Really... why does the new Plex music scanner re-scan over and over and over...?

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

Server Version#: 1.18.3.2156
Player Version#:

I’ve seen a lot of posts regarding excessive scanning with the new music system, and there has not been an “official” response from one of the developers or employees yet. (at least that I have seen)

I just added 8 albums to the music library. They were actually “singles” so there was a total of 13 tracks and 4 artists. This set off 8 separate scans of the music library. To be clear, it was not just the 8 albums that were scanned. Attaching logs, hoping someone will actually look at them.
Plex Media Server Logs_2019-12-17_06-08-14.zip (4.9 MB)

Hoping we can get the aggressive nature of the beast turned down a little bit. :thinking:

More info:

It looks to me, that if there is an unmatched artist in the library, all of that artist’s albums are re-scanned, and if there is a matched artist but an unmatched album, all of the albums by that artist are re-scanned. It also appears that every new addition repeats this process, even if they are added to the library at the same time.

I add media to the music library by first putting all new albums in a “holding” folder on the same drive the music library is located. They are then moved at the same time to the music folder, so there’s no delay while the drive is copying or writing the file. It’s an instantaneous process.

Log snippets after adding the new albums: The album “The Sunday Brunch Album” is a matched album under “Various Artists” and has been there for quite some time, so no need to re-scan or re-match. There are, however, a lot of unmatched compilation albums under that artist.

Dec 17, 2019 06:06:03.046 [2840] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity f26b75bb-6c96-406e-ae1c-c03ee840fb84 - completed 1.8% - Scanning Music & Videos
Dec 17, 2019 06:06:03.047 [2840] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory F:\Plex Videos\Albums\Various\The Sunday Brunch Album (parent: yes)

Dec 17, 2019 06:05:47.028 [2840] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity 27d356c8-fd7a-43c3-913e-03c040feedc1 - completed 1.8% - Scanning Music & Videos
Dec 17, 2019 06:05:47.028 [2840] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory F:\Plex Videos\Albums\Various\The Sunday Brunch Album (parent: yes)

Dec 17, 2019 06:06:19.156 [2840] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity 5be01181-5728-4742-8eb2-b3a05dc54229 - completed 1.8% - Scanning Music & Videos
Dec 17, 2019 06:06:19.156 [2840] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory F:\Plex Videos\Albums\Various\The Sunday Brunch Album (parent: yes)

Dec 17, 2019 06:06:34.056 [2840] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity ce393913-5c62-4473-a973-ada80efbadb8 - completed 1.8% - Scanning Music & Videos
Dec 17, 2019 06:06:34.057 [2840] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory F:\Plex Videos\Albums\Various\The Sunday Brunch Album (parent: yes)

Dec 17, 2019 06:06:48.757 [2840] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory F:\Plex Videos\Albums\Various\The Sunday Brunch Album (parent: yes)
Dec 17, 2019 06:06:48.760 [6432] DEBUG - Completed: [172.16.1.12:53372] 200 GET /library/metadata/708301 (23 live) 5ms 1958 bytes (pipelined: 1)

Dec 17, 2019 06:07:03.480 [2840] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity 45436db4-6e0f-4c6c-9078-dd1d0a69b322 - completed 1.8% - Scanning Music & Videos
Dec 17, 2019 06:07:03.480 [2840] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory F:\Plex Videos\Albums\Various\The Sunday Brunch Album (parent: yes)

Dec 17, 2019 06:07:18.197 [2840] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity e17ce76d-4aba-4bb8-bddd-a49b92a09fd0 - completed 1.8% - Scanning Music & Videos
Dec 17, 2019 06:07:18.197 [2840] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory F:\Plex Videos\Albums\Various\The Sunday Brunch Album (parent: yes)

Dec 17, 2019 06:07:32.988 [2840] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity df64250f-3dc5-49cc-b767-aa63b357f808 - completed 1.8% - Scanning Music & Videos
Dec 17, 2019 06:07:32.988 [2840] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory F:\Plex Videos\Albums\Various\The Sunday Brunch Album (parent: yes)

And just to show how unnecessary the scanning is, the music library was re-scanned about 2 hours before when I up-dated the server:

Dec 17, 2019 04:11:36.698 [3028] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity 7f612eb6-df85-43f2-8095-107b5801cdca - completed 1.3% - Scanning Music & Videos
Dec 17, 2019 04:11:36.699 [3028] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory F:\Plex Videos\Albums\Various\The Sunday Brunch Album (parent: yes)

and then 2 hours before that on it’s regular maintenance:

Dec 17, 2019 02:08:25.270 [8864] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity 0586ff6d-3b3f-4f33-bd68-ee00ba04d171 - completed 1.3% - Scanning Music & Videos
Dec 17, 2019 02:08:25.271 [8864] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory F:\Plex Videos\Albums\Various\The Sunday Brunch Album (parent: yes)
3 Likes
2

updated to the new server version ( 1.18.4.2164) and because it mentioned a bunch of music related improvements in the release notes I tried again. One album, a single release with two tracks by Rita Coolidge.

And again, every unmatched album and artist was re-scanned.

The server is configured to automatically update and only scan folders that have changed when that happens. One folder changed (Rita Coolidge) - no need to scan any other folder. Respect those settings like it does for every other type of library.

3 Likes
3

One would think that with the re-scanning, there should be the occasional positive result. Not that I have seen, as I reported here:

Even when there is a match available at MusicBrainz, it’s not applied, and remains unmatched.

4

I would suggest the following.

Screen Shot 2019-12-23 at 12.52.08 am
Screen Shot 2019-12-23 at 12.52.08 am1852×184 241 KB

5

Thanks, but I doubt that option will help with “matching” or eliminate the constant scanning. :wink:

I have the option set to “as a scheduled task and when media is added” there as well as

  • Scan my library automatically: enabled
  • Run a partial scan when changes are detected: enabled

I also have the options under “Scheduled Tasks” for

  • Refresh local metadata every three days: enabled
  • Update all libraries during maintenance: enabled
  • Upgrade media analysis during maintenance: enabled
  • Refresh metadata periodically: enabled
  • Perform extensive media analysis during maintenance: enabled

With all of those options, I would expect that as new music is added, only the folder that has changed will be scanned, the loudness analysis is done right away, and during the maintenance period, the library will be updated.

Works for all libraries, except the music library.

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At least i hope you try it.

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Sure, I’ll give it a shot.

But that setting is for the loudness leveling and sweet fades that PlexAmp and the mobile apps can use, and shouldn’t have anything to do with re-scanning an album that’s been in the library for months, or assist in matching. I expect new music to be analyzed for loudness when I add them, which takes some time, but do not expect 300 unmatched albums to have to be re-scanned.

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Changed the settings, rebooted server, added one album, same results. All unmatched albums are re-scanned.

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