Running PMS Version 1.9.4.4325 on Windows Server 2016 guest on Hyper-V Server 2016 (core). 4 cores, 8G RAM. 80G C: drive, 50G volume for Plex, Sonarr/Radarr, & SABnzbd, 6.5T volume for Media. I’ve been running Plex for about 3 years, and have encountered something this week that I don’t understand.
I can’t explain the title (left one highlighted) - the file name/folder structure is the same as other media, and ffprobe shows the “title” metadata parameter matches the episode title, and no other file metadata shows this “RARBG” title.
I have backed up the files, deleted them from Plex, put them back, and after re-scanning they show the same odd name. The episodes in other shows/seasons are mostly normal, but I have maybe a dozen episodes that started showing up like this in the past 2-3 days.
The last Plex update was about a week ago, and no other apps were updated in the past 30 days (last update was SABnzbd a month+ ago). I do run a program that I developed that scans the libraries nightly and insures that the files are named properly, new files are moved to the proper directory with the correct name and the Title metadata value set to match the movie or episode title (without any other file descriptor data). That’s been in service for nearly a year now, so I don’t suspect that (and the delete/scan/restore/scan process without running my grooming script returns the same title).
I’d appreciate any thoughts on why this is happening and where it’s getting this data from.
Go to Settings - Server - Agents - Shows - TheTVDB
In there, grab the line ‘Local Media Assets’ with your mouse and drag it downwards, so it ends up being at the bottom of the stack of active agents.
Repeat the same under
Settings - Server - Agents - Shows - TheMovieDatabase
+
Settings - Server - Agents - Movies - Plex Movie
+
Settings - Server - Agents - Movies - TheMovieDatabase
Afterwards, Refresh Metadata for the whole series.
@harlequin01 - I’m familiar with RARBG, but did not understand how it was showing up as a title when neither the file nor the file metadata contained any reference to it.
@OttoKerner - Thanks - that worked flawlessly! I had only done that for “Personal Media Shows” but not TheDVDB or The Movie Database. I generally understand how the agents and sequencing work, but can’t figure out where it got the RARBG reference, especially for a handful of episodes that were originally titled correctly. I did do some maintenance this weekend - using Sonarr to scan and rename files, then ran my script to update the file “title” metadata. I’m guessing that this work triggered a metadata rescan during maintenance?
@harlequin01 said:
Rarbg is a torrent release group
Might that be the reason ?
Absolutely - they haul out their junk and scent mark all their stuff by spraying urine Brand all over MP4/M4V files embedded in the Title Field where Plex’s Default Location of Local Media Assets (right on top - with tip-top priority) prefers that embedded title over a perfectly named file - detonating a high yield thermonuclear device destroying a match, and/or causing the exact problem shown above.
Otto’s solution is the ONLY solution for that particular beating Plex has no interest in doing anything about - so we tell hapless users how to fix it 100 TIMES A DAY!
Plex doesn’t know how Local Media Assets works
Plex doesn’t care what it does to MP4/M4V file users
Plex thinks the only file in use in a Plex Environment is an MKV file
Plex developers haven’t found a way to move Local Media Assets out of the top slot in the Agent List
@JuiceWSA - tell us how you really feel! I do feel the frustration, and it’s one of the reasons I wrote my file grooming app. What prompted my question is that the RARBG title was being displayed even when it wasn’t present in the local media properties. Looking at Windows file properties, the title matched the episode and the comment was blank (yeah, I’ve seen a weird title come from the Comment field even when the Title property was correct - really??) I ran ffprobe to dump the attributes and saw the same results, then I ran a script I wrote that dumps ALL the extended attributes and again found no evidence of this title.
@OttoKerner - The grooming script runs nightly to import (does name processing, resizing, format conversion, and titling) new media from a staging area, then scans each library to either resize (where deemed necessary - select TV shows), convert the format, or update the title when it doesn’t match the file name. This last part is done daily because Sonarr might rename the files to properly match the episode, as my script will use a generic “Episode ##” when it isn’t provided in or can’t be deciphered from the original file name during import.
The “Title” part of the script gets the movie title or episode title from the filename part (ignoring the “series - s##e## -” part of TV shows and any qualifiers like 1080p, BluRay, 6CH, etc.). It then uses ffmpeg to set the “title” attribute to the extracted title, and clears the “comment” property. The whole point of this is to be able to programmatically manage my media (this started many years ago with MP3 grooming). This program is on its 4th major revision and has been used for a couple of years as individual scripts. I combined them into a single program with a common config file this past January. Never had an issue like this before. I checked the logs from when these files were updated and it showed the proper title being updated, which ffprobe verified on the file itself.
I’m pretty ■■■■ when it comes to file organization, naming, and properties (in case you couldn’t tell) so needed to understand where this was coming from.
Thanks again for the info and prompt response - it’s greatly appreciated.
@gbarnas said:
The “Title” part of the script gets the movie title or episode title from the filename part (ignoring the “series - s##e## -” part of TV shows and any qualifiers like 1080p, BluRay, 6CH, etc.). It then uses ffmpeg to set the “title” attribute to the extracted title, and clears the “comment” property. The whole point of this is to be able to programmatically manage my media (this started many years ago with MP3 grooming). This program is on its 4th major revision and has been used for a couple of years as individual scripts. I combined them into a single program with a common config file this past January. Never had an issue like this before. I checked the logs from when these files were updated and it showed the proper title being updated, which ffprobe verified on the file itself.
So I assume it the RARBG was part of the file name, which was then written into the ‘title’ metadata field.
Which in my opinion is the wrong thing to do. The ‘title’ of the movie/episode is not RARBG - scorpion...
If you want to store some ‘release group’ info, you should better utilize the ‘comment’ field.
@OttoKerner - My software specifically looks for words in the title and removes them, RARBG is one of them. So - even if it had been part of the file name, when my script runs, it figures out the series, season/episode, and title, removing all other parts of the title - and it does this before setting the internal title metadata. I even have control over ignoring files based on the name or name part, so “RARBG.COM.MKV” isn’t even processed. I even go so far as to remove the fake “subtitles” when media is onboarded.
@JuiceWSA - sounds like these folks are frequent buyers at ThePeeMart.com (in a digital sort of way).
I do feel the frustration, and it’s one of the reasons I wrote my file grooming app. What prompted my question is that the RARBG title was being displayed even when it wasn’t present in the local media properties. Looking at Windows file properties, the title matched the episode and the comment was blank (yeah, I’ve seen a weird title come from the Comment field even when the Title property was correct - really??) I ran ffprobe to dump the attributes and saw the same results, then I ran a script I wrote that dumps ALL the extended attributes and again found no evidence of this title.