Syncing watchlist between Trakt and Plex always adds back removed items

[rfgamaral]

Confirmation

• I have read the README.md on the project homepage
• I have checked if identical issue already exists
• I have tried downgrading to find version that can be used as a workaround

The problem

Syncing my watchlist between Trakt and Plex does not preserve remove state, that is:

• If I remove an item from my Trakt watchlist, I expected the item to be removed from Plex on the next sync
• If I remove an item from my Plex watchlist, I expected the item to be removed from Trakt on the next sync

Error trace / logs

I removed 3 movies from my Trakt Watchlist and ran plextraktsync sync --sync=movies:

2022-12-01 12:19:58,946 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:PlexTraktSync [0.24.5]
2022-12-01 12:19:59,275 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Sync Movie sections: [<PlexLibrarySection:movie:Concerts>, <PlexLibrarySection:movie:Movies>]
2022-12-01 12:20:01,890 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Concerts processed in 2.6 seconds
2022-12-01 12:20:09,803 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Movies processed in 7.9 seconds
2022-12-01 12:20:17,613 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Adding 'Amsterdam' to Trakt watchlist
2022-12-01 12:20:31,097 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Adding 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' to Trakt watchlist
2022-12-01 12:20:35,505 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Adding 'Deepwater Horizon' to Trakt watchlist
2022-12-01 12:20:48,794 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Skipping 'Untitled Ghostbusters: Afterlife Sequel' from Trakt watchlist because not found in Plex Discover
2022-12-01 12:20:52,170 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Skipping 'The King' from Trakt watchlist because not found in Plex Discover
2022-12-01 12:20:52,185 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Updated watchlist and/or liked list in 40.7 seconds
2022-12-01 12:20:52,322 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Completed full sync in 53.1 seconds

I removed 3 movies from my Plext Watchlist and ran plextraktsync sync --sync=movies:

2022-12-01 12:21:57,098 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:PlexTraktSync [0.24.5]
2022-12-01 12:21:57,184 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Sync Movie sections: [<PlexLibrarySection:movie:Concerts>, <PlexLibrarySection:movie:Movies>]
2022-12-01 12:21:58,890 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Concerts processed in 1.7 seconds
2022-12-01 12:22:06,670 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Movies processed in 7.8 seconds
2022-12-01 12:22:59,716 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Skipping 'Untitled Ghostbusters: Afterlife Sequel' from Trakt watchlist because not found in Plex Discover
2022-12-01 12:23:04,296 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Skipping 'The King' from Trakt watchlist because not found in Plex Discover
2022-12-01 12:23:04,919 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Adding 'Amsterdam' to Plex watchlist
2022-12-01 12:23:06,450 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Adding 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' to Plex watchlist
2022-12-01 12:23:07,845 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Adding 'Deepwater Horizon' to Plex watchlist
2022-12-01 12:23:08,483 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Updated watchlist and/or liked list in 1 min 0.1 seconds
2022-12-01 12:23:08,486 INFO[PlexTraktSync]:Completed full sync in 1 min 11.3 seconds

Expected behavior

• Removed items from Plex Watchlist should be removed from Trakt Watchlist on the next sync
• Removed items from Trakt Watchlist should be removed from Plex Watchlist on the next sync

Steps to reproduce the behavior

Any sync command results in the issue.

Inspect of problematic items

No response

Workarounds

No response

Install method

docker-compose

Config file contents

# Config File: /app/config/config.yml
cache:
  path: /app/config/.cache/trakt
config:
  dotenv_override: true
excluded-libraries:
- Samples
logging:
  append: true
  console_time: true
  debug: false
  filename: plextraktsync.log
  filter: null
plex:
  timeout: 30
sync:
  plex_to_trakt:
    collection: false
    ratings: false
    watched_status: true
    watchlist: true
  trakt_to_plex:
    liked_lists: false
    ratings: true
    watched_status: true
    watchlist: true
    watchlist_as_playlist: false
watch:
  add_collection: true
  remove_collection: true
  scrobble_threshold: 80
  username_filter: true
xbmc-providers:
  movies: imdb
  shows: tvdb

Version

0.24.5

Python Version

3.11.0

Operating System and Version

Synology (Linux)

[simonc56]

When there is a Movie in one watchlist but not in the other watchlist, how could the script kow if it should remove it from the first watchlist or add it in the second wtchlist ?

[rfgamaral]

I can't work out the details right now because I don't know how exactly each API works, but it should be possible by keeping some local state for the previous sync for each watchlist, and do some condition checks.

Right now, the way it's implemented, it acts more like a "mirror" than a "sync".

[glensc]

FYI: After #1238 (0.24.6) watchlist sync is disabled if --sync=movies is specified.

[simonc56]

FYI: After #1238 (0.24.6) watchlist sync is disabled if --sync=movies is specified.

Not relevant here because watchlist_as_playlist=false

[rfgamaral]

And I only used --sync=movies in my examples because I was testing and didn't want to go through syncing my TV Shows. For actual syncing, I use the Ofelia approach described in the README.

[simonc56]

Workaround is to sync watchlist only one-way (plex_to_trakt or trakt_to_plex).

[rfgamaral]

Not really a workaround for me, I have no use for having just one of them enabled. Either 2-way sync works taking into account removed items, or I might as well just turn off both plex_to_trakt and trakt_to_plex 😔

[glensc]

I noticed the trakt response includes list: updated_at, could that be useful?

2022-12-27 09:39:21,429 DEBUG[PlexTraktSync]:Updated Trakt watchlist: {'deleted': {'movies': 3, 'shows': 1, 'seasons': 0, 'episodes': 0}, 'list': {'updated_at': '2022-12-27T07:39:20.000Z', 'item_count': 29}}

---

also, trakt side/sync/watchlist and /users/id/watchlist have listed_at timestamp. maybe useful?

    "listed_at": "2014-09-01T09:10:11.000Z",

• https://trakt.docs.apiary.io/#reference/sync/get-watchlist/get-watchlist
• https://trakt.docs.apiary.io/#reference/users/watchlist/get-watchlist

[glensc]

so, the trakt response has:

{'id': 773647533,
  'listed_at': '2022-12-07T10:34:20.000Z',
  'movie': {'ids': {'imdb': 'tt0070948',
                    'slug': 'zardoz-1974',
                    'tmdb': 4923,
                    'trakt': 2858},
            'title': 'Zardoz',
            'year': 1974},
  'notes': None,
  'rank': 8,
  'type': 'movie'}

but all data that's not inside movie gets lost, because only movie data is collected:

• https://github.com/glensc/python-pytrakt/blob/143344b298d6c079cb4393eb92d02d376cfcf3fe/trakt/users.py#L328-L342

so would need new data class to pytrakt that has listed_at, notes, movie, rank, type properties?

[glensc]

actually, watchlist_shows would pass the extra data to TVShow:

• https://github.com/glensc/python-pytrakt/blob/143344b298d6c079cb4393eb92d02d376cfcf3fe/trakt/users.py#L323

but I guess a new class with extra fields would be a cleaner solution.

[simonc56]

I noticed the trakt response includes list: updated_at, could that be useful?

Explain how useful it is please.

[glensc]

I noticed the trakt response includes list: updated_at, could that be useful?

Explain how useful it is please.

please note the question form of the sentence.

the idea was to compare plex side watchlistedAt vs trakt side listed_at. for this to be useful, need the third timestamp, when was the last sync ran, such timestamp is not available.

do you see a solution how to do with only two timestamps? something like compare newest entry in plex = last update in plex side, and same for trakt?

[rfgamaral]

@glensc I have a Trakt Pro subscription, and I could make a feature request on the Trakt VIP forums to improve the API to allow this use case, I just need to know the exact requirements. Let me know how I can help.