Suggestion: Stop scanning "ended" TV shows

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

Hi

Is this the right location to make feature suggestions? If not, please point me in the right direction.

Anyway, I just noticed when doing a TV library scan that it also scans folders of TV shows that have ended. Wouldn’t it be much more efficient to not do that? I mean - what do we expect to change in such a folder? There would of course have to be some kind of override to scan “ended” TV shows anyway. Or maybe it could be made to work the other way around - if I somehow marked a TV show as “ended”, then it would never scan in that folder again?

Regards
Fermin

Server Version#: 1.23.4.4712
Player Version#: newest on AppleTV and LG TV

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This will ‘streamline’ the scanning process as much as possible:

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Set this way, when you add new media - only the new media is scanned - automatically. There isn’t any need to manually scan at all, but Plex will, if told to do so, scan the libraries during maintenance (Scheduled Tasks).

The real scan-saver is having ALL your movies in unique folders. TV Shows are already mostly in folders, but ‘Partial Scan’ cures most of those scans.

DO NOT Empty Trash Automatically, if there is any danger of storage being asleep when Plex starts maintenance. Your entire library could be removed from the database… don’t want that.

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3

Thanks for the advice. Hm strange; the “run partial scan when changes are detected” was already activated, but it doesn’t work. In other words, nothing is scanned automatically when I add new media to a folder.

And all my movies are already in their own folders.

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4

That means you’ll need to provide much more info - like what your server is running under (Windows/Mac/Other) and what storage is incorporated - and you’ll need advanced support as well. <—very possibly someone to read those DEBUG LOGS you may be providing at some point, very soon.

5

Ok, let’s see. I’m running this on a dedicated NUC under Ubuntu, server version is 1.23.4.4712. The media is on two Synology NAS, which are accessed through SMB.

So if I understand you correctly, as soon as I add new media to the library, for example a new episode of an existing show, Plex should start scanning right away? I think this never worked to begin with.

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Well, within a minute, at least - any new media I add triggers Plex to wake up and go to work. It’s over very quickly after that. <—like a few seconds - and the time it takes to generate Video Preview Thumbs.

Advanced Help is on the way - I think.

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For remote filesystems, there is no notification to Ubuntu when something changes.

This is an old post, but AFAIK, still true:

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Well, a show ended, but I missed the last season…

Would hate it if I could not add that to my library, when buying the Bluray :wink:

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I hate having the last 4 seasons, and not the first…
But yea, if I ever get it I just drop it in and Plex says: “Hello, welcome aboard”.

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OK guys, thanks for your input. So it looks like my setup’s behaviour is ‘by design’ because of how mounted network shares are handled by the underlying OS.

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I would find that - irritating.
To the point of doing something about it.
By whatever means necessary.

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Absolutely! Thus the idea of being able to mark a TV show as “ended”, as in “there won’t be any changes here, ever”. Might speed up the manual/periodic complete scan of the library. I guess it would also be an option to just simply put an empty file into a movie’s or TV show’s root folder eg. “no.scan”, which would basically tell the media scanner to leave this directory alone.

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You mean I should break out the compiler and start working on Ubuntu? :wink: I do work in IT, but not in that particular field…

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Well, as @JuiceWSA said, make sure partial scan only is enabled, and you should be good to go

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By whatever means necessary.

That’s me, tho - I’ve been spoiled by Windows and Automatic Discovery. I can’t go back, Man. I also can’t watch TV without VPTs, so there you go.

16

Edit: As OttoKerner points out in post below, I went down the wrong path with this one. This will remove the items from your library.

You can use a .plexignore file to tell Plex to skip certain directories. See support article below.

Plex scans my iTunes movie directory, and some of those movies have DRM. I use a .plexignore file to tell Plex to not scan those directories. Plex cannot play DRM media, so I don’t want those movies added to the Plex database.

The Plex library points to .../iTunes/Movies. In that directory is a .plexignore file.

# iTunes Library movies to ignore
Ghostbusters/*
Gravity/*

Plex Media Server.log entry when Plex scans that library:
Jul 05, 2021 17:15:26.083 [0x7ff8af070b38] DEBUG - PlexIgnore: Ignoring directory '/Gravity' because of rule 'Gravity/*'


You might be able to have a generic file containing just `*` or maybe` /*` and drop it in the desired movie/show/season folders.

I do not know how much, if any, time you will save, especially with the generic approach, as Plex would still scan each folder to detect the .plexignore file.

Scanning over a network obviously takes longer than a local file system, but the Plex scanner is pretty fast if there are no changes. I run Plex on a DS918+. Plex scanned a local 1000 movie library in under 10 seconds.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201381883-special-keyword-file-folder-exclusion/

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You could use sonarr/radarr to manage your media.

That would allow sonarr/radarr to push updates to your plex server when new media is added, and only that new media would be scanned

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Looks like there’s a new Solution in town…lol

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I’ll look into the radarr/sonarr approach, thanks!

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Plex scans the filesystem for added or changed files. If there aren’t any new or modified files, the scan should be quite fast.

How long do your scans take? Seconds?

If yours seem slow, perhaps there’s an underlying issue that’s worth investigating.