Jellyfin wiped entire movie library

[AntonyF]

I had an odd thing yesterday, whereby all my movies disappeared in Jellyfin, it reindexed them and then it was like starting again.

Thankfully I had taken a backup the day before for an upgrade, so I was able to restore without a complete loss.

While I've fixed the issue, I thought I'd share just in case it's an issue that may need to be flagged.

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This was on 10.10.7 on Windows 10. I had upgraded less than 24 hours before... not sure if that's coincidence or not.

The only other unusual thing is I have added a lot of movies over the last 48 hours as I digitised my DVD collection.

But other than that it was just normal use, I was moving a few files about and adding some entries then boom.

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In terms of error log, I didn't preserve the entire thing before I restored my old version, but I did have an excerpt - attached. Sorry if it's no help if incomplete.

I think where it occurs is here....
[2025-06-11 20:54:14.968 +01:00] [INF] [51] MediaBrowser.MediaEncoding.Encoder.MediaEncoder: Starting "ffprobe" with args "-analyzeduration 200M -probesize 1G -i file:\"E:\My Video\Films\Not owned\Män som hatar kvinnor.srt\" -threads 0 -v warning -print_format json -show_streams -show_format"
[2025-06-11 20:54:15.477 +01:00] [INF] [51] Emby.Server.Implementations.Library.LibraryManager: Removing item, Type: "Folder", Name: "Owned", Path: "E:\My Video\Films\Owned", Id: b294c013-0bb4-6256-3b92-0ca4330db495

Thanks

[Efficient_Good_5784]

Jellyfin will not delete things like that unless you stored your media files anywhere inside the Jellyfin cache and/or transcode directories.

Double check your installation and see if the media is not declared inside either of those folders.

[34626]

If, Jellyfin did delete it, then you just learned that you should configure your jellyfin server in a smarter way.

Below is an example of my configuration, first bind is an active folder (Movies) and the other bind is the (Test movies) where i put new movies and make jellyfon save the metadata to. (Remember in jellyfin to tell it to save .nfos) - Then i move the movies from bind 2 to bind 1 when it looks fine (posters etc.)

- type: bind
source: /path/to/media1
target: /media1
read_only: true
- type: bind
source: /path/to/media1_2
target: /media1_2

[Scrat134]

I had a situation vaguely like this.

https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-bulk-file-deltion-issue

Unfortunately, never did get to the bottom of why it did what it did (as my files were not saved in the cache dirs etc) but as a result, I will never trust Jellyfin with anything other than read only access to my media libraries.

Anecdotally, perusing the forums here, there seems to be a fair bit of this ("its deleted everything and I've no idea why!"), swiftly followed-up with a fair bit of "it'd never do that!" from the team, which is a shame, but it is what it is.

My recommendation as-is, would be providing Jellyfin with read only access is absolutely the way to go.

Glad you had a backup!

[AntonyF]

Sorry I perhaps wasn't clear... "all my movies disappeared in Jellyfin, it reindexed them"... it didn't actually delete the media, just the library within Jellyfin.

Although now you're worrying me it could actually delete media! LOL.

[AntonyF]

I actually have the log, I did save it... so if anyone wants to work out why Jellyfin decided to just wipe an entire library of data for no reason I can provide that.

Surely worth looking into why?

[theguymadmax]

Yes, you can attach it to a post as an attachment.