Weird, I don’t even have collections enabled. I’ll still disable getting collection data from TMDB.
Check your mp4/m4v video files with a metadata editor. If they have content in the ‘Album’ metatag, Plex will put this movie into an accordingly-named collection.
The free mp3tag will do on Windows.
Even if you disable collections, though?
Setting Collections to ‘Disabled’ doesn’t disable them really.
All it does is to prevent them from being shown in-line among your movies. If you switch to the ‘Collections’ tab, they will still be there.
OPs thread has been hijacked for non issues regarding collections.
I encountered the same duplication issue around a year ago and had to move media files out of libraries and re-add them, indeed making a mockery of the date added as the OP is keen to avoid.
To confirm, there is one mkv file but the library shows that episode has 2 copies and the ‘info’ lists the file twice, each entry being identical.
This issue has now happened again following the recent PMS server update. It has happened with only one TV show episode whereas last year it was happening to almost every new movie or TV show episode added.
It is a very really issue and it would be great if you can really investigate why it happens.
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This happens when several library updates were running concurrently.
E.g. if you have activated ‘automatic library updates’ but have additionally triggered an update manually after adding new files.
Or if you use Sonarr or similar software, (which can do the equivalent of a manual library update after it is done copying files) and have automatic or periodic library updates activated as well.
Thanks for this.
Is there a way to deduplicate the specific instances or do we have to just remove the media, perform a scan and then reintroduce the media again?
And moving forward with it do you suggest disabling automatic library updates for those who are running Radarr/Sonarr etc?
This is the only known method, unfortunately.
Of course. Either you rely on automatic updates and disable the feature in Sonarr or you leave it completely to Sonarr and disable the automatic update in Plex.
(the latter is probably better)
Understood
Hmmm…
I have actioned this latter option and it has raised some concerns.
While disabling the library scans I realise this is great for my libraries that are filled by Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr as they are setup to notify Plex when they add new content. I’m also happy to perform a manual scan if I manually add content.
My concern is with my DVR content. When Plex records content form Live TV will that be picked up or will I have to perform a manual scan? I’m assuming Plex will automatically initiate a library update - will it still do this with automatic updates disabled?
If I leave Run a a partial scan when changes are detected enabled - do you think this will still cause a clash with the Sonarr/Radarr scan? Could it be a viable middle-ground?
No, a Plex DVR recording doesn’t need a library scan.
I don’t think this checkbox will make a difference here.
That may be a scenario in which this can occur, however my scheduled library updates are set to occur at different times than when I’m adding media and it gets a more targeted scan.
This problem was driving me nuts! I wish I had found this answer about Collections before I’d deleted and resetup my libraries in an attempt to fix this.
I can see how collections might be useful to some people, but I wish such a confusing option like this was not turned on by default.
This problem happened to me for every video that I renamed after it was added to my library. I stopped the issue by using the IMDB titles during the ripping/converting process but I am now trying to fix all of the duplicates that I created when I first started adding movies. I think the only solution may be to move the source files out of their directory, refresh the Plex library, then re-add the files to their original folder. Does anybody know of an easier solution?
Not sure which issue you are referring to. The issue in the first post of this thread has been added into the FAQ section of this help article here: https://support.plex.tv/articles/201273953-collections/
And no, performing the Plex Dance does not remove collections. You’ll have to remove those manually.
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Thank you for your response. My issue was not about collections but about the same titles duplicating. The article that you linked here described my problem and provided the solution I was looking for. Thank you!
The duplicates you were seeing are collections.
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