Server Version#: 1.23.5.4862
Player Version#:
Plex Web Version 4.57.4
The BLUE CIRCLE, which was a handy way for me to see which Library items contained multiple or duplicate copies – or were misfiled by PLEX because of bad naming conventions in the metadata – seems to have disappeared.
I ALWAYS double-check/edit the names of MP4 files (I use Kid3, an open-source cross-platform app) to clean up the junky metadata that invariably appears in third-party-sourced media that I don’t encode myself.
But some files in my library are in a MKV container. Kid3 doesn’t work with MKV files, so those files are sometimes misfiled by PLEX because the people who named them apparently consider it more important to take some sort of geeky credit for uploading a stolen file using their names with a bunch of periods & diacriticals, rather than simply writing the correct title of the media.
Anyway, I uploaded a documentary in MKV format to my library, but I have no idea where PLEX filed it. In previous versions of the Media Server, the BLUE CIRCLE made it easy to find which media titles contained multiple copies. But for some reason, that graphical assistance is no longer part of the Server.
I have thousands of titles in my Movie library. So it’s simply not feasible to do a “Get Info” on every single item to find which one has the misfiled entry.
So yes, please bring back the blue circle, absolutely. And secondly, please give me an idea of how to find where PLEX filed my movie.
Aside from strongly considering my recommendation to bring back the blue circle (or square or whatever it was) that helped the eye recognize at a glance which media items contained multiple copies, you can disregard the request for assistance in terms of helping me find where PLEX misfiled the documentary I uploaded to my server.
I downloaded my log and found where PLEX stuffed the file. Seems there was no rhyme or reason as to why PMS stuck the file where it did, but at least I found it, split apart that item and made my corrections to the file’s metadata so that PMS eventually filed it correctly.
You can filter your library by Duplicates– that’ll show all items with multiple versions. Then you can just check the details of that particular item to verify where your file got associated (e.g. through Edit > Info or Get Info). If the file as mismatched without being matched to an existing item you could also sort the library by the date items were added to find the latest additions.
Generally speaking… naming matters to Plex. That goes both for the actual file names as well as the folder structures.
Thk u sirs 4 replies. I was able to find the duplicate by viewing the PMS server log. But I’ll familiarize myself with your method of Library filtering for future reference. Although I don’t recall seeing in the interface a “Duplicates” link, since that was the first thing I looked for when I no longer saw the Blue circle on the Posters. But I’ll check again for the Duplicates link.
Point of info, I do carefully name my files. Mainly, for movies, just the title and (YEAR). Extraneous movie info, like [1080p BluRay, or other encoding info, etc.] I put enclosed in square brackets, as I was instructed to do so on this forum a few years ago. I was told that PLEX ignores anything in square brackets.
Also, I use kid3 to make sure the Title is correct, with nothing extraneous, in the media’s metadata.
However, in this case, I remain stumped as to why PMS placed the file where I found it. Where it was placed, there were no conflicts either in terms of date (meaning the movie I’d uploaded & the movie where PMS placed it were from different years), or similarity of title (the two were completely different).
Thank you.
That feature just helped me identify three “duplicates” that occurred when I moved my library to a new hard drive a few months ago. Even though I clean bundles and optimize the database, on the three “duplicates” in question PLEX didn’t remove the links to the old hard drive. The three were marked “UNAVAILABLE” so I deleted those entries (PLEX does show the files in their new location as well).
If there’s still items pointing to your old HDD → double-check the Add Folder section when editing the entire library (⋮ > Manage Library > Edit... → Add Folders). After you removed the old HDD from there, the old entries should also go away.
Final note
Here are the specifics about the movies/folder-naming structure I used.
Movie I uploaded: Drone (2014) [encoding info]
Where it was placed: Good Kill (2015) [encoding info].
Turns out IMDB has the wrong year for both “Drone” and “Good Kill.” It shows both as 2014. I’d corrected “Good Kill” to “2015” when I uploaded it long ago, but I should’ve consulted themoviedb.org instead of imdb, since tmdb it has the correct release info.
I believe Plex is now using a multitude of sources and patches the information together. If you look at Good Kill on IMDb it’ll show the French/Canadian title as an official alternate title → Drones – so I guess that’s where the mismatch might have been coming from.
If you want to be bullet-proof and avoid such mishaps you can include an external ID to your folder names, e.g.:
Good Kill (2015) {imdb-tt3297330}
Good Kill (2015) {tmdb-253626}
btw, i had to resort to similar trickery when I put “The Death of Michael Corleone” in my library, since although it’s “Godfather Part III,” it’s edited in a way that makes it a different film than the original Godfather Pt. III. But the Media Agents weren’t having any of that; PLEX would always group the two together as “Godfather Part III.” But at least the duplicate was easy to find and split apart in that particular case.
