I accidentally lost my database when my drive went offline for a couple of weeks. I"ve got all my movies matched correctly again but need to fix my music. I didn’t change the name of my files but for some reason this time it couldn’t scan them properly. I do not wish to rename my files as I have thousands of them and it was able to get many of them right before.
Can you tell me how to scan my music files and get the most correct matches? Currently in this folder of 1200 songs it didn’t get one right and I know it did before so I did something different and I’d like to do it correctly. I’m running the latest plex windows server.
Do the files have accurate embedded tags? Was Plex previously configured to prefer local metadata? If the answer to both questions is “Yes,” it may be that you haven’t configured Plex to prefer embedded tags this time.
If your tags are very accurate, Plex will do a pretty good job organizing your files, even if the folder/filename structure isn’t what Plex recommends. If you’re not using embedded tags, then Plex has to depend on the folder/filenames to identify them, and having all the files from multiple albums in a single folder won’t work.
Renaming your files to make Plex happy is a chore, but if you are in Plex for the long haul… consider it. Problem with albums incorrectly appearing as Various Artists, or what should be Various Artists getting some other band’s name are really likely otherwise, in my experience. (And it does seem random, things might scan OK one day, and you rebuild that library for some reason and it’s hosed the next time.)
If most of the files are tagged like in the screen shot, mp3tag can read them and write them out in the correct folder structure. You just use backslashes in the renaming tool to create folders, super easy!
I think the track number would first need to be altered to not include the slash and total but that is also easily done in mp3tag.
Considering the album title, I think Various Artists is actually correct in this case.
If all your files already have correct meta tags, you can move the files into the correct folder structure relatively easy.
You can use a tagger software like e.g. mp3tag and tell it to read the tags, then move the files accordingly.
Here is a format string which should work for mp3tag’s Convert -> Tags - Filename feature: $if2(%albumartist%,%artist%)\$if2(%album%\,)$if(%track%,$num(%track%,2) - ,)%artist% - %title%
There are a lot of problems in these tags. The artist name isn’t complete, the track title isn’t complete, the Track number (47/21) is really weird (track 47 of a total of 21?), and the disc “3/3.” As noted in the How-To article, including the totals in the track and disc fields can cause problems for Plex. This is why I said “If your tags are very accurate, Plex will do a pretty good job…”
Your settings look fine. On a side note, I’d recommend against using the “Store track progress” setting. This setting is intended for audiobooks, and it may be nice with hour-long music files, but most find it problematic in a regular music library. It won’t be the cause of the issues you’re having, though.
Thanks - I realize now I’ve asked the question wrong. I’m happy with the ID tags I have (don’t care about track number). I just want the artist, title of the song and maybe the album - no other info is necessary. all of the music I have has that info correct enough for me. Is there a way for plex to just use that info and not change my entire collection to Adele? I’m happy with just Marvin Gaye & Tammie Terre, I’m happy with Ain’t no mountain high eno - and happy with Absolute soul for the album title - still closer than De Szarte Lisjst 2016.
I think the confusion for Plex comes when it tries to match your albums at MusicBrainz. With inaccurate tags, I don’t think you can expect Plex to get it right, when MusicBrainz won’t give a good match.
You might be able to get what you want by using the old Plex scanner and the Personal Media Artists agent, as seen below, because I don’t think it queries MusicBrainz, but:
I don’t know if it will work.
The ‘Plex Media Scanner’ scanner is outdated. I don’t think they’ve said it officially, but since it has been replaced with the new scanner, I would expect it to go away at some point.
You’ll also be losing some of the features (not sure what those are) that the new scanner makes available.
Like I said before, Plex has to depend on either the folder/filename structure or the embedded tags to identify the music. If neither source of information is available and accurate, you can’t really expect Plex to work magic.
Even though I had tried Music Picard and filesync and one other program I tried MP3Tag and left it with the flat structure. I then removed the folder from music picard and addit it back in.
