show and I thought if I just let it record like you it will supplement my library and only add the items I am missing but that wasn’t the case and I ended up in the same boat you are in having to grep all copies and delete them so not as much speculation as experience.
@nokdim no I don’t have any delete policies or only keep x episodes on any recordings. I manually delete episodes I no longer want which is only nightly news broadcasts. From my experience with Plex DVR since December 2016 if a recording already exists in the library you have chosen to record to Plex will not record a duplicate, it will overwrite a higher resolution copy if you have that option selected. If you are not recording to the same library as your other episodes then Plex will always record the episode because it does not see the existing copy. If you have some form of post processing moving recordings from one library to another perhaps the post processing is creating the duplicates instead of replacing the existing file already in the filesystem. Which is why I asked about any post processing that might be getting done.
I’ve had this happen very infrequently. I wonder if it’s something in the logic that matches Gracenote EPG to TVDB entries? I think Gracenote/Plex files are named like this:
Whereas TVDB/Plex files are named like the entries in your example above.
@johnm_ColaSC, would there be an entry(s) in the logs that show what happens when the file is being saved to cause the copy1, copy2, etc.?
It’s as if when the scheduler goes to put an entry into the schedule, it can’t match the Gracenote EPG entry to an existing TVDB/Plex entry in the library. So it adds it, records it, THEN manages to match it correctly. Then it simply starts the copy1, copy2 logic.
Possibly if you can post I can try to look through them. If you want to look check out the Plex Media Server log files. File without a number is current file, 1 - 5 are next most recent from low to high number. So 5 is the oldest file.
I actually want this ability and it used to record duplicates for me, and now it won’t! lol!!
My problem is when using a tuner, sometimes my feed gets interference, leaving me with a (slightly) damaged recording. I actually want it to record multiple copies for when I have a chance to review each, and find one that is 100% clean, then I will manually delete the others.
Now, I have to review them frequently and delete/move recordings that aren’t 100% before it will record them again. I wish this were an option you can set in the DVR settings.
@nokdim well it couldn’t have been a bug, since they coded it to rename it as a copy, as opposed to just clobbering your original recording by copying overtop.
Looking again, I notice the Record option is grayed out. If I’m not mistaken, this used to be where the dropdown said “All Episodes” or “Missing Episodes Only”
I am running the newest 1.8.2.
EDIT: Just as a test, I reverted back to 1.5.5, which I’ve used since I bought my HDHomeRun tuner, and the option is still grayed out. Maybe an update to Plex Web disabled this option? I know for sure at some point, I was able to hit this drop down, because I made the conscious decision that I would want all airings recorded, regardless of new/repeat, or if I had already recorded it before.
This happens to me with just one show. I’ve tried everything including deleting the recording schedule, deleting the show and the files, starting over with a new schedule, and yet it still records every episode that airs. I’ve literally watched the recording schedule page while it’s recording an episode that I either already have or don’t have, finish, and then instantly add a new recording schedule of the same episode that it just recorded which will air later that day to the recording list. Other shows that I record where the same episode is played twice a day, it doesn’t do this, but just this one show.
I am getting the same thing… Not really seeing if this has been fixed or not. I had about 60GB of extra shows recorded. I will set it up again and post the logs.
I am a recent plex pass lifetime purchaser. I guess I am married to them for life and they don’t have to worry about me posting anything. I do want to say that I am impressed with Plex overall including DVR option. But seriously Plex folks these are simple bugs to fix. You should be able to fix this in a day! Even without knowing your code base my 20+ years of software dev experience tells me so with high confidence. Of course QA is separate. Unless … you are paid by the media industry to keep the DVR option as disfunctional as possible. Conspiracy theory aside, I request you to fix this. I am hitting duplicate recording problem, “The destination library or location did not exist”, hanging/crashing Apple TV app, live TV blank screen on Apple TV and myriads of other problems in just a month of use
