I’m hoping someone can help me and tell me that I’m just doing something wrong here. If I add a file that has a metadata tag stored on it (e.g. the Title tag is set to “The Help”, just as an example), when I add the title to Plex, it will automatically default the Plex Title and Sort Title to “The Help.” If I then modify the file itself and remove that metadata so that the file’s Title metadata is blank, if I refresh the item in Plex, shouldn’t it then download the metadata from the net (e.g. the title will be “The Help” and the sort title will be “Help”)? Instead, Plex always seems to just store whatever the ORIGINAL metadata on the file itself was and never acknowledges that that has been cleared. Even when I move the file to a brand new folder and have Plex “re-add” it, it STILL seems to remember what that original metadata was, despite it being long gone.
Am I missing something here? Am I doing something wrong or misunderstanding the function of the Refresh option? Or is this a bug?
Normally, after you move the item away you need to perform an empty trash followed by clean bundles.
The empty trash is because after the file gets moved it is only marked as unavailable. The empty trash removes the entry from the database. Then you can you use clean bundles to delete the metadata saved in the server for that item, because you have now removed the item from the server. If you skip those steps then when you re-add the item it gets rematched in the server to the old metadata item.
Hmmm, that seems like quite a laborious workaround. Also, even when I have manually edited the metadata and it is “locked” (orange icon), when I move the file to a new location, it is not reapplying my “locked” values I manually specified. It is reapplying the original metadata that was in place when I added it to my library first. Shouldn’t my “locks” overwrite whatever was originally saved as the metadata for that file and reinstate my forced metadata once the file becomes available again? Otherwise, again, what is the point of the “lock” if it doesn’t secure the data?
@Smelsela said:
Hmmm, that seems like quite a laborious workaround.
It is indeed a laborious, and data-destructive, workaround. The problem has been around for so long that the workaround has acquired a name, the “Plex Dance.”
Plex has given us very mild assurance that they are working on a solution, but they don’t discuss timelines, so we have no idea how long it will be.
ooo, I think I found an easier workaround. I just shifted the metadata source preferences around so that “Local Media Assets” was not at the top. It looks like this may correct the behaviour! More testing is required, but I tried one file with that problem and it seems to have worked. fingers crossed
@Smelsela said:
ooo, I think I found an easier workaround. I just shifted the metadata source preferences around so that “Local Media Assets” was not at the top. It looks like this may correct the behaviour! More testing is required, but I tried one file with that problem and it seems to have worked. fingers crossed
That does also work. The only exception I could think of would be if your library is a mix of local metadata and online metadata. Typically, when you have a mix you want your own metadata to take preference. But if you’re like me you don’t have any local ones and moving that down works great.
