Ghost media from missing drive still showing in library

[obvixus]

Hi everyone,

I’m running Jellyfin version 10.10.7 on Windows. Recently, one of the hard drives containing part of my library failed. I replaced it, moved all the media to a new drive, removed the old drive path from my libraries, and added the new one instead.

The new media plays fine, but I’m now seeing duplicates for almost everything — especially in TV shows, where I get two episode 1s, two episode 2s, etc. One of them works (from the new drive), and the other seems to be a leftover from the old library setup, even though the files no longer exist. These “phantom” episodes are often marked as “Hériter” in content type.

I tried library scans and refreshes, but they’re still showing up.

Is there a proper way to completely clean up the old metadata and have Jellyfin rebuild everything from the current files only, without these ghost entries from the dead drive?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[bitmap]

Can you try removing the library, refreshing, then adding the library back with the new drive path?

[obvixus]

Sorry for the late reply!

Here's my current situation: my library now points to A:\, which is the new disk — the previous (failed) one was D:\. I already removed the old path from the library settings (screenshot: https://prnt.sc/DeGWZq7tft9J).

However, now my seasons look broken (screenshot: https://prnt.sc/nb8x2387w3Ut), and I see these "ghost" episodes where the content type is always marked as "Hériter" (screenshot: https://prnt.sc/836RUd_MRkcJ) — I’m not sure what that means.

Do you want me to try removing the A:\ library completely, refreshing, and then re-adding it again?

[bitmap]

Yes. If it's huge, maybe not. You can also try scanning the library (not scan all) and replacing all metadata, just be ready for a few outliers to correct.

[obvixus]

Thanks for your reply!

I tried what you suggested (removing and re-adding the library, scanning with metadata replacement, etc.), but unfortunately it didn’t work — those "ghost" episodes are still there, and the content type is still showing as "Hériter".

So I was wondering: is there maybe a folder or database where Jellyfin still stores references to the old D:\ path? Maybe some cache or SQLite database where I could manually remove any leftover entries linked to the old disk?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[obvixus]

Also, I came across this PR: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/pull/13760 — it looks like it addresses an issue where removing folders from the library doesn't properly remove associated metadata entries, which might be related to the "ghost" content I'm seeing.

Do you think it’s worth switching to the Stable Preview (v10.11.0-rc2) to benefit from that fix if I don’t find a workaround soon? Or should I wait for the official v10.11 release?

[theguymadmax]

Also, I came across this PR: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/pull/13760 — it looks like it addresses an issue where removing folders from the library doesn't properly remove associated metadata entries, which might be related to the "ghost" content I'm seeing.

Do you think it’s worth switching to the Stable Preview (v10.11.0-rc2) to benefit from that fix if I don’t find a workaround soon? Or should I wait for the official v10.11 release?

No, that's not a good idea. And it won't resolve the issue you're having. Remove your library, then re-add it. Items like watch status will be retained when you re-add your media.

[obvixus]

I tried completely removing all media from my smallest library: https://prnt.sc/lOYChduskKM6 — it was 100% cleared: https://prnt.sc/kABPfmHcubmw. Then I re-added the media: https://prnt.sc/e5UvEZOsie_s, and the ghost episodes came back: https://prnt.sc/i9XlFZ4S24Hi.

But I only have one folder with Formula episodes, on a single disk, and there's only one .mkv file per episode: https://prnt.sc/DbBVAkTyMTEW.

Would it make sense to try deleting the entire library and creating a brand new one from scratch, to see if the media are added correctly without any ghost episodes?

I'm just a bit hesitant, because it would take a long time to refresh everything — and I’m also worried about losing things like watch progress, likes, edited thumbnails, or anything else 😅