Why no comment from Plex staff? Your customers are NOT HAPPY any other company would have pulled the update by now. This is abysmal.
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I’m going to say this politely…
No one likes changes, specially if your Library is huge, 20k+ movies 500k+ episodes – it’s really quite annoying for data hoarders.
Now the part that no one likes to hear, Plex is not going to revert the changes, and support for older methods of scanning, or adding, or refreshing will probably be removed in future updates as time goes on.
Have it in the format/scheme Plex suggests for the current time frame (as it changes time to time)… and avoid most of your issues.
There will be a few use cases where you’ll have to manually edit/add/remove stuff with troublesome Series or Movies (Futurama, Firefly, etc etc.)
I don’t like it, but unfortunately with this being a closed source application, with very little engagement and communication on future changes/upcoming features to users.
People have to remember Plex is a business and they are expanding, they have to make things cost effective and work the way they need it to work to generate revenue.
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Does this update wipe even the locked meta data changes for everyone?
Because I think I got the update… libraries show Scanner and Agent as “Plex Scanner” and yet my locked changes are all still the same. Posters are all fine too.
My refresh metadata job already ran through the library too.
Weirdly enough though that yellow upgrade arrow top right corner is still showing…
It should preserve locked fields.
Okay, so the main issue here is for anyone who hasn’t locked the fields with changes?
Just a bit confused as to the real main issue.
The main issues are:
- manually splitted versions of the same movie get assembled again
- there can be major mismatches if the file names and folder organization are not according to the recommended Plex standards (mainly with “custom” media types, or if you previouisly used 3rd-party scanners and metadata agents [Anime, Pr0n, etc.])
- automatic collection creation can collide with existing collections (but again, only if the ‘collections’ field hasn’t been locked)
I recommend to not use the automatic upgrade which is prompted by this popup.
Instead, use these articles as reference to do the migration manually.
Then, (before triggering the big Metadata Refresh of the whole library) enter the “Advanced” tab of your library properties a second time.
It should now show all the customizable agent preferences.
Here you should verify and/or customize the settings so that they fit your personal preferences better.
Most important is the “Prefer local metadata” checkbox. The average user wants this OFF – unless he has checked the embedded meta tags of all mp4/m4v files in the library for correctness.
In any case: don’t interrupt the upgrade process.
And only pass judgement on the changes after the final metadata refresh has been finished.
5 Likes
Also from what others have commented and is the main reason I haven’t upgraded is that if you have chosen a poster other than the ‘default’ this field will not be locked. It will only be locked if you have uploaded a poster manually. This means a lot of posters can be replaced with uglier ones, ones with cast members names etc
1 Like
Checking my main MOVIE library, it appears that when I upgraded my TV library blindly it did do a refresh on the metadata in the Movie.
The odd thing is, some locked field were fine, others weren’t. I had SPLIT files like Midsommer, and Midsommer directors cut that re-merged even though I had the TITLE and SORT TITLE fields locked with different names. I’m going to blame IMDB and TMDB more than plex for it though. Neither have different entries for different cuts/versions so the scanner can only match both to versions to one film.
It’s a bummer and well be some work, and I DON’T LIKE have to do it again, but I can understand why it happened.
I think instead off upgrading my last upgradable library I may just start moving the files into a brand new library. It will still be a mass of work, but I think it will be easier to keep track of since it’s all “pron”. Not looking forward to re-finding cover art though. I was lazy and just copy and pasted links instead of downloading and saving it like I should have. :S
It’s all going to be a mess of work regardless. Blech. We really need proper customizable field locks that never change. Especially in MUSIC which is a total disaster compared to the movies for me and many others.
Yes, same problem. Annoying.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t been my experience. When I “upgrade” my TV library and refresh metadata, Watch history was lost. Subsequently, episodes disappeared from the Continue Watching list.
To be accurate, Watch history isn’t completely lost - if I look at Watch history for all shows, I still see the episode entries there for series I’ve recently watched - but that history seems to have become “disconnected” from the refreshed series metadata so 1) I see no history under “View Play History” for the series itself, and 2) the series drops off the Continue Watching list. This is unacceptable when I have 25+ series in that list.
There are two ways of dealing with this … Either don’t refresh the metadata after an upgrade (play history is preserved but will be lost if metadata is refreshed at a later date), or revert the library to the old agent and refresh metadata again (which is what I did and play history was restored).
I’ve upgraded my Movie libraries as I had no half-watched movies in the Continue Watching list, but I am avoiding an upgrade of my main TV library for now.
I am sorry for the ranting and outrage I shown in my previous post. I will be editing it. I now understand the issue. thetvdb is ending the free API unless a commercial license is purchase by plex for its user base. In that case I agree we need an alternative. However as a paying customer I do have a few questions if anyone can answer them (preferably plex employee) that would be great.
Will you guys be getting rid of all python scanners and agents? meaning you will no long allow the using of python base scanners? From what I gathered so far plex’s new scanner does not use python.
Is there any plans to give an options to input API key for people to subscribe to thetvdb’s v4 API themselves? Although, as long as plex doesn’t get rid of all 3rd party scanners I will most likely just use HAMA for now, I still like to know if plex will continue support thetvdb agent.
Last question is if plex does end up scrapping third party scanners and agents, are there plans to make a more tolerant scanner? The main reason I use plex is so that I don’t have to organize my media library. If for whatever reason, plex makes it so that I have to organize it anyway then it is pointless for me.
I know plex does not have to answer any of these questions. However, I find my questions and request reasonable and valid. I don’t expect plex to pay for thetvdb API but I do expect plex to continue honoring its roots as a media organizer.
2 Likes
I have a question around the upgrade of libraries. Sorry if this was already asked/answered and I missed it.
I have my own personal Movie/Tv libraries which includes 4K content in them. I then have separate Movie/TV libraries which are shared with my users exclusively. For my own personal libraries I am already using the new Plex agent. For my users specific library I am using one of the older agents.
Reason behind this is I understand that using different scanning agents will create unique records in the database, keeping the content unlinked. By this I mean, if I start watching a 4K movie from my library, then pause part way through, I will only have 1 in progress poster displaying in continue watching.
My concern is that if my library and my users library are on the same scanning agent, then my 4K movie/tv show will have the same database record as their 720p/1080p version in the user specific library. In this situation if I start a 4K movie and pause part way through Continue Watching will show 2 in progress versions of the same movie? (my 4K version and the user 1080p version).
If these old agents are eventually going away, leaving the Plex Agents only, will there be a way to avoid the content in my movie/tv library being linked to the separate movie/tv library I am sharing with my users?
As part of the Upgrade & Refresh process the server migrates watch history from old agent media IDs to the new plex GUIDs.
It sounds like that was interrupted or didn’t complete.
It’s annoying that the browser application now flags my server as not being up to date when the last thing I ever want to do is risk the destruction of my well crafted metadata by accepting whatever other, perhaps less meticulous crafters have done. The application should now offer the options of ignoring permanently the suggesting to upgrade. (While I do lock fields, I have never fully trusted that protection.)
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Oh, moving forward with the new agent(s) I’m okay with. I just don’t want it (them) to touch any of my existing stuff, only new stuff I add.
I can upgrade my libraries but I do NOT want to have collections created for me automatically at all. What is the correct process to “do” the upgrade so that does not happen. I don’t want to click the button and find out I missed a step. I have curated posters (all saved in folders with the media) and collections the way I want and don’t want that messed up.
Thanks
Do the upgrade manually, as I explained further up Should I "upgrade" my libraries? - #87 by OttoKerner
2 Likes
I read the instructions (thank you for those) but that did not tell how to turn off the auto collection creation. I don’t see that as an option in the Advanced tab. Where should I be looking?
- Go to the post you have been linked to.
- Open up the page from that post that tells you how to upgrade to the new agent.
- Scroll down to where it says collections.
- Read the last sentence that says ‘ You can tweak this setting between Disabled (no automatic collections) and 4 .’
1 Like
Is this upgrade going to be forced at some point in the future? I’ve got 13,555 movies as of today, and almost 50,000 television episodes. Many of these I used the non-default posters, split movies into different version (director’s cut, theatrical cut, etc.), and have had to manually tag a lot of the more obscure content.
I’m extremely worried that hundreds of hours worth of effort over the past few years is going to be lost. Unless it is going to cause a problem with the current database, not future additions, I’m extremely hesitant to do this. Any suggestions or advice?
