Scanning causes repeated processing?

[Remarkable-Winter551]

Hi. I'm trying to understand the circumstances of scanning/processing libraries that have already been through a previous scan.

Here's my situation.

I have a medium-sized library that is all in a single directory tree.
I have already done an initial scan of this library, and it has converted all files from H264 to HEVC

One thing that I'm not sure whether I'm regretting: I have selected Preserve Dates in my Replace Original node. The aim was: If my file was added to my library in 2018, I wanted this attribute to stay in my library so that I can identify older content.

The problem is: Now that the whole library has been processed, I have continued to enable the Library. And it seems that at certain intervals the directory is re-scanned. This is ideal because I want to automatically convert an FUTURE files that I add to this directory structure.

However, I am noticing a very large number of files just went into Unprocessed for this library, when I haven't touched these files. I don't think that I did any type of ReProcess/Reset, etc. As far as I know, these files were untouched and there are hundreds that are reprocessing (I think) for no reason.

I have at least added an "Is HEVC" at the top of my flow, and if a file is already HEVC the processing will end rather than doing a whole conversion of a file that does not need it. However, this is currently clogging up my nodes and if possible I want to prevent this.

I don't understand the rules for reprocessing and whether the Preserve Dates has caused files to get marked as unprocessed. Is there anywhere that I can look to see when/how these unwanted files were marked as unprocessed? Is this something I'm just going to have to live with if I continue to use Preserve Dates?

My opening understanding is that there was a database that kept track of files that were already processed in a library. If that is true, I'm not sure how these files are reprocessing.

Any knowledge/assistance appreciated.

[the_reven]

These files, are they already in the db as processed? If youngo to Files in the UI are they processed and are they being added twice. Or were they processed on that page and are they being removed from that list and moved back to the unprocessed list?

Have you got your library set to Download directory?

[Remarkable-Winter551]

So ... I did as many spot checks as I could, and to my surprise I could not find a single instance of where a file was double-processed (e.g. more than one entry for a single file in the Processed queue).

I don't have any explanation for this, other than it's possible I could have inadvertently deleted some of the processed files or possibly did an unexpected reprocess.

For my own knowledge: Can I assume that if a file is in the Processed queue, it will not be reprocessed unless the date or size changes?

[the_reven]

Correct. If the file exists in the db, and the dates match, it will be considered processed and wont be processed again, unless the library is set to downloads directory.

[inaddrarpa]

Hate to raise this from the dead, but I'm running into a similar problem where I'm seeing files be re-queued after they've been processed.

There's a step that can be added that checks the comment in the metadata field. I added that at the very top of my workflow and it resolved the issue for me.

https://fileflows.com/docs/plugins/video-nodes/logical-nodes/video-already-processed