Telling Plex to ignore music files already processed?

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#: 1.16.3.1402

Hello: I have 70K+ music files, properly prepared as Plex expects in terms of tags but all are in one flat directory with format artist - album - track - title.

I am creating a new server with more powerful hardware so I’m rebuilding my entire library. It’s been over THREE WEEKS and I’m still at it…

I’m doing it in batches where I add about 5K files each time. As expected, it’s getting slower and slower with each addition. With about 30K now in the library, it takes 5-6 days to process a batch of an additional 5K tracks.

Plex seems to be scanning the entire library each time I dd a new batch. As library grows, each scan is taking longer… much much longer.

Is there a way to tell Plex NOT to scan already processed tracks?

Thank you.

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That’s the fundamental error, right there.
Avoid folders with more than several dozens of files.

You won’t get far with that approach and you can already see that operation is slowing down more and more.

Use a software to automatically separate your files by Album Artist and create a folder for each of these.
Then separate further by Album title and put the tracks into subfolders named after the Album Title.

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Thank for the quick reply Otto. Yes I know but I’ve been in that structure way before I started Plex… legacy! lol

It’s a big job to redo.

What software do you recommend? I am fearful of using the feature in iTunes as I don;t trust it not to mess up… Thanks again Otto!

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If you are using Windows, you could use mp3tag to

  1. generate embedded meta tags from your file names (for files which don’t have them or have incorrect tags)
  2. create the necessary folder structure and move the files into them, based on the metatags
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Otto, from your reply, do I infer that if library is organized by folders, then Plex automatically marks folders already processed as such so it does not go over them again, is that how it’s designed? Tx.

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That is how it usually works, yes.
It may still re-process all albums by a certain album artist, if you add more albums to this artist.

For this to work properly, make sue to point your Plex libraries to folders instead of directly at drive letters or network file shares.

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I already use it for tagging and I know it can rename files. But my understanding is that I need to create the folder structure manually (big job) since it does not do that automatically … unless I missed something? iTunes can create the folder structure automatically but, as I said, I’m sure it will mess it up for me with extra tags, crap info, etc…

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Got it! Tx.

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Nope. It will happily create the folder structure if you tell it to do so, with your processing rule.
e.g. I use this to create the folder structure from embedded metatags:
in the menu: Convert → Tag-Filename
%albumartist%\%album%\$num(%track%,2). %artist% - %title%

The above might need some refinements for multi-disc releases, e.g.
%albumartist%\%album% (%year%)\Disc %discnumber%\$num(%track%,2). %artist% - %title%

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Fantastic! Didn’t know that. I’ll read up more on the processing rules to get it done automatically.

Thanks a lot Otto!

Not sure Plexers here say it enough - I know I don’t! - but you are of IMMENSE HELP to all of us newbies, Otto. THANK YOU VERY MUCH for supporting this great community and this excellent product!! Otto rocks…

1 Like
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hey otto! i tried a little experiment to temporarily bypass my issue due to using one flat directory as i re-structure my library:

i selected 3 new albums that i added but didn’t see their cover artwork. i then refreshed their metadata as a selected group. it took TEN MINUTES to refresh and add their cover album art. i repeated that experiment several times… ALWAYS TEN MINUTES!!

any explanation for this? is there some kind of timeout timer in the software causing this or just a coincidence of my environment? i have nothing running on that box except plex (2 ghz quad, 16gb ram, mycloud nas)

thanks otto!

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There is completely new code coming for music in a few weeks. This all will change.

I have another refinement to rename and move the tracks automatically with mp3tag:

Now it will create an album folder if an Album tag is present and if not, it will place the track directly into the Artist folder.
If there is an AlbumArtist tag, its content will be used. If there is only a TrackArtist, it will be used instead. (So make sure to tag mixed albums with a common AlbumArtist if you don’t want these albums to get broken up.)

Only if a track number is present, it will be added to the file name.
If a Disc Number is present, appropriate subfolder will be made per-disc.

(This string will still malfunction if the disc number is stored in the format 1/2.: I have yet to find a filter string to remove the part after the slash.)

E:\MP3\$if2(%albumartist%,%artist%)\$if2(%album%\,)$if2(Disc $meta(discnumber)\,)$if(%track%,$num(%track%,2). ,)%artist% - %title%

Replace the absolute path at the beginning with the path where your library is.

You should still only go album by album and use the ‘Preview’ feature to catch any unforeseen behaviour.

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That’s really great Otto!!! You’re on a roll… can’t wait for the new code to drop!!

And also thanks a lot for the refined mp3tag command, will use it. The rebuilding of my server and entire library still going on (!) so will not interrupt it as I have some issues with iTunes playlists and plpugin that I am trying to figure out first [posted separately if you have ideas :wink: ] …

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Sorry no, I avoid anything with an i... prefix in its name.

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ha haaaa … you cracked me up :wink:

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Hey Otto, just LOVE what you and the team did with the new version (1.18.0.1944)… really cool! Good job. Thanks.

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