I have a problem. When I download course videos from various MOOCs, the videos get grouped together by PLEX. I'm not really sure why this feature even exists in the first place, because it just disables playback of certain videos in the library (why would I ever store a video that cannot be played?). I don't want to hear about renaming to some bogus naming convention that doesn't apply to the courses (like s01e01... etc). I don't want to rename them when the existing names work fine.
How can I disable this feature (server wide would be good)?
This does (kind of) solve the issue for my classes, as long as I view by folder; as in it gives gives me the ability to play the videos, and I can use the folder view to the organization pattern. However, I would prefer an option that doesn't organize all the files as a flat list when I use the "All" view. At least grouping the folders into some sort of object that allows me to add some meta data (like instructor, school, website, etc...)
Honestly, if I could disable the grouping feature for the entire server, the series scanner would work perfectly. I also have a similar problem with some series that I have on my computer that don't match the preferred naming convention, but I would prefer not to write a few dozen scripts to rename all the files (and doing it manually is not an option).
So, I rephrase my question, is there a way to remove/disable the grouping feature on the Plex server entirely? (Because it's worthless and only causes problems.) I may be too optimistic, but is there a config file somewhere that would have an option to do this?
So, I rephrase my question, is there a way to remove/disable the grouping feature on the Plex server entirely? (Because it's worthless and only causes problems.) I may be too optimistic, but is there a config file somewhere that would have an option to do this?
Most of the point of plex is the metadata feature. You have 2 options really, use a home videos library or restructure and name your videos according to the TV Shows Naming Convention.
I'd Recommend using Ember Media Manager to setup the videos and set the metadata. Then use the XBMC-NFO metadata agent to get them into plex. It's long work sometimes, but well worth it in the end (IMO).
I hate to seem ungrateful that you took the time to respond, but renaming the collection is exactly what I am trying to avoid. My question is, can I disable the grouping feature for the entire server? I don't know why anyone would want to store videos that they cannot play on their computer in the first place, but apparently this behaviour is acceptable for some reason unknown to me.
If anyone knows an answer to this question, I would like to know. The naming conventions used by coursera, edx, udacity, TED, and hundreds of other repositories are not compatible with the PLEX grouping feature. I don't want renaming my video library to be a full time job.
The problem with the home video library is that it doesn't support continuous playback (or I don't know how to enable that for the personal video library).
However, based on these responses, it appears the answer to my question is simply no.
I did try to create a playlist... the problem there is that you have to add each file to the playlist one at a time, which gets really old after about a hundred files... if there were a way to disable the media grouping, then I could just use the series library.
I'm really surprised this is such a difficult thing to do, especially because there are dozens of threads asking for this exact feature, and there is no reason for media grouping to exist in the first place. I mean, why wouldn't you just delete the files you don't want to be able to play? It makes no sense to group them so you can only play the first one and none of the others.
You can select multiple videos, but you can't add multiple videos to a playlist at the same time. That is the first solution I tried to this problem. However, these workarounds are completely different than my question.
Also, to clarify what I mean by grouping, I mean when a series of videos in the same season appear as one video with a number in the corner (indicating the number of files), but when I try to play the videos, only the first video will play. I don't understand why this feature exists, but for some reason I can't get rid of it without losing nearly all the features that make Plex cool.
Files are getting grouped because Plex thinks they're the same, if you don't want to rename this there isn't a way to get around this.
Unfortunately, Plex already has my money; plus, Kodi doesn't have remote streaming and all the other features I use. I don't understand why it would think different files are the same, but I guess not everything needs to make sense. Thank you for the response Zoidberg!
Perhaps I'll be able to find a workaround to get rid of the feature and maintain continuous playback and all the cool metadata features of Plex without spending more time renaming content than using it.
Hi, old thread but I have the same question. How do I disable grouping? I have a home movie folder that files are often grouped together and I then need to manually split them apart and then figure out which file is which. Just stop grouping files please. Thank you
