File structure and naming for Movies

General Discussions
1

So I’ve been dabbling with Plex for about a year now with my RN 516 and they are finally getting a bunch of the kinks out. I’m even considering buying the Premium Plex pass it is getting so good.

One thing that is really bugging me though is how Plex is dealing with my ripped movies. Originally, when I started, Plex suggested to separate the movie out from the other files on the discs into separate sub directories which I did dutifully, as that made sense. I made a directory for each disc and then added all the recommended sub directories for the extras. Unfortunately, it appears that Plex isn’t doing anything with those subdirectories at all and the instructions have changed. So when I scan through my Movie Library, I get movies and behind the scene stuff and extras and on and on with no way to separate them all out.

What I was really hoping for was to see a listing of all my movies and then have the option to either just play the movie or see a list of all the extras included in that movie. This doesn’t appear to be an option at the moment. You can look by folder…but that stinks for many reasons.

Not to throw fuel on a fire…but not having this type of setup only makes the folks in the “I want to play ISOs” camp have a good reason for wanting to do so…

2

Works for me.
Show me a folder and file listing for a movie that misbehaves and I’ll show you to get it right.
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/sections/200098856-Naming-your-Movie-media-files

3

Thanks for your offer!

I updated my server software over the weekend and things are improving. It is even finding Delta Machine and a few other music albums (FINALLY) which it was ignoring for the last year. Things in the various sub-catagories aren’t showing up in the main list anymore. But now, I can’t find where to actually play them. I know where they are supposed to show up, but they are not. My local assets agent is turned on, but I’m not seeing them in Android, Roku, or Web.

4

Please, one thing after another.
This started as a question about movie extras. Now you are talking about music.
Let’s tackle the issues one by one, please.

5

Guess I should be more clear: My movie extras in their sub-catagories aren’t showing up in the main list anymore (which is what I was complaining about in my OP). But now, I can’t find where to actually play them. I know where they are supposed to show up, but they are not. My local assets agent is turned on, but I’m not seeing them in Android, Roku, or Web.

6

I can’t help you with such a broad error description, except with a link to the documentation how it is supposed to be named and organized.

See my first response.

7

Not sure what else to include in my problem. I have the directories set up just like the article suggests (using subdirectories, not file suffixes), but no extras show up with the movies in any of the Plex clients I’ve tried.

8

please show me one example with the actual filenames

9

Oh and btw, it does make a difference whether you use the ‘official’ plex metadata agents or some hacked/3rd party agents.
I hope you use Freebase/TheMovieDatabase and not something else?

10

Here is one movie:

Directory of V:\Movies\Shrek DVD (2001)

04/03/2015  04:48 PM    <DIR>          .
06/07/2015  03:33 PM    <DIR>          ..
04/03/2015  04:48 PM    <DIR>          Scenes
04/03/2015  04:29 PM    <DIR>          Behind The Scenes
04/03/2015  02:49 PM    <DIR>          Deleted Scenes
04/03/2015  04:48 PM    <DIR>          Interviews
04/03/2015  04:42 PM    <DIR>          Trailers
04/03/2015  03:05 PM     5,374,763,512 Shrek (2001).mkv
               1 File(s)  5,374,763,512 bytes

 Directory of V:\Movies\Shrek DVD (2001)\Scenes

04/03/2015  04:48 PM    <DIR>          .
04/03/2015  04:48 PM    <DIR>          ..
04/03/2015  04:16 PM       132,580,617 Crazy Fight.mkv
04/03/2015  04:17 PM       114,185,243 Crossing the Bridge.mkv
04/03/2015  04:22 PM       100,443,331 Karaoke Dance Party.mkv
04/03/2015  04:20 PM       170,931,503 Shrek_t14.mkv
04/03/2015  04:17 PM       161,364,216 Shrek Meets the Dragon.mkv
04/03/2015  04:17 PM       157,976,825 Shrek_t06.mkv
04/03/2015  04:17 PM       109,304,431 Shrek_t07.mkv
04/03/2015  04:18 PM       153,743,324 Shrek_t08.mkv
04/03/2015  04:18 PM       181,697,367 Shrek_t09.mkv
04/03/2015  04:19 PM       142,912,365 Shrek_t10.mkv
04/03/2015  04:19 PM        72,796,377 Shrek_t11.mkv
04/03/2015  04:19 PM       151,571,894 Shrek_t12.mkv
04/03/2015  04:19 PM        86,749,896 Shrek_t13.mkv
              13 File(s)  1,736,257,389 bytes

 Directory of V:\Movies\Shrek DVD (2001)\Behind The Scenes

04/03/2015  04:29 PM    <DIR>          .
04/03/2015  04:48 PM    <DIR>          ..
04/03/2015  03:07 PM        72,449,867 Foreign Voices.mkv
04/03/2015  03:08 PM        98,872,150 Bloopers.mkv
04/03/2015  03:08 PM        70,422,518 Deal Storyboard.mkv
04/03/2015  03:09 PM        68,238,615 Fiona Gets Them Lost Storyboard.mkv
04/03/2015  03:08 PM        76,189,380 Fion's Prolog Storyboard.mkv
04/03/2015  03:07 PM       797,172,480 Tech of Shrek.mkv
               6 File(s)  1,183,345,010 bytes

 Directory of V:\Movies\Shrek DVD (2001)\Deleted Scenes

04/03/2015  02:49 PM    <DIR>          .
04/03/2015  04:48 PM    <DIR>          ..
               0 File(s)              0 bytes

 Directory of V:\Movies\Shrek DVD (2001)\Interviews

04/03/2015  04:48 PM    <DIR>          .
04/03/2015  04:48 PM    <DIR>          ..
04/03/2015  04:22 PM       903,724,052 Interviews.mkv
04/03/2015  04:23 PM        49,040,331 Interview with the Fiona.mkv
               2 File(s)    952,764,383 bytes

 Directory of V:\Movies\Shrek DVD (2001)\Trailers

04/03/2015  04:42 PM    <DIR>          .
04/03/2015  04:48 PM    <DIR>          ..
04/03/2015  03:09 PM        84,308,386 Theatrical Trailer.mkv
04/03/2015  04:23 PM       139,041,236 I'm A Believer Video.mkv
               2 File(s)    223,349,622 bytes

     Total Files Listed:
              24 File(s)  9,470,479,916 bytes
              17 Dir(s)  10,405,325,586,432 bytes free

V:\Movies\Shrek DVD (2001)>
11

Sorry. I have no idea what this forum is doing to my pasted text. It looks just fine if I edit the post though…

12

Your folder structure is perfect. I’d rename the main folder of the Shrek movie to just Shrek (2001). If you want to indicate the quality or source, put it at the end of the folder name and enclose it in square brackets:
Shrek (2001) [DVD]

Now back to the agent and library configuration.
which version of the server are you running? (Settings - Server - General)
edit your movie library, go to the advanced tab and tell what is set for Scanner and Agent

13

Server version: 0.9.12.13
Plex Movie Scanner
Agent Freebase

14

did you update recently from a version before 0.9.11 ?

please show me a listing of the folder %LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server\Plug-ins\

15

The server is a RN 516 so I’m not sure where to find the plugin directory. Yes, I did 2 upgrades over the weekend though I’m not sure from where I started.

16

a short search in the ReadyNAS subforum yielded these paths:
/mnt/HD_a2/programs/plex/lib/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins
or
/apps/plexmediaserver/MediaLibrary/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins

but careful: if the folder name of the Plug-ins folder is appended with a 7digit hexadecimal number (e.g. Plug-ins-d6eb7e5), you’ve got the wrong folder.

17

Here you go:

 Directory of Q:\.apps\plexmediaserver\MediaLibrary\Plex Media Server\Plug-ins\W
ebManager.bundle\Contents\Resources\Frameworks\EKSpinner

06/30/2015  10:02 AM    <DIR>          .
06/30/2015  10:02 AM    <DIR>          ..
06/30/2015  10:02 AM    <DIR>          Resources
06/11/2015  05:13 AM             3,592 EKSpinner.j
06/11/2015  05:13 AM               444 Info.plist
06/11/2015  05:13 AM             1,288 README.md
               3 File(s)          5,324 bytes

 Directory of Q:\.apps\plexmediaserver\MediaLibrary\Plex Media Server\Plug-ins\W
ebManager.bundle\Contents\Resources\Frameworks\EKSpinner\Resources


Q:\.apps\plexmediaserver\MediaLibrary\Plex Media Server\Plug-ins>
18

Actually the top level of folders (those which names end with .bundle) would’ve sufficed.

But anyway, I see the problem:
You say you have PMS version 0.9.12.13 right? This was released on 09/24/2015

Take a look at the folder WebManager.bundle, its ‘changed’ date. It shows 06/11/2015
So you have a bunch of old .bundle folders sitting there which interfere with the real bundles which are now located in the program folder, together with the rest of Plex Media Server.

End/stop Plex Media Server

  1. make a copy of the whole content of Q:\.apps\plexmediaserver\MediaLibrary\Plex Media Server\Plug-ins\ just in case I am talking nonsense here.
  2. delete the following list of .bundle folders from there, effectively leaving only .bundles which you installed additionally (like channels, or 3rd party scanners/agents)
Fanart-TV.bundle
Framework.bundle
HTbackdrops.bundle
LastFM.bundle 
LocalMedia.bundle 
Media-Flags.bundle
MoviePosterDB.bundle
OpenSubtitles.bundle 
PersonalMedia.bundle
PlexMovie.bundle
PlexMusic.bundle 
PlexThemeMusic.bundle
PlexVevo.bundle
Scanners.bundle 
Services.bundle
System.bundle
TheMovieDB.bundle 
TheTVDB.bundle
WebClient.bundle
Wikipedia.bundle

restart Plex Media Server after that.

19

None of those bundles are in that directory, currently.

20

So I just moved some files in another movie directory to the various subdirectories, and that movie is working correctly. There seems to be a bug where the scanners aren’t looking at “old” directories that it thinks it has scanned correctly and nothing in it has changed. I’ve hit the Update icon for the entire Movie Library several times, but it doesn’t seem to be refreshing movies it thinks are already cataloged.