I’ve been working with an issue around storage management on iOS.
I’m fairly sure that sync loses files(tv shows) which have been synced and they are allocated into space but can’t be seen, synced or deleted thus space is lost until plex is removed from iPad completely.
Yes, There happens to three different posts about this, I’m on all three of them now and we’re got the development team engaged, now just to work out whats happening.
I think your hunch is correct @systemshark: used storage in the app is calculated by checking the file size of the items in the database of the Plex Media Server that lives inside the app, instead of checking the size of the actual files. Therefore, sounds like we’re probably not cleaning the database properly and therefore getting wrong storage usage numbers.
I’m a bit concerned about this:
I’m fairly sure that sync loses files(tv shows) which have been synced and they are allocated into space but can’t be seen
Do you mean files that you never deleted and the app should have never deleted went missing?
For anyone having this issue, please use the option in the navigation menu → Help & Support → Debugging → Share Debug Data to share your app logs with us.
Do you mean files that you never deleted and the app should have never deleted went missing?
Yes.
If you look at screen shots numbers 1 it shows 4 episodes of castle are synced to the iPad.
But in screenshot 2 plex doesn’t show the episodes are available to be watched. (And I can’t find them on the device other than sync)
It something which has happened to me a few times, because I update my synced content daily. It’s means that I see episodes go missing. Aka they appear in sync but not on the tv show.
On the space replication. It would make more sense to work on actual used file sizes. But I suspect we’re talk about a few mbytes different. But everything helps.
My working assumption is that when it loses a file which has been synced that’s what does the damage to replicated space as it’s consumed.
I wish I’d sent you the debug and logs from when I did the screenshots.
I did send the buddybuild logs but the complete ones would have been better.
I think it’s a bit more complicated than that, I’m afraid But I’m not the Sync expert of the team
I’d love to understand how could those files be deleted And anyway, if you delete all synced content (or any item FWIW) from the app, even if the files don’t exist, in theory those entries should be deleted from the database, and therefore that should fix the space issue Not sure what’s preventing the app from cleaning up the database in those situations, I’ll check with the team.
Hi. For me it’s much more likely the database on iOS which plex uses is corrupted. It doesn’t seem to matter what I do to release the space, iOS thinks it’s allocated and used by plex. I’m of course guessing but that’s what it feels like.
For me it’s something like this which causes the ‘loss of space’
Right I think I have an example of this issue on my iPhone. (it’s audiobook based but) I have files in Sync which don’t appear in the Plex Client. I’ve also got a set of logs from the device in verbose mode for you.
Something very strange going on. I’ve lost files from my sync, I’m playing Atlantis, but as you will on my buddyBuild post, it’s missing. however looking at the PMS service which everything is synced from my ipadpro is appearing at two different devices. Honestly, I only have Plex Beta client loaded.)
This confirms the sync view on the ipadpro, but the second view is my device which appears to have been created twice. The second via the shows, which I’m lossing… Also it’s worth noting that Timeless is on both for example, which explains where my storage space has gone.
Also I sent a PMS error as after a recent build it forced all my files to resync, perhaps this is where the abandoned client was created,
Thanks @systemshark! Sorry for the late response, I’ve been out for a few weeks. I’ll share those logs with the team and see if we can understand what’s happening.
Yep me too…at least you noticed before you walked out the door. I only noticed when I switched to the terrible ‘view offline’ on an airplane… the deign sucks so bad… this bug makes it worse.
I have this topic flagged since I travel a lot and use the syncing feature a bunch. Since just reading these latest messages, I went to see if I needed to resync and when I check, everything is fine on my device. I hit the “Sync” button and it says “Updating” for about 3 seconds and then says “Complete”.
I wonder why there is a difference and hope they get it fixed. I hate inconsistencies!!
If it helps, I am on Windows with PMS 1.13.5.5332 and it shows no new server version available but your screenshot shows there is an update to 1.13.8.5395 so we must be different in some way. Also, my ipad is on iOS 12
The issue was because you appear to have two different instances of Plex Media Server - one you run as a service and one you run (for a short while / or accidentally ) that is outside the service.
There were two different machine identifiers for Plex Media Server Erica
I suspect you have multiple windows accounts
Could you search HKEY_USERS in the registry for aab891d690eee5689969f525025ec3f2410261ce to see where it is being picked up from. You may know already. I see you have now signed out that server instance from plex.tv but the damage was already done
Your live server that runs as a service has an id starting with 8c4a5
But I’m not the Sync expert of the team 
And anyway, if you delete all synced content (or any item FWIW) from the app, even if the files don’t exist, in theory those entries should be deleted from the database, and therefore that should fix the space issue 
Not sure what’s preventing the app from cleaning up the database in those situations, I’ll check with the team.
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