File Naming for TV Series in Plex folders

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

Server Version#: 4.66.1 (Windows PC) and v1.24.1.4931 (nVidia Shield Pro)
Player Version#: can’t find anywhere, is it per nVidia?

Issue: Filenames including S0 do not show in Plex libraries, using filename format Series.SS03E02-EpisodeName.mp4 It doesn’t matter if delimiters are a dot as shown, a space, and underline or a dash, nor whether capitalised or not. The files don’t show. But get rid of the S and they turn up immediately, both on my PC Chrome Plex and nVidia Pro Plex app. All my files are on a remote Synology NAS DS415+ with a Gb wired connection, verified.

It seems like such a basic problem it should be affecting a big percentage of users. But search for it and silence… so, how is it so? What have I missed / stuffed up? I do have two 512Gb SD cards stuck in the Shield, one to storage and other to something internal, I forget now; it seems to be happy.

I did have a Plex server on the NAS but deleted it. No change. So I deleted it on the nVidia Shield Pro too and set it all up again from scratch. No change, but did learn a couple of new tricks (irrelevant here). I am pretty sure I found a slight improvement in behaviour if I told it the Series were Movies (not tv shows) but can’t remember exactly what that was in this sea of performance failure.

I have Movies in a folder on a Synology NAS DS415+, also with Movies-Watched and I am happy to move them around manually to suit; they are fine but no S0’s in them. Same arrgt with tv series, and they are split into sub-folders, one for each show and all the episodes go in there - initially in the Series-New\SeriesName folder and later in the Series-Watched…

Obviously I can go rename all these files, probably sort out a DOS batch command for that, but why…? There are a few hundred all up, collected over the years. Any of these files are immediately visible if I go direct from the Samsung tv to the server and everything is all there, just using filename and plays fine, minus the amp as I have never sorted out that back audio thing.

Love some tips on what is going on here. Handy if the problem could be replicated elsewhere too (rename a file, do a library scan whilst viewing the folder and see if the file disappears). Thank you.

2

This is the only supported naming method: Naming and Organizing Your TV Show Files | Plex Support

Notice the presence of one subfolder per season and the use of spaces.

3

Yes, I have seen that and it says I shouldn’t have a problem. So I did a little experiment.

I copied the example title, being “Band of Brothers (2001) - s01e01 - Currahee”, admittedly used for an .mkv file, and I changed a Filename that was previously “Banshee.S03E02.mp4” to “Band of Brothers (2001) - 01e01 - Currahee.mp4”. I also changed another episode to lose the S, nothing more. Went to the Chrome Plex and updated the library. The one I dropped the S on showed. So Back to Windows File Mgr (where the server is mapped to a drive) and only made one change, deleted the s in s01. Updated the library and now I have both files showing.

Therefore I can prove the advised way isn’t working, for me. And totally replicable, by me. Why is it so?

PS: just tried changing .mp4 to .mkv suffix. It only showed if I dropped the S. And it played too! I have .avi’s in the same folder, all dependent on losing the S to turn up in Plex library.

4

It might be due to the same files having incorrect names and folder organization before.
Plex memorizes a file’s contents (to a degree) and can recognize a file even if it changed its name.

I recommend you to restore the recommended naming schema (don’t forget the subfolders per season), then perform the Plex Dance to make Plex forget what those files looked like and treat them as completely unknown.

5

But that doesn’t fit the symptoms. The files are unchanged. And I did a total reinstall of Plex on the nVidia, restart the device, all the stuff. It is a brand new installation that didn’t work from the get-go, in regard to this particular aspect. I even tried a forced refresh by renaming the folder (once I stumbled onto the S thing as the core culprit) and reloaded all the meta data with no changed behaviour.

There are 1,265 files in 38 folders, Windows assures me. And every one uses an S0 naming convention, and every one (I have tried) appears in the library if I lose the S, to put something in those 38 empty folders. So this is a system level thing SOMEWHERE, and there must be a way to diagnose it .vs. guessing with unrelated direct causes.

Sure I now know I can do a batch change, maybe as that ren /s command can do weird stuff. I know if I try to change all S0’s to 0’s it will trip up, but changing to 00’s could work. Hey, let me go try different letters…

6

Well there ya go. I swapped the S on 5 files for A, C, K M and NS. Only the NS one didn’t show

7

Please show me a full folder path to one of the files.
(found in the Plex media info)

Please do also show the folder name which you told Plex to watch for this library.
(found in the properties of this library, on the “Add folders” tab)

8

So this is the name of a visible (ie dropped S) file from Get Info: " * /storage/SYNO1/video/Series-Watched/Banshee/Banshee.03E04.mp4". When I copy paste it, that leading * turns up - it is not visible in the path.

This is the library folder: “/storage/SYNO1/video/Series-Watched”, note no leading *.

I also experimented with other letter combos and the conclusion is it is the S0 combination that is triggering a hide outcome. When I rename them to have S0 again, on a library scan the renamed file briefly flashes a red movie reel character over the file icon, then it vanishes completely. So something looks and says this file is deleted so removes it from the library. Put anything else in front of that leading zero and its all good.

9

You are still missing the per-season subfolders.
Make that
/storage/SYNO1/video/Series-Watched/Banshee/Season 03/Banshee.03E04.mp4
For your specials, you can use Season 00 or Specials as folder names.

10

That is just pointless. If I deleted all other than the first Season, it is the same problem. Sure there may be problems with metadata due to that kind of thing, and I do appreciate this may be something I should do for library ‘beautifulness’. But it is nothing to do with the core problem as I could rename them all exactly per the given example (albeit all wrong meta) and have the same precise problem, as I have proven.

Interestingly, it is only the first 0 that is the problem. If I swap E and S around, it is fine (ie Banshee.E03S04.mp4), which I just tried. This is an accidental coding nugget of some kind. Have you tried to replicate it?

11

The season folder is not optional. It must be there, even for series with only one season.

12

I didn’t make entirely clear, but my process of putting new episodes into their own sub-folder causes exactly the same problem, with only one file in there. That I later move them and see the problem replicated to all similarly named files is just expected.

13

And, let’s be honest, this is a really silly bug to have, don’t you think? Have you tried to replicate it?

14

What bug? I cannot replicate this behaviour, when I adhere to the documented naming schema.

15

OK, just for fun, I made for folders called “Season 01” etc, and moved files in there. Now a rescan gets me four empty folders, because I reverted all names to the sensible S01E01 format. So magic doesn’t happen, in this case. I know I’m ‘special’, sorry about that; I don’t want to be!

Whatever the problem is, it is evidently not down this rabbit hole. That you can’t replicate the problem is useful. And why there isn’t a bunch of reports already, given the exact correct examp[le stuffs it for me too.

16

So I rename a different file to be visible, and it is here: “* /storage/SYNO1/video/Series-Watched/Banshee/Season 04/Banshee.04E06.mp4”

Is that not full compliance with the mason’s handshake of file organisation?

17

Is this library actually of the type “TV Show”?

Edit your library.
Go to the ‘Advanced’ tab and disable the checkbox “Prefer local metadata” if it’s active.
Then perform the Plex Dance with this whole show – including all steps and in the noted order.

18

No, not at the moment, I set it to Movies after some other conniption on the previous Plex installation. I will change and report back.

19

There you have the reason. Files (correctly) named like a tv show episode are ignored in Movie libraries and vice versa.

20

Turns out not to be the reason. I am totally happy to go move the series files to a new TV directory, scan, delete, detrash etc. But first I tried a little experiment. Went to the Movies directory and renamed a movie to include S01E01 and poof, off it went. How does that fit the theory?

To be specific, this is the movie name that winked out, as renamed: “Bob.Dylan.S01E01Odds.And.Ends.2021.mp4”.

There has to be somewhere else to look or other process to try. And, once I find a basic solution, moving all the series across properly to a tv folder needs to be part of my “ownership experience”, for sure… I do have the lifetime Flex pass, but can’t see how that would trigger something.