Folder organisation

General Discussions
1

Hi all!

I have an issue with Plex failing to recognise my Star Trek properly. I have my files organised as such:

/media/Star Trek/The Original Series/Season 1/.mkv
/media/Star Trek/The Original Series/Season 2/.mkv
/media/Star Trek/The Original Series/Season 3/.mkv

/media/Star Trek/The Next Generation/Season 1/.mkv
/media/Star Trek/The Next Generation/Season 2/.mkv
/media/Star Trek/The Next Generation/Season /.mkv

However, Plex appears to recognise all my The Next Generation content as The Original Series.

It identifies fine if i have it as:

/media/Star Trek The Original Series/Season 1/.mkv
/media/Star Trek The Original Series/Season 2/.mkv
/media/Star Trek The Original Series/Season 3/.mkv
/media/Star Trek The Next Generation/Season 1/.mkv
/media/Star Trek The Next Generation/Season 2/.mkv
/media/Star Trek The Next Generation/Season /.mkv

… but I’d prefer to group all my Star Trek stuff into a single folder.

Is there any way around this limitation?

2

@TomMettam said:
Is there any way around this limitation?

No. Arbitrary subfolders are not allowed in a tv show library.

side note: use 2-digit season numbers for the names of your season folders.

  1. Look up your show on TheTVDB
  2. Take the title as it is used on TheTVDB. If there is something in parentheses, take that too. If the title contains invalid characters (depends on your file system), like § : % *, simply leave them out.
  3. Check the naming and the folder structure of your show. Name the top folder of the show exactly after the title on TheTVDB. No abbreviations. No additional subfolders. No aliases.
  4. Name the episode files according to the above linked naming guide. Use the same title as for the top folder. Show's Title - s01e01 - additional info.ext (‘- additional info’ can be left out)
  5. After you corrected the naming and folder structure, perform the Plex Dance with all files for this show.
3

Maybe try and add the year to each?!?!

so -

/media/Star Trek/Star Trek (1966)/Season X/
/media/Star Trek/Star Trek The Next Generation (1987)/Season X/

It might be an issue cause the original is just called “Star Trek” and both are in a folder called “Star Trek” so if you wanted to change the name of the folder just after /media/ so like /media/ST/ or something like that might help.

4

It’s not a limitation. It’s how you’ve named it. “Star Trek The Original Series” is not the correct name. It’s “Star Trek”.
A tool such as FileBot (www.filebot.net) is arguably the best tool for working with movies and series to avoid this type problem

tv/Star Trek
tv/Star Trek Deep Space Nine
tv/Star Trek Enterprise
tv/Star Trek Voyager

tv/Star Trek- Discovery
tv/Star Trek The Animated Series
tv/Star Trek The Next Generation
5

I was under the impression that Plex performed some kind of fingerprinting, because I’ve had some VERY randomly named files before which Plex successfully identified.

6

@TomMettam said:
I was under the impression that Plex performed some kind of fingerprinting, because I’ve had some VERY randomly named files before which Plex successfully identified.

No, it just uses heuristic algorithms to determine the identity of a file from its file name and the names of the folder strcuture where it’s situated in.
This tends to work less and less reliable the more your library grows and the more your organisation deviates from the recommendations .
I recommend you to stick to the naming guidelines from day one.

There is software to make this easier and fast.
Filebot

7

Abbreviations worked for me.
Star Trek TOS
and
Star Trek TNG
worked fin for me.

8

@jjrjr1 said:
Star Trek TOS
and
Star Trek TNG
worked fin for me.

Probably only if you use TheMovieDatabase instead of TheTVDB
I know ‘Star´Trek TOS’ is set as alternate title on TMDB, but I don’t see it on TheTVDB.

9

Mostly, after the folder hierarchy (MainLibrary/ShowTitle/Seasons/Files), I think file naming is key:

ShowName - S01E01 - EpisodeName.ext

The big two being the name of the show, followed by numbered season and numbered episode. After that, I think the episode name matters very little.

Experience leads me to believe:

  • ShowTitle Folder - Tells Plex that the items contained within should be grouped together as a show. Different shows (even if they’re all Star Trek) will not split individually. Plex believes they’re all the same show.
  • Seasons Folders - Do these folders even matter? I believe Plex groups seasons based on the S00 portion of the file name.
  • File Name (ShowTitle - S01E01) - Other than the Show Title folder, this is where Plex really gets the meat of the information it needs.

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. Also, FileBot will become your best/Plex friend. Go get it.

10

My filebot renaming rules for series are: /nas/tv/{n}/Season {s.pad(2)}/{n} - {s00e00} - {t}
This results in:

[chuck@lizum Star Trek The Next Generation.132]$ ll 
total 96
drwxr-xr-x  9 chuck users  4096 Nov 16 23:38 ./
drwxrwxrwx 66 chuck users  4096 Jan 28 12:44 ../
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck users 12288 Nov 12 22:36 Season 01/
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck users 12288 Nov 12 22:36 Season 02/
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck users 12288 Nov 12 22:36 Season 03/
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck users 12288 Nov 12 22:36 Season 04/
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck users 12288 Nov 12 22:36 Season 05/
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck users 12288 Nov 12 22:36 Season 06/
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck users 12288 Nov 12 22:36 Season 07/
[chuck@lizum Star Trek The Next Generation.133]$ ll Season\ 01/
total 104311020
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck users      12288 Nov 12 22:36 ./
drwxr-xr-x 9 chuck users       4096 Nov 16 23:38 ../
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck users 7271580292 Jun 23  2017 Star Trek The Next Generation - S01E01 - Encounter at Farpoint.mkv

Important here are the delimiters between Series name, Season/Episode identifier, and optional Episode title.

11

And here is a naming pattern for Filebot which adds the (year) after the show title and also cares about external subtitles