TV Shows being lost when moving data files

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#: 1.14.0.5470
Player Version#: 3.69.1

Hello,

I am having a weird experience and perhaps this is the normal behavior but I would think Plex would be smart enough to handle the following situation.

I have a TV show folder on 1 drive. And another TV show folder on a second drive. Both folders are part of the same Library within Plex.

I was running low on space on the first drive, so I coped (not cut) the main show folder for a few shows from the first drive to the second and allowed Plex to detect the files and each show now showed 2 files for each episode for each season when viewing them in the library.

This is the result I expected as Plex now sees the files for that TV show are available in 2 locations.

I then deleted the files from the original location (on the first drive) which left the files in the second location (the second drive) to be the source for the show.

However, Plex did it’s normal detection for changes and proceeded to remove the entire show from the Plex library and it could no longer be located via searching or browsing the library in Plex apps.

I had to perform a manual re-scan of the library and the shows were then re-added again, however they are now showing as recently added shows again?

Is this expected behavior? If Plex sees the exact same file in a different location for the same show and episode, why would it be removing the show from the library if one set of duplicates are being removed and the files for all of the episodes are still available to it?

I performed a second test. I have a show with 5 episodes. I moved the files for all 5 of the episodes from the first drive to the second and waited for Plex to detect the files. Once it showed 2 versions of each episoide, I then deleted episodes 4 and 5 from the first drive. This worked as expected and only the first 3 episodes showed duplicates and the last 2 episodes were available for playback as expected.

However, when I deleted the first 3 episodes, once again the entire show was removed from Plex and I received an “Playback error” when I clicked the now “blank” icon for the show which was still showing in the Web client since I still had the show displaying when I deleted the files. “An error occurred loading items to play”.

Is there some type of pointer record that locks the original directory location within the database record for that show that deletes the database entry when episode 1 of season 1 is removed from the original disk location?

Thanks…

A quick addition, when the TV shows are re-added, the “watched” status for all of the episodes is also lost as Plex doesn’t seem to know that the episode was previously watched based on the new creation of that specific database record since it has to recreate it?

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No responses?

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How are these files named?
Are you using the recommend naming schema, including the subfolder organization as detailed here: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200220687-naming-series-season-based-tv-shows/

Did you switch the default metadata agent of your tv show library, after you added the tv show initially into Plex? This would explain the ‘unwatched’ status.

4

The folder and file structure are as per Plex’s recommended naming schema.

The file paths are as follows:

E:\TV<Show Name>\Season.X\Show Name S0xE0x.ext
F:\TV2<Show Name>\Season.X\Show Name S0xE0x.ext

The library contains the following paths:

E:\TV
F:\TV2

Each TV show is located in a folder named by the title of the show.

Each TV show folder has folders named Season.1, Season.2, Season.3,etc

Each episode is stored in the appropriate season folder and named using the show name and the corresponding season and episode number (S0xE0x)

I believe the unwatched status is due to the show being removed from the database and re-added, and therefore Plex sees it as a new addition to the database and therefore, no “watched” tracking yet exists for a new database entry.

However, I am not removing the show. This is the issue that I believe you might be not understanding.

The issue is not the unwatched status. This is a by-product of the issue.

The issue is that Plex is removing the show from the database and then re-adding it when the files were never removed from the folders that the library contains.

I am relocating the files from a folder on 1 drive to a folder on another drive, however, BOTH of these folders (on each drive) are part of the same library and therefore the show shouldn’t be getting removed by Plex at all. It should simply be updating the record pointers to the new file locations within the database for those specific database entries.

Eg:

Copy E:\TV\Show Name to F:\TV2\

Then perform a library scan. Plex then shows 2 copies of each episode when viewing the show (as it should) with 1 copy being in E:\TV\Show Name and the second being in F:\TV2\Show Name.

I then delete the Show Name folder from E:\TV.

Plex proceeds to remove the entire show from the database. And a few minutes later it re-adds the entire show again, but as a new entry using the files from F:\TV2\Show Name

All references to the previously existing database entry are gone even though all of the files were at all times available to Plex for the entire process.

Plex is removing the database entry and re-adding it as a new entry.

Why???

5

This would be no issue if you use the identical metadata agent to’match’ the show.
So, please go to S01E01 of the “original” show and call up its Plex media info XML
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201998867-investigate-media-information-and-formats/
Please copy the content of the guid tag and paste it into here.
Then do the same on S01E01 of the “copied” show, which now is shown as “unplayed”.

6

The metadata agent being used to match the show is the exact same agent.

As stated previously, both folders are part of the exact same library and therefore the exact same agent is being used to match the show. And the ordering of the agents available in that library would be the same for both folders as well since you can only change the order of the agents on a library and not on each folder within the same library.

All of my shows are automatically matched using The TV Database. While I could see this happening if there were multiple entries in their database and Plex matched on the different entries, I highly doubt there are that many duplicate entries on The TV Database or all of the shows just happen to be the exact same ones that have duplicates on The TV Database.

Any local metadata is contained within the actual files. And since the files are being copied from one drive to another, the exact same metadata would be available to plex in each file location.

As stated previously, the unwatched status issue is a by-product of the issue I am experiencing.

Why is Plex removing the show from the database at all when all of the files for the show were available to it at all times?

With regards to obtaining the XML info, I will have to move another show to the other drive to pull the before and after data.

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