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Stop trusting Plex's Date Added on its own

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Jess spotted that dates looked like file dates rather than library-add dates.
He is right, and MediaShelf was not the culprit: it reproduces Plex's addedAt
exactly (verified 500/500 identical to the second). Plex's own field is what
follows the file — replace or re-encode one and Date Added resets while the
item, its ratingKey and its watch history all survive.

Measured on the live library, comparing addedAt against lastViewedAt where both
exist: 55 of 509 movies (10.8%) and 306 of 1,393 TV Show Archive items (22.0%)
were watched BEFORE they were "added" — 19% overall. 2001: A Space Odyssey
reports added 2026-07-31, last watched 2017-08-26.

That is not cosmetic. pre_history is derived from added_at, so an old item whose
file was replaced looks post-coverage and gets promoted into the CONFIDENT
reclaim pool, which is the one pool meant to be trustworthy.

A completed play proves the item already existed, so added_at is now
MIN(provider_added_at, first_watched_at). Plex's raw value is kept in
provider_added_at, added_at_source records which applied, and the item drawer
explains the substitution instead of quietly disagreeing with Plex. Unwatched
items keep Plex's value since nothing contradicts it. first_seen_at is also
recorded now and is authoritative for anything added from here on.

Plex's API has no better field; the true insert time is only in Plex's own
metadata_items.created_at on Loki.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01GVbG48GAXfCZatcmX123Ra
This commit is contained in:
Jess Hallsworth 2026-09-10 17:35:48 +00:00
parent d12cbc62ee
commit e819548ff2
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9 changed files with 234 additions and 15 deletions
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10
mediashelf/static/app.js
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@ -551,7 +551,15 @@ async function openItem(id) {
const add = (k, v) => { dl.append(el('dt', { text: k }), el('dd', { text: v })); };
add('Library', it.library.title);
add('Size', `${bytes(it.size_bytes)} (${exact(it.size_bytes)})`);
add('Added', date(it.added_at));
if (it.added_at_source === 'first_watch') {
add('Added', `${date(it.added_at)} (corrected)`);
add('', `Plex reports ${date(it.provider_added_at)}, but it was already being ` +
`watched before then — Plex's Date Added follows the file, so replacing ` +
`or re-encoding one resets it. The first play is used as a lower bound.`);
} else {
add('Added', date(it.added_at));
}
if (it.first_seen_at) add('First seen by MediaShelf', date(it.first_seen_at));
add('Last played', it.last_watched_at ? `${date(it.last_watched_at)} (${agoPhrase(it.last_watched_at)})` : 'never');
add('Plays', `${it.watch_count} finished · ${it.partial_count} partial · ${it.abandoned_count} abandoned`);
add('Distinct viewers', it.distinct_watcher_count);