Okay, so I’ve got a bit of an odd one. My parents used a Synology NAS to host their PMS, and it worked out great for them. They gifted it to me a few days ago, and it’s been one frustration after another to get things working on my network. To make a long story short, I updated PMS and finally corrected the erroneous settings enough for it to be visible, and I tested it by playing a couple of movies simultaneously at home. Success! Or so I thought.
Here’s where it gets odd. So, my movies and recorded TV shows are in subfolders within the same Shared Folder in my NAS. But while all the movies in the movies subfolder works just fine, none of the TV shows work at all. They show up, but trying to play them gets me that “Please check that file exists and that the drive is mounted” error. I’ve verified it shows up in the NAS, I’ve double-checked the permission settings (the plex user has R/W authority for the entirety of my Shared Folder, and I HAVE forcibly applied permissions to all subfolders just to be safe, followed by multiple restarts of the NAS). I even downloaded the file onto my Windows laptop to make sure it wasn’t corrupted somehow, and it played fine.
I’m just hoping to get some answers. Movies that work and TV shows that don’t (same file types) live on the same Shared Folder, just in different subdirectories, and I don’t understand where it’s going wrong. Could I get some help please?
I’ve checked the recommended naming and organization. From what I’m seeing, I appear to be following that. My structure is this:
/5BayNAS
/Plex Media files
/Films
/Film Category
/Film Name (Year) Extra Information
/TV Series
/Series Name (Year)
/Season Number
Besides, if it was problem with the naming convention or organization, wouldn’t it be a problem with the video simply not showing up correctly in Plex to begin with? I checked the logs myself Logs (1).zip (6.0 MB) and I’m seeing errors regarding Content Length is -1 (of total: -1)
Finally, I don’t mean to be that guy, but if the problem was organization or naming convention, why would the TV series have worked for my father’s Plex to begin with? The problems I had getting this working with mine had to do with his cached Plex account credentials and a static DNS Server IP address that he’d entered.
Upon further pondering, I believe I understand what you were trying to say earlier. Let me clarify. I have my Movies and TV Shows separated in Plex. I was saying they’re in different subdirectories of my Shared Folder 5BayNAS, where I have double-checked the plex user to make sure the permissions are set correctly. I don’t understand why it’s running Movies fine, but not TV Shows.
I believe I may have found the problem, and I can only kick myself for not seeing it before. My father was doing some reorganizing of the media in the last few months, which involved renaming a couple of the folders. I believe the problem was as simple as a broken link.
I’ve corrected the library definitions now, and it’s scanning through everything. I sincerely apologize for wasting your time. I’ll respond back in several hours after it’s had a chance to get through this massive library. Hopefully that will have resolved the issue.
Yes. Noticed that after your post. We were typing updates at the same time.
It is your naming structure.
This is wrong:
/TV Series/Complete series/Babylon 5 (1994)/Season 1/Babylon 5 S01E01 Midnight on the Firing Line.mkv
Use: /TV Series/Babylon 5 (1994)/Season 01/Babylon 5 (1994) - s01e01 - Midnight on the Firing Line.mkv
Differences:
Mandatory: Do not use folders like “Complete Series.”
Preferable: Use 2 digits for season, unless season has 3 or 4 digits
Preferable: Use dashes and spaces before and after the sxxeyy in file name.
I know it sounds incredibly picky, but Plex is that way with TV shows. Stray from the recommendations and it might work, but you’re just getting lucky and it will come back to bite you at some point. Review the docs I linked earlier.
Thanks again for taking the time. Looks like we both worked it out about the same time. I’ll take care of the naming convention, too. I’ll respond back later to make sure all’s well.
I sincerely appreciate you being so swift and thorough with your response!
