Transferring library as directed but losing metadata

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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Server Version#: 1.41.8.9834-071366d65
Player Version#: 1.109.0
<If providing server logs please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only debug logging should be enabled>

The well-established method of transferring a library to another hard drive is not picking up my custom metadata.

Example: I had a library of 49 Tex Avery cartoons. They were all named Tex Avery 1 through 49. Can’t match on that. I painstakingly matched all of them one by one, so they had their correct title and poster.

When my hard drive started to die and the library had to be rescued, I shut off the Empty Trash option for the server, and quit, as directed. I copied everything to a new drive, keeping the folder names meticulously the same.

Then I went back in and connected the new folders in addition to the old ones, as directed.

Now the Tex Avery section had 98 cartoons. It added the original 49 all over again. When I disconnected the previous folder, all my custom entries went away and I was left with Tex Avery 1 through 49 again.

Refreshing the metadata does nothing. What did I do wrong?

Thanks!

Mac OSX 10.14.6 Mojave
iMac Pro 3Ghz 10-core, 64GB RAM+16GB Radeon VRAM

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Could be a situation where you were using different agents within that library (e.g. coming from a legacy agent and not completing the upgrade).

You should be able to verify this by looking at the media details for two such duplicate cartoons in Plex Web (open ︙ > Get Info > View XML and look for the guid="..." parameter).

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Thanks. It’s an old library, so that could be. I gave up and rebuilt the section from scratch after renaming the files. It seems like it’s definitely ignoring any custom posters or descriptions if the file name isn’t to spec. This is a 15TB library with over 80 categories I have to rebuild, and I’m on the letter “B” right now, so I am trying to nail down my modus operandi before I go to far. Many thanks again!

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Since you are not using the required naming schema, I assume that

  • this series was not “matched”
  • metadata were either sparse, or you had them to input manually

Unmatched items are the one topic where moving the media files in Plex is going to lose their metadata easily.
My recommendation would be:

  1. stick to the recommended naming schema
  2. if ever possible, try to find your show’s episode ordering on TheTVDB and/or TheMovieDB and use that.
    Search - TheTVDB.com

The only alternative would be to either

  • keep the storage location for unmatched items stable by all means. If there is a new hard drive, remove the old HDD and rename the new HDD so that it can take the place of the old one seamlessly.
  • if you absolutely have to change the storage location, edit your Plex database directly, to link the existing items to the new storage location.
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