Attn: Plex Devs: Please Fix (Bug?) or Explain - Merged Titles Lose "Local Extras"

General Discussions
1

Hello,

I recent started using and now I am loving Plex and have begun migrating my entire video collection over the next few months (carving out the special features on titles and encoding everything with HEVC/h.265 is taking a long time per movie!) to the Plex file structure.

Scenario:

HD Movie File:
M:\Plex\Blu-Ray\Example Movie (2016)\Example Movie (2016) - HD.mkv

SD Movie File
M:\Plex\DVD\Example Movie (2016)\Example Movie (2016) - SD.mkv

Local Extras
M:\Plex\DVD\Example Movie (2016)\Featurettes\Example Extra.mkv

When Plex scans the library, it correctly merges the poster art and information into one object so only one movie listing is available with the two playable Titles (SD and HD). However, none of the “Local Extras” appear as they did before the merge.

Before comments flow in, please note that I know that I can move the two Movie files into the same folder or split the titles into two objects/posters but I choose to not do it that way. I use my folder structure to know what movie is in what physical tote in my storage space. This issue occurrence is rare due to the fact that is really an issue for movies where I have purchased several versions of the same film. Instead of moving special versions or features to a consolidated movie folder, I would like to keep the films in their own folders so the extras stay with the specific version of the title. I don’t see any reason as to why the Local Extras are not being merged or could not be merged. I have seen other threads about this issue in research mentioned years ago without any response.

Thanks for any assistance and consideration regarding this issue.

-Travis

2

It would help if your media were named per the naming rules.

Please see https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200220677-Local-Media-Assets-Movies

Scroll down to : “Local Trailers and Extras”
There you will see how to properly name your extras (featurettes, etc)

3

@ChuckPa said:
It would help if your media were named per the naming rules.

Please see https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200220677-Local-Media-Assets-Movies

Scroll down to : “Local Trailers and Extras”
There you will see how to properly name your extras (featurettes, etc)

Hi Chuck,

Thanks for trying to assist. They are using the naming rules using the method “Organized in Subdirectories” at the bottom of the document. The Local Extras work great on all titles except merged titles, that is the issue I am dealing with.

-Travis

4

Travis,
I understand how putting the extras in subdirectories is good for organizing. Have you tried applying both techniques? I tried that a while back and had success with it.

Movie/
    Movie.ext
    Movie.eng.srt
    Extras/
       Deleted Scenes-deleted.mkv
       Feature 1-featurette.mkv
5

Try this. https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1239974/#Comment_1239974

6

As mentioned in the post @MovieFan.Plex mentioned, the extras need to be in the directory of the first movie scanned, not the merged version. I would try moving the folder and files within “M:\Plex\DVD\Example Movie (2016)\Featurettes” to “M:\Plex\Blu-Ray\Example Movie (2016)”

You will probably have to refresh the movie to get the extras to show up.

7

@MovieFan.Plex said:
Try this. https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1239974/#Comment_1239974

Thanks for the response! At least I now have an explanation as to the method Plex is using and why the issue occurs. In this I did the following to get the Extras to show up again.

  1. Move Title 1 (First Title Imported) of the movie out of the Plex Library. Re scanned the entire Library so it was removed.
  2. Re scanned the 2nd Title that had the extras associated with it, then the extras were restored.
  3. Move Title 1 back to the Plex Library location it resided at before and refreshed the entire Library.

Essentially this swapped the 2nd Title with the Extras to become the First Imported Title which resolved the issue in this scenario.

That said, if both Title 1 and Title 2 have Local Extras it doesn’t seem that there is a solution besides breaking up my folder structure and placing extras in a location they do not actually belong to. To my point, I want to keep the titles and their associated extras together but when a merged title occurs, then merge the available extras too. I understand that there are ways to make it appear correctly in the clients but I think the issue should be addressed by development. My perception is this; if the Plex product has finally made it into my wheelhouse then the product isn’t so much as a niche product as it was before and is trying to turn toward more mainstream, especially since the DVR Beta feature is what got me to finally install the Plex platform. It’s time to put polish on features so as new users do not experience these little “nagging” issues that pop up. Often, I enjoy the inside look into the movie via the “Extras” than some of the films themselves. I am going to spend hundreds if not thousands of hours trying to get my library setup with all of these “Extras” associated with my movie titles, an associated amount of development time so other new users will not have even known this was an issue seems appropriate. Also, most people care not about “Extras” and only rip the main title so trying to get a solution in as a voted “Feature Request” would never happen and as such this should be identified now as a “Bug” as development has not finished the implementation to handle all variables. How does something like this actually become something to be addressed?

Thanks so much for your time and insight,

-Travis