Server Version#:1.21.0.3616-d87012962
Player Version#: Version 4.47.1
I know I will catch a lot of heck from all you fanboys that are supposed to be providing “support” for Plex and don’t want to hear anything bad about your precious Plex. (I wish Plex, who are glad to take our money, would provide REAL and DIRECT support, maybe they are scared to actually support their product!) But this is the 3rd time I have tried to get Plex to work and doesn’t. The first was on a Synology NAS, Now twice on my Windows 10 computer. Yes they meet all the specs needed. But when I setup the folders off my NAS, Plex sees the folders but out of HUNDREDS of videos/movies it only finds 25. I have made over 30 folders to itemize and make categories. Plex says that there is nothing in these folders and yes I have waited for more than 8 hours and tried to rescan these folders multiple times. No new items show up. Yes the items are available, I can see AND run them on OTHER platforms. So Plex is the ONLY one that does not see or find them. I am trying to use Plex as the others either are local network only or if I do play them WAN they breakup the video so that I have to play each segment separately. But this is my 3rd try at this, I even started all over again from scratch and waited over 30 days to reestablish my account. Nothing has worked correctly.
Sounds like a permission issue .
eg i store my stuff on a nas depending on what os I decided to run a fresh install of plex on depends if i need to go change Permissions.
Evan if plex is running on windows and my files are on a Nas have look here. and maybe change a few of the files to test .
SSH to the nas and do what needs to be done.
Linux Permissions Guide | Plex Support
some helpful reading here.
Support Articles | Plex Support
Nope, if this were the case then NONE of the items would be there. ALL of the items were done the same way from the same application and are in the same folders as the 25 that show up. So if there were permission problems then NONE of them in the same folder would be showing up.
Can you go into the folder on the NAS via SSH and do :
$ls -l
Provide the output if you can.
It could also mean that they were consistently organized and named in a wrong way.
The few that show up, could be just a sign that Plex tried to make sense of the files and folders it found, but failed with most of them.
Please describe your file names and the folder structure you use.
Do also mention which folder has been added to the Plex library.
And please use actual examples.
Nothing wrong with SSH. If there was then none of the items in the SAME folder would show up! Also ALL the other programs would not be able to access them. ONLY Plex cannot see them. I have more than 5 other programs that both see and play the items in the folders. They see ALL of the items. They just have playback limitations or issues.
So what you are saying is that out of over 1000 videos that can be seen by other programs, Plex can only see 25 and ALL the over 1000 left are ALL wrong for ONLY Plex? Yes, some of the names are different. Some have one solid name, some are spaced, some have underscores. But ALL can be seen by PowerDVD and VideoStation and Xbox mediaplayer and VLC and more I could go on. I have tried "organizing them multiple ways. All in the same folder, Then in just general groups now in specific named groups and categories. NONE worked for Plex, ALL worked for more than a half dozen other programs. If Plex is that weak on protocol and structure it needs a lot of work. So far the only good thing I have found about Plex is that for the few items that do play, it played well.
file names: Vacation or RV or Short Circuit or Life_of_Brian. Doesn’t matter how I name them. Folder: z:\Video1\Comedy. NONE of the over 50 items in this folder have been found by Plex. ALL have been found by every OTHER program I have tried.
Sounds like you need to read:
The other applications you cite are more than likely just reading the filesystem, Plex is attempting to do much more than this. If you simply want to browse the file system via Plex, use the “Other Video” library type, however you will not get any meta data this way.
If you don’t want to do the work to rename and organize them properly, try creating a library of the type “Other Videos”.
(it might still fail with tv series, though)
Plex can actually see them all. It looks at every file in the specified folders and uses the filename to do an analysis for metadata collection. If the filename is something it can’t use to determine what the file is, it does not add it to the library. It will look as if it does not “see” them, when in fact it does but did not “add” them to the database.
File naming, as others have pointed out, is very important and your exact scenario is frequently reported as a problem when other users are not seeing files appear in Plex.
Try renaming your Life of Brian file to: Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979).mkv
Or use whatever .extension the container is. Redo the scan and see if it shows up. It also helps to have files in their own folders that match the name, but is not required. For TV shows the folder structure is much more important, for movies not so much. Using folders makes organizing a bit easier and is how I do it.
All of these programs play video files no matter what they are named. You can even give a text file a video file extension and they will try to play it.
Plex organizes, finds artwork and metadata and serves the files to numerous client apps.
To do this it requires a standardized file naming convention.
If you create a Movie library Plex expects the files to be movies that it can find info for using the file name as search criteria in TheMovieDB, for example. Go to themoviedb.org and search for Life_of_Brian. Try again with Life of Brian.
TV shows can be more complicated. The Office (US) and The Office (UK) for example. You need the US and UK designation.
In the end it is well worth the effort to organize your files.
So let’s see EVERY other video player in the WORLD is wrong and ONLY Plex is right? So I have to rename over 1000 movies just for Plex? Because Plex can’t seem to do what everybody else can?
So let’s see EVERY other video player in the WORLD is wrong and ONLY Plex is right? So I have to rename over 1000 movies just for Plex? Because Plex can’t seem to do what everybody else can? It can’t find the movie RV. That’s its WHOLE NAME. So what excuse will you come up with for Plex. It can’t find ONE NAME movies either.
BTW just to blow a complete hole in your fanboy defense of Plex. One of the 25 movies it DID see was Justice_League. But in the SAME folder, done with the SAME process and program. It WON’T see Green_Lantern or Suicide_Squad or Superman_Returns! I could name many more. All that are the movies COMPLETE NAME and all done the SAME way and in the SAME folder and with the SAME permissions.
in your fanboy defense of Plex.
I’m just telling you how it works, but if this is how you want to behave and see things, good luck to you.
Can you share your actual folder and file structure and point out exactly where in hierarchy you have pointed your movie library? A screenshot of File Explorer in Windows, showing the address bar, where you have browsed to your movie collection will do. And include a screenshot from the “Add Folders” tab of your movie library configuration.
Also, point out some movies which are matched and shown in your library and some which are not.
We’ve explained why that isn’t correct.
We’ve also explained how you csn have Plex just show the files without metadata the same way your other programs do.
What about every other Plex user in the world? Surely you don’t believe that all of us are having these issues and are covering it up just to mess with you do you?
We will help you if you want. Maybe you’re not using the right library type or agent.
I would if the “answers” weren’t anything but Plex fanboy responses. I have now tried two other services Emby and Jellyfin BOTH have issues as well (that I am trying to work out, but at least they FIND the movies and play them with out having to rename over 1000 movies or recreate dozens of folders, or have people who try to blame everything EXCEPT the program for not working. Like saying that the name and folder was wrong, except that it FOUND an item IN that folder with the SAME permissions and then DIDN’t find ANYTHING else in the SAME folder named the SAME WAY and done with the SAME file format. So sorry if that blows holes in the “it’s not Plex” mantra that goes on in this forum. Plex is all too happy to take money but then NOT support the product they put out. So only Plex does it right and all these other programs THAT find the files aren’t?
Too close to the truth huh?
Plex, Emby and Jellyfin are overkill for what you want. They all take a lot of work to set up and are all picky.
If all you want is the ability to play media files all you need is DLNA. Something like PS3 Media Server would fo the trick.
