Server Version#: 1.28.2.6151 under Windows 11
Player Version#:
Since mid July’s update I noticed that Plex TV Series scanner/agent cannot find many episodes and sometimes not even the show. I tried to change to the legacy and everything works great.
After many updates later nothing has changed. I tried a new installation with a clear database but nothing changed. Many times it finds the series but only one episode or some seasons.
I created a new library and added some random episodes. It worked! Every episode was on the root folder of the library. When I moved them to subfolders, it broke again!
example: Series “Black Mirror” season 1: In root folder finds every episode right. If I move the under “Black Mirror/Season 1” or under any folder, finds only the second episode and even the match isn’t right.
I tried to change the way I name the episodes, nothing worked. I cleaned bundles, I deleted manually the “appdata” folder etc. The old agent works great.
It worked for this show. Now I have to check it for the rest. But I don’t understand for what reason it broke now. My library works like that for over a decade with no problems.
That’s only a temporary solution. The agent is not working right. Because if my naming was wrong, should not work with other agents not even on root folder.
If you were using an unsupported naming schema / folder organization, you could have gotten lucky for a decade. It’s always worth sticking to the official naming schema.
My guess would be that Black Mirror S01E02 - 15 is getting detected in plex as episode 2 to 15 based off your naming and when you use Black Mirror - S01E02 - 15 with the - between show name and episode ids plex then detects it correctly.
I have to edit the whole library (over 100 shows) to check it. But the weird for me is that the naming worked until last 2-3 months, and still works on root folder. And of course it still works for many other shows (under subfolders). So definitely the agent is somewhere broken.
The agent isnt broken, its a case of inconsistent naming. You should have <show title> - S<SS#>E<EE#> - <Title>.<ext> per the official naming guide. However because you included the - between the E# and title section, but forgot it from between show title, and SS# you confused the scanner. Your format should work for most files except those titles starting with a number.
My issue was a bit random. That show was just an example.
My main file format was “Show [$$x##] title” $$(season number) / ##(episode number).
Friends [01x01] Pilot.mkv
The format I provided earlier was a change.
This format still works for the majority of my library. The “problem” was random. Suddenly I lost the 10th season of “Friends”. From an other show I lost certain episodes or seasons or even the whole show!
The problem for me is that the agent cannot always detect the episodes under subfolders, because when there are placed in the root folder it always detect them right.
Ah Ha!!, about 6-9 months ago, plex dropped support for the [SSxEE] format. anything inside of [ ] are now ignored.
If plex ever rescans/matches the files their matching can get lost, and cause all kinds of problems. I ran a renamer thru mine and stripped the brackets out.
Yeah, they did it to standardize the treatment of brackets, and create a standard that plex can use to ignore information. You now use the brackets for info you don’t want plex to process (codecs resolution, ect)
@JaysPlex
Given what I’ve seen in the past, and his comment above, naming was the root cause, and its kinda what I expected. was just trying to work the user thru the problem, and not just call them out on it, as the response tends to get hostile after that.
If you want to save yourself a lot of time I would recommend using Download - tinyMediaManager and use ${title} (${year}) {imdb-${imdb}} as the new name format for movies.
Episode format: ${showTitle} - S${seasonNr2}E${episodeNr2} - ${title}
