Plex

Configure Plex with the Porn DB Media Scanner Agent

  1. Download unzip and rename the plug in
    1. https://github.com/ThePornDatabase/ThePornDB.bundle/archive/refs/heads/main.zip
    2. download the bundle.
    3. If the bundle is a zip file, unzip it
  2. edit the file name to remove any extra text after .bundle
    1. The file extension should be .bundle
  3. Copy the plug-in bundle in the Plug-ins folder at 
    %LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server\Plug-ins
  4. Restart the Plex Media Server
  5. Log into The Porn DB API interface and get an API token
  6. Edit the Plex library with the adult video files
    1. Under the advanced tab select "ThePornDB Scenes" or "ThePornDB Movies" agent
    2. Fill in the Personal API Key filed with the token obtained in step 5 
    3. Make sure all check boxes are cleared, except for use a Custom Title Format
      1. Change the Title Format to whatever you want using the correct params
    4. Under the Regex to remove from filepath use " \[.*?\] "

      1. image.png

    5. Save changes and exit
  7. Rename the video files using the proper format
    1. For a successful match to your Scenes, filenames should be in the format Site YYYY-MM-DD Title (The date is the most important part) For matching movies, try to limit filename as much as possible to the actual name of the movie. Remove any 'release tags' as much as possible
    2. Using Whisparr to change the file names would be the easiest
  8. Remove video files from the library, and wait a few minutes
  9. Add the video files back to the library. This should cause all of the files to match properly assuming the name is correct.

Library

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200289526-library/

Settings related to your libraries on your Plex Media Server. You can access these under Settings > Server > Library in Plex Web App.

Normal Settings

Scan my library automatically

When a change is detected in the source location for a library’s content, the appropriate library will be scanned.

Note: This function relies on the computer’s operating system providing the “something changed” trigger. Some operating systems don’t provide this trigger and content mounted via a network will also typically not work. If your library doesn’t automatically scan, you may have to set a periodical scan or do it manually.

Scan my library periodically

Turning this on will cause your Plex Media Server to run scans on your libraries using the designated interval.

Library scan interval

Choose to scan all of your libraries on a time-based interval. Choose the interval to use from the dropdown. Available frequencies:

The scan interval is based on when the Plex Media Server is started. For instance, if you have it set to “every 6 hours” and you start your server at 12:35pm, then a scan will be started around 6:35pm.

Empty trash automatically after every scan

Choose to empty the library Trash after every update. With this option enabled, when an item’s file is deleted from the drive, it will be removed from the Plex library on the next scan. Disabling this option keeps the item in the library with an indicator superimposed over the item’s poster when the item is removed.

Generate video preview thumbnails

This option creates a series of preview thumbnails from a media item when it is analyzed. Creating these images can take a considerable amount of time, CPU resources, and increase the storage space used. The images are stored in your Plex database so be careful you don’t fill the drive!

These images are used by some Plex apps when you move back and forward in an app with the timeline scrubber. They’ll also be displayed in Now Playing when someone is streaming from you so that you can see where they are in the video.

Warning!: Be careful about enabling this feature prior to adding a large amount of content to your library. Doing so may mean that your server will be generating index files for hours or even days.

Related Page: Video Preview Thumbnails

Generate intro video markers (Plex Pass)

You can choose to have TV episodes analyzed to try and detect when the “intro” occurs during playback. When detected, apps will then offer a Skip Intro button, allowing you to quickly jump over the intro. This feature requires an active Plex Pass subscription.

Generate credits video markers (Plex Pass)

You can choose to have TV episodes and movies analyzed to try and detect when “credits” occur at the end. When detected, apps will then offer a Skip Credits button, allowing you to quickly jump over the credits. This feature requires an active Plex Pass subscription.

Generate chapter thumbnails

Chapter thumbnails provide images in the chapter view on supported apps. They can take a little time to generate and consume very minor additional disk space.

We recommend using the default as a scheduled task value.

Analyze audio tracks for loudness

Letting the server to analyze your audio (e.g. music) files for loudness information will allow you to make use of features such as leveling (often referred to as “normalizing”) the loudness as well as letting apps perform smart transitions between tracks. Analysis can cause high CPU usage, but doesn’t take very long to complete for individual tracks or albums. If you’re adding a lot of music (or creating a music library for the first time), the process could take a long time to complete.

Analyze audio tracks for sonic features (Plex Pass)

Letting the server to analyze your audio tracks for sonic characteristics will allow you to make use of features such “Sonically Similar Albums”, “Track Radio”, and “Mixes For You”. This feature requires an active Plex Pass subscription.

Analysis requires significant CPU usage and can take a long time to finish (hours or multiple days for an existing music library, though usually just minutes for a single new album). If you’re adding a lot of music, or creating a music library for the first time, the process could take a long time to complete (hours or even multiple days).

Related Page: Sonic Analysis for Music

Location visibility

You can set who is allowed to see location names for items which contain geolocation metadata. For instance, photos taken by a mobile phone will often have GPS data embedded, which we make use of to determine where the photo was taken.

By default, only the server admin/owner account will be able to see the location information. You can optionally allow shared users to see the information, too.

OS X Specific Settings

Display notifications

Display system notifications when scanning libraries.

Advanced Settings

Click on the Show Advanced button at the top right of the settings area to toggle display of advanced settings. Be careful when adjusting or using advanced settings.

Run a partial scan when changes are detected

When changes to library folders are detected, only scan the folder which changed rather than the entire content location. This works together with the normal Update my library automatically setting (and requires that setting to be enabled).

Allow media deletion

Plex apps (signed in with the same Plex account as the Plex Media Server) will be able to delete media from the library. If you’ve granted other Plex accounts access to your your server, they will not be authorized to delete media, even with this setting enabled.

Deleted items will be immediately removed from your library and the corresponding media file will also be deleted. Most operating systems will place the file in the system Trash or Recycle Bin, but it’s possible the file will be permanently deleted immediately (particularly when deleting large numbers of items).

Warning!: Be careful enabling this setting as it allows actual source media files to be deleted from your system.

Note: Other users granted access to the Plex Media Server cannot delete media through an app, even with this option enabled. Only the server owner account can delete media.

Weeks to consider for Continue Watching

Lets you choose how many weeks to check for content to be included in the Continue Watching data for a library. The default value of 16 weeks is good for the vast majority of users. You can lower the value if your Continue Watching is particularly slow to appear. (Increasing the value can cause Continue Watching or app dashboards to be much slower to appear.)

Maximum number of Continue Watching items which will appear

Choose the maximum number of  shows that can appear in Continue Watching. Setting a very high number can negatively affect performance.

Include season premieres in Continue Watching

Season premieres generally will fall outside of the number of weeks for Continue Watching for most people, since it can be several months before a new season starts. Enabled by default, this setting makes episode one of a new season appear even if it falls outside of Weeks to consider for Continue Watching setting (assuming all previous episodes are watched).

Video played threshold

Set the progress percentage for video playback at which point the video will be marked as played. (Default threshold is 90%.)

Video play completion behavior

Decide whether to use end credits markers to determine the “played” state of video items. When markers are not available the selected threshold percentage (from the above setting) will be used.

Enable smart shuffling on artists and smart music playlists

This affects how shuffling works when shuffling a musical artist or smart (music) playlist. When enabled, playback will prefer highly rated, popular, and less recently heard tracks. When disabled, you’ll get true randomness (which, ironically, often feels less random to people).

Group albums by type (Plex Pass)

Group albums under a musical artist by the type of album (e.g. EP, Single, Compilation, Live, etc.), when the metadata is available.  This feature requires an active Plex Pass subscription.

Enable iTunes plugin

Enable local iTunes library path

iTunes library XML path

You can enter the full path to the main XML file for your iTunes library. This is typically only necessary if the iTunes library is in a non-standard location. This is for importing iTunes Playlists

Note: From iTunes Version 12.2 and later the library XML file is not created by iTunes. You must enable it in iTunes advanced preferences. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201610

Run scanner tasks at a lower priority

On low-powered systems (e.g. ARM-based NAS devices), it can be beneficial to run scanner tasks at a lower priority than other tasks. This can help ensure they do not interfere with regular streaming.

Marker source

Credits markers can be generated locally and/or retrieved via an online database. Online markers may not always exist, if this preference is set to ‘both’ then any locally detected markers are submitted anonymously back to the online database for future use.

Database Cache Size (MB)

Set the size of the main database cache, in MB. The default value is 40 and should be sufficient for just about every user. Increasing much beyond the default value is likely to only benefit users with extremely large media collections (as in, hundreds of thousands of episodes or music tracks).

Move Media Content to a New Location

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201154537-move-media-content-to-a-new-location/

As your media collection grows, you might upgrade to a larger hard drive, install a NAS, or otherwise simply have a need to move your content to a new location.

Note: We always recommend Backing Up Plex Media Server Data data before making major changes to your library.

Upgrading a Hard Drive

If you’re simply upgrading to a new/larger hard drive, the easiest thing to do is to name the new location exactly the same as the original one. That means simply making sure the new hard drive is named exactly the same as the old one, and that the media files are in the same location.

The general procedure is outlined below. For this example, we’ll assume that your content is currently on a hard drive named MyMediaDrive.

  1. Quit/exit your Plex Media Server
  2. Re-name the old hard drive to a different name (e.g. OriginalMediaDrive)
  3. Name the new hard drive to the exact same name as the original drive (i.e. MyMediaDrive)
  4. Copy the content from the old drive to the new drive, making sure that the content ends up in the same relative location
  5. Start the Plex Media Server

If you’ve done things correctly, your server won’t even know that anything has changed and your content will work right away.

Moving Content to a New Location

If you need to move content to a new location, you’ll have to go through a few additional steps.

Preparation

Disable Emptying of Trash

On your Plex Media Server, you’ll want to disable the Empty trash automatically after every scan preference for the server.

Stop the Plex Media Server

Quit or exit the Plex Media Server so that it is no longer running.

Copy Content to the New Location

Copy your media files to the desired location. You don’t necessarily have to keep the same relative folder structure if you don’t wish to do so.

Update your Plex Media Server Configuration

Start the Plex Media Server

Once your content is available on the new location, start your Plex Media Server.

Launch Plex Web App

Open your Plex Web App and you should see your libraries, though your content is unlikely to work yet.

Edit Your Libraries

In order to update the content location for your media, you’ll need to Edit a library and then add the appropriate folder for where your content is now located. Leave the existing/previous folder location in there for now.

You’ll need to do this for each of your libraries, but you should probably complete the process for one at a time.

Update the Library

After adding the new content folder, a scan of the library will probably start. If not, simply do a standard Scan Library Files.

The server will examine the contents of the new location and associate the content with the existing media items in your library.

Remove Old Content Location

Once everything is completed and you’ve verified that things are working correctly and you can access your content, you can remove the old content location for your libraries. To do so, Edit the library and remove the old/previous folder location.

Once removed, you may need to empty your library trash in order to remove the entries where the content was stored at the old content location.

Move the Plex Data Directory in Windows

To change the Plex data directory in Windows, use the following steps:

  1. Log onto your Plex server as the user account that is running the Plex Media Server instance.
  2. Stop the Plex instance running on the server by right-clicking the Plex system tray icon and the select Exit. If Plex is running as a service, you should just stop that service.
  3. Click the Start button and type services.msc – the Services app should be displayed in the search results. Right-click the Services app and select the Run as administrator option.
  4. In the Services list, scroll down until your see the Plex Update Service service. Right-click the service and select the Stop option from the context menu.
  5. Open Windows Explorer and navigate the Plex data directory, which is here by default: 
    %LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server
  6. Copy the contents of the Plex data directory to the new location, for example: 
    M:\Plex\Plex Media Server
    The copy process can take several hours, depending on the size of your media library.
  7. Once the copy has completed, click the Start button and type regedit.exe and the open the registry editor.
  8. Navigate to the following key in the registry: 
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Plex, Inc.\Plex Media Server
  9. If the value LocalAppDataPath does not exist in the list on the right, right-click an empty area in the list and select New->String Value. Name the value LocalAppDataPath.
  10. Double-click the LocalAppDataPath value and enter the path to the new Plex data directory. Do not include the Plex Media Server folder in the path. For my example above, the LocalAppDataPath data value will be: 
    M:\Plex
    The Plex LocalAppDataPath Value in the Windows Registry.
    The Plex LocalAppDataPath value in the Windows registry
  11. Close the registry editor.
  12. Restart the computer to have all the Plex services and processes restart and begin to use the new data directory location.

Notes about moving the data directory in Windows

While moving the Plex data directory can be done, there are a few points to consider before moving the directory:

The above sections outline how to move the Plex data directory in Windows to a new location. If the system drive in your server is low on drive space, moving the Plex data to another drive could help free up much needed space.

Restore a Database Backup

https://support.plex.tv/articles/202485658-restore-a-database-backed-up-via-scheduled-tasks/

One of the many Scheduled Tasks that a Plex Media Server performs is to make regular backups of the core databases, which hold things such as your viewstate information and media matching details.

Finding the Database Backups

The location of the database backups will vary by operating system. Unless you’ve altered the location via the Backup directory advanced setting, you’ll find the backup files under the Plug-in Support/Databases subdirectory inside the normal server data directory.

The database backups will have the date in the filename and will be named along the lines of:

com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2020-05-31
com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2019-06-01

and

com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-2020-05-31
com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-2019-06-01

Related Page: Where is the Plex Media Server data directory located?

Restoring a Backup

Once you’ve found the backup you wish to use:

  1. Stop/quit your Plex Media Server
  2. Move the following files out of the directory and store them somewhere for backup, just in case. (You don’t want the “-shm” and “-wal” files to remain in the databases directory when restoring the corresponding database.) 
    com.plexapp.plugins.library.db
com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-shm
com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-wal

    and

    com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db
com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-shm
com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-wal
  3. Duplicate the database backup file into the correct directory and then rename them to com.plexapp.plugins.library.db and com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db.
  4. Ensure that Plex Media Server has read/write permissions to the restored database file(s) (e.g. in a Linux install, the plex:plex (user:group) needs access)
  5. Start your Plex Media Server

Scheduled Server Maintenance

https://support.plex.tv/articles/202197488-scheduled-server-maintenance/

Your Plex Media Server can be scheduled to perform certain maintenance tasks for you. Tasks that can be included in maintenance:

How to Enable Scheduled Tasks

Turning on your Scheduled Tasks is easy. In your Plex Web App, simply go to Settings > Server > Scheduled Tasks.

Most people will want to schedule the maintenance to occur either while they sleep or perhaps while they’re away from home at work. Typically, a 3-4 hour window for maintenance is more than sufficient.

Note: Due to the way scheduling is calculated, tasks which occur every three days or every week may not occur for the first time until a few days after scheduling is enabled.

Available Tasks

Optional Settings

There are multiple tasks available that you can have performed during maintenance. We recommend leaving the default settings checked, aside from choosing the start and end time appropriate to you.

For details on the available settings, see the documentation for the Plex Media Server settings.

Other Tasks Performed During Maintenance

In addition to the settings you can enable or disable directly, there are some other tasks that might also get performed during the maintenance period.

Chapter Thumbnail Generation

Depending on your setting for the Generate chapter thumbnails setting, they may get created during the maintenance period as part of your scheduled tasks. You may notice increased CPU usage when the thumbnails are generated, particularly on lower-powered systems.

Video Preview Thumbnail Generation

If you have set your server to generate Video Preview Thumbnails, those may get created during the maintenance period. Creation of these thumbnails is an intensive process and may cause high CPU usage during the generation.

Scheduled Tasks

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201553286-scheduled-tasks/

Plex Media Server settings related maintenance performed via Scheduled Tasks. You can access these under Settings > Server > Scheduled Tasks in Plex Web App.

Normal Settings

Note: Due to the way scheduling is calculated, tasks which occur every three days or every week may not occur for the first time until a few days after scheduling is enabled.

Schedule Time

You can choose the (local to the server) hour at which the background maintenance tasks should start and end. This defaults to starting at 3am and ending at 6am.

Backup database every three days

Every three days, a backup of your core SQL database file will be created (if it is not already corrupted). This is the database that holds your media viewstate and other critical information. A backup can help protect against corruption which can occur in rare cases when a machine is powered down unexpectedly, for example.

Up to three backup copies will be kept in a rotating manner.

Warning!: This is only a backup of your core database; it is not a backup of all of your metadata content. This should not be considered a replacement for having a backup of your Plex Media Server data.

Optimize database every week

This task ensures the database is running as quickly as possible. Especially after lots of additions or deletions, the database can get slowed down.

Remove old bundles every week

Metadata information, artwork (posters, banners, art, etc.), and similar data are stored in “bundle” packages. When a media item is removed from the library, the bundles retained temporarily by default so that the item can be easily restored if desired. This task removes the bundle packages associated with items no longer in your library.

Remove old cache files every week

When the image processor inside the Plex Media Server processes images (e.g. to resize them), a cached version of the transformed file is kept around for quick access later. This task cleans up files which were created over a month ago.

Refresh local metadata every three days

If you add a new local subtitle or cover art file, the local media agent will pick this up and insert it into the library. This usually happens on-the-fly if the server has detected a change in the directory time. However, it adds a second or two when choosing an item in your library before it appears, so doing it at night ensures things are speedy during the day.

This setting does not download new metadata for your content.

Update all libraries during maintenance

(Disabled by default.) This will run a standard scan on your libraries during the maintenance period, to find new content. It will not force a refresh of metadata for existing content.

Upgrade media analysis during maintenance

We do extensive media analysis on every file to ensure correct playback across the huge range of devices and apps. Occasionally we fix a bug in media analysis, or update things to capture some additional data. Similar to local metadata, this is computed on the fly when needed, but it can add a delay when selecting an item. This task ensures analysis is always up to date.

Refresh metadata periodically

Over the course of the month, the server will refresh the metadata for musical artists and TV shows in your library. This will help ensure that your artists have good tour date information (if you’ve enabled that feature) and that Plex Pass users of music libraries will automatically get new lyrics from LyricFind (if that’s enabled), for instance.

Note: This metadata refreshing currently only occurs for music and TV libraries (assuming the library is on the latest metadata agent).

Perform extensive media analysis during maintenance

This does an extensive bitrate analysis on each file in your library to help with bandwidth controls.

Fetch missing location names for items in photo sections

If you’ve enabled the Save location names preference for a Photo library, this lets the server get the names for locations, based on the geo data embedded in the photos.

Advanced Settings

Click on the Show Advanced button at the top right of the settings area to toggle display of advanced settings. Be careful when adjusting or using advanced settings.

Backup directory

If you wish, you can alter the location where the backups of the SQL database file are stored. Enter the full path to the desired location. As noted above, this should not be considered a replacement for real backups.

Note: If you modify the backup location, you must first create the specified directory (Plex Media Server will not create the directory automatically).

Where is the Plex Media Server data directory located?

https://support.plex.tv/articles/202915258-where-is-the-plex-media-server-data-directory-located/

The main Plex Media Server data directory location will vary based on your operating system. Below are the default locations.

Windows

On Windows, the content is located inside of the user directory.

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server

macOS

Using the Finder’s “Go” menu, select Go To Folder… then enter the following in the dialog box that pops up:

~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/

Linux and Other Devices

General

In general, the location for the various Linux versions of Plex Media Server will be found under:

$PLEX_HOME/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/

ASUSTOR

/volume1/Plex/Library

Debian, Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu

/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/

Docker

The location for the data directory for Plex Media Server when running Docker will depend on what you specified when setting up the Docker container. See our normal Docker container documentation on GitHub.

FreeBSD

/usr/local/plexdata/Plex Media Server/

FreeNAS

FreeNAS 11.3 or newer

${JAIL_ROOT}/Plex Media Server/

FreeNAS 11.2 or earlier

${JAIL_ROOT}/var/db/plexdata/Plex Media Server/

NVIDIA SHIELD

In a default installation, you will not be able to access the Plex Media Server data directory when running on NVIDIA SHIELD. In order for you to have access, you need to choose to move the storage location for the server. Specifically, when moving the data, you must choose either Internal Storage (user accessible storage location) or a removable drive that you’ve connected to the SHIELD.

Use a standard method to connect to the NVIDIA SHIELD to access the storage, such as that outlined in our “Accessing SHIELD Storage” article. The path to the server data will vary, depending on whether you chose to move to the user-accessible internal storage or to a removable drive that you connected to the device.

QNAP

The exact data directory location can vary from system to system. To access it, connect to the Console of QNAP via SSH and then enter:

getcfg -f /etc/config/qpkg.conf PlexMediaServer Install_path

From the result given to you, then add /Library/Plex Media Server to the end of it. You might end up with a path like the following (this is just an example!):

/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer/Library/Plex Media Server

ReadyNAS

/apps/plexmediaserver/MediaLibrary/Plex Media Server/

Seagate

The exact install location can vary from system to system. To access it, first enter the appropriate rainbow container, from the command line:

sudo rainbow —enter com.plex.plexmediaserver

Once in, you can go to the data directory:

/data/plex_conf/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server

Snap

/var/snap/plexmediaserver/common/Library/Application Support

Synology

DSM 7

/volume1/PlexMediaServer/AppData/Plex Media Server

DSM 6

/volume1/Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/

TerraMaster

/home/plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server

Thecus

/raid/data/module/Plex/sys/Plex Media Server/

Western Digital

/mnt/HD/HD_a2/plex_conf/Plex Media Server/

Western Digital My Passport Wireless Pro:

/shares/Storage/.wdcache/.plexmediaserver/Application Support/Plex Media Server/

Use IMDB title to search for film

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201018497-fix-match-match/

Search for your film using IMDB.com

once found use the ttXXXXXXXXXXXXX number to identify

user "imdb-ttXXXXX" as the search term