Solved Any Plex Media Server users? (Problem with clean up files in Recycle Bin)

antspants · Friday at 8:43 PM

I do not have a Plex subscription, I don’t find the need for it. Therefore I can’t use their forums.

Every day, sometimes twice a day, my recycle Bin has over 100GB of files. Most of these files I can conclude are from Plex Media software. (Some from FreeFileSync)
I’ve gone through the settings, I have tried different options yet still the Recycle Bin is chock a block full on a regular basis.

Is their something I can do?
Plex doesn’t seem to have the options to “Permanently Delete” files or bypass Recycle Bin options.
I’ve put up with this for years and now I am over it. It isn’t just for this install either, it’s any fresh install of Windows or Plex, so it’s nothing that I have changed as far as I know.

My media folder has a staggering and most likely ridiculous amount of media files collected over the last 25/30 years, some for work, some for pleasure and a lot of family history and memorabilia., so there is also that contribution.

Thanks for your time.

Dannydet · Friday at 8:54 PM

I'm wondering why are there files in the recycle bin to start with?
Are you deleting them?

Wynona · Friday at 8:55 PM

Hi @antspants

I'm probably out of my element here, but have you tried Revo?

Dannydet · Friday at 9:01 PM

I used to use Plex a few years ago, and never had an issue like yours.
Right now I'm using Emby as my media server and never any recycle bin problems.

antspants · Friday at 9:14 PM

Dannydet said:
I'm wondering why are there files in the recycle bin to start with?
Are you deleting them?

No i’m not physically doing anything. This is a result of a Plex clean up issue.

Wynona said:
Hi @antspants

I'm probably out of my element here, but have you tried Revo?

Hi Wynona

Thank you. I don’t want to remove Plex, I just want to stop it from whatever automatic services are running to create so many files in the recycle bin.

antspants · Friday at 9:15 PM

Examples:

com.plexapp.plugins.library.db (Majority of content)
com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-wal (Majority of content)
profiletitles.dat

Then there are other medial files from Rockstar servers folders that are minimal.

JAM83 · Friday at 9:42 PM

antspants said:
I do not have a Plex subscription, I don’t find the need for it. Therefore I can’t use their forums.

Every day, sometimes twice a day, my recycle Bin has over 100GB of files. Most of these files I can conclude are from Plex Media software. (Some from FreeFileSync)
I’ve gone through the settings, I have tried different options yet still the Recycle Bin is chock a block full on a regular basis.

Is their something I can do?
Plex doesn’t seem to have the options to “Permanently Delete” files or bypass Recycle Bin options.
I’ve put up with this for years and now I am over it. It isn’t just for this install either, it’s any fresh install of Windows or Plex, so it’s nothing that I have changed as far as I know.

My media folder has a staggering and most likely ridiculous amount of media files collected over the last 25/30 years, some for work, some for pleasure and a lot of family history and memorabilia., so there is also that contribution.

Thanks for your time.

I don't have a Plex Subscription and I'm able to get into their forums

antspants · Friday at 9:42 PM

SOLVED

I obviously never looked properly in the past.

The cause seems to be a FreeFileSync job that was including the PLEX Database files. For whatever reason, when PLEX does a periodical scan, it overwrites Database files with new ones.

FreeFileSync was detecting these changes and constantly replacing and deleting files from a Mirror backup job.
So far after removing the job, nothing has appeared in the Recycle Bin, yet.

Will have to monitor.

antspants · Friday at 9:49 PM

JAM83 said:
I don't have a Plex Subscription and I'm able to get into their forums

Things must of changed. Last time I tried (A few years ago) a support query was returned via email from Plex Support, informing me that I needed a Plex subscription to post in the Forum.

Marcus Vinicus · Friday at 10:22 PM

@antspants

I've used Plex for quite a while but am not a Guru but do know my way around it a little bit.

In File Explorer at this location below what shows on your computer?

In the Scheduled Tasks settings in Plex how is yours configured? Is it different to mine. I don't ever remember getting heaps of db files in my Windows Recycle Bin.
Click to enlarge.

XxXxX · Friday at 10:29 PM

please try disabling plex media from filesync temporally as i have found that filesync can go over the top with deleting files.
then if there any further deletions it should be traceable

edit. sorry didn't read the part where you had fixed the problem.
best of luck, Steve ..

antspants · Saturday at 3:17 AM

Marcus Vinicus said:
In the Scheduled Tasks settings in Plex how is yours configured? Is it different to mine. I don't ever remember getting heaps of db files in my Windows Recycle Bin.
Click to enlarge.

Will take a look shortly, Marcus. But firstly I believe I moved the default location of the backup directory to a secondary drive, and I possibly unticked some of those thinking it was the problem. Will restore all options to default but leave my backup Directory off C, now that I know that this is caused by FreeFileSync.

But will investigate that settings page.

jimbo45 · Saturday at 4:32 AM

antspants said:
I do not have a Plex subscription, I don’t find the need for it. Therefore I can’t use their forums.

Every day, sometimes twice a day, my recycle Bin has over 100GB of files. Most of these files I can conclude are from Plex Media software. (Some from FreeFileSync)
I’ve gone through the settings, I have tried different options yet still the Recycle Bin is chock a block full on a regular basis.

Is their something I can do?
Plex doesn’t seem to have the options to “Permanently Delete” files or bypass Recycle Bin options.
I’ve put up with this for years and now I am over it. It isn’t just for this install either, it’s any fresh install of Windows or Plex, so it’s nothing that I have changed as far as I know.

My media folder has a staggering and most likely ridiculous amount of media files collected over the last 25/30 years, some for work, some for pleasure and a lot of family history and memorabilia., so there is also that contribution.

Thanks for your time.

Not an answer to your problem but another suggestion. Why bother to use PLEX. Why not simply use KODI or VLC. Kodi is brilliant also on a firestick which plugged into remote TV's etc can access all your media files and play them - even video DVD ISO's. VLC is also great but I prefer the KODI GUI when used on a firestick or android phone. IPTC plugins also allow direct streaming of live TV etc and with the appropriate VPN's you can get TV from almost anywhere. Also using a firestick on a remote TV there's zillions of File browsers so you can delete your remote files just using the Firestick's handset. (Roku type sticks might work also but I've been using firesticks --cheap and have them in 4 remote TV's all accessing the same media files from a NAS server.

Cheers
jimbo

antspants · Saturday at 4:42 AM

jimbo45 said:
Why bother to use PLEX

Only an opinion, Jim, but I personally find PLEX superior to everything else I’ve tried, especially as a household and offsite media server. The interface is very impressive. Also, I’ve been using it for so long, it feels like home.

jimbo45 · Saturday at 5:29 AM

antspants said:
Only an opinion, Jim, but I personally find PLEX superior to everything else I’ve tried, especially as a household and offsite media server. The interface is very impressive. Also, I’ve been using it for so long, it feels like home.

That's fine -- just suggesting that there are other possibilities as some might not realize it.
If one's been using stuff daily for years using even a new version of the same software can be daunting - loads had difficulty after Internet Explorer was retired in simply using Edge or even Firefox. Also if I had to use typical backup tools in Windows rather than Linux - I'd hate that !!! (talking about backing up DATA not imaging system disks etc).

Cheers
jimbo

antspants · Saturday at 6:24 AM

jimbo45 said:
That's fine -- just suggesting that there are other possibilities as some might not realize it.
If one's been using stuff daily for years using even a new version of the same software can be daunting - loads had difficulty after Internet Explorer was retired in simply using Edge or even Firefox. Also if I had to use typical backup tools in Windows rather than Linux - I'd hate that !!! (talking about backing up DATA not imaging system disks etc).

Cheers
jimbo

And I appreciate it, Jim.

I have tried others. I do love PLEX. What’s better, is that with PLEX “Media Player” it’s incredibly user friendly, especially for my Wife who although much younger than I, not very tech savvy. There’s an app on her iPad, on the TV etc etc. Organised by title, date, actor etc, with Movie posters, the TV series setup is brilliant.
I use it every day, I am a bit of a program freak. From 10pm to 3am, I am mostly using PLEX. You can also add your Streaming Service and Local TV stations. And If you get a subscription, you have access to a lot of content.

Dannydet · Saturday at 6:55 AM

I used to use Plex as my media server until it got so bogged down with unnecessary options and bloat that I had to uninstall it.
Ended up switching to Emby and never looked back.
All my media, anywhere, with no bloat.

Winuser · Saturday at 12:19 PM

Dannydet said:
I used to use Plex as my media server until it got so bogged down with unnecessary options and bloat that I had to uninstall it.
Ended up switching to Emby and never looked back.
All my media, anywhere, with no bloat.

I recently switched from Mezzmo to Emby because Roku blocked the Mezzmo app on it's devices. I don't understand why Roku made this decision. I know Conceiva stopped all development of Mezzmo but as far as I know that only effects the licensed versions of Mezzmo from being able to stream online. I did try another streaming app (Jellyfin) but found it a little more complicated to setup. All in all I find Emby to be a good replacement for Mezzmo.

JAM83 · Saturday at 6:31 PM

antspants said:
Only an opinion, Jim, but I personally find PLEX superior to everything else I’ve tried, especially as a household and offsite media server. The interface is very impressive. Also, I’ve been using it for so long, it feels like home.

That's me as well. Kodi just faffs me off. Hard to find things, etc. Plex is just simple. . Sometimes, it doesn't scan all the files, or the file name doesn't match the video (like it is one video ahead) but I can deal with that.

jimbo45 · Sunday at 5:29 AM

Winuser said:
I recently switched from Mezzmo to Emby because Roku blocked the Mezzmo app on it's devices. I don't understand why Roku made this decision. I know Conceiva stopped all development of Mezzmo but as far as I know that only effects the licensed versions of Mezzmo from being able to stream online. I did try another streaming app (Jellyfin) but found it a little more complicated to setup. All in all I find Emby to be a good replacement for Mezzmo.

Kodi works on those types of devices including latest Amazon Firestick models.Emby also installs on Amazon firestick but needs to connect to a host.

Kodi is harder to use until you understand it. Emby server is problematical on Fedora (.rpm rather than .deb packages). One can install some.deb packages on Fedora or compile from source but it's messy. It's OK on Windows but kodi doesn't need any application on your remote system where your media are stored -- just browse to the file from the firestick with the kodi app on the firestick. Just ensure the media folders are shared.

Cheers
jimbo

Solved Any Plex Media Server users? (Problem with clean up files in Recycle Bin)

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