So.. i’m really at odds now on what the hell i need to name my cosmos tv shows to get them to both show up in Plex vs just the newest Cosmos - A Spacetime Odyssey showing and then the older 1980s series shows up as 2nd version of these files. I’ve went out to tvdb.com to see how they pull in the shows and i know that my naming should be spot on to what they use out there. here is what i have done so far.
played the whole plex media server dance by moving the files out of the library, scanning library, emptying trash, cleaning bundles. move folders back and then update library. it seems to see both shows initially but then consolidates both shows into the newest one (see screenshot below).
I’ve tried every single possible way to name the cosmos - a personal voyage as i’ve read up on the forums here and on google but again it keeps consolidating under the new series.
here is how i have it setup now and it still consolidates.
TV Library = V:\TV Shows
New Cosmos naming style; working fine and showing in Plex.
“V:\TV Shows\Cosmos - A Spacetime Odyssey\Season 1\Cosmos - A Spacetime Odyssey - S01E01 - Standing Up in the Milky Way.m4v”
Older Cosmos naming style; not working; consolidates the episodes under the newer series as a 2nd version.
“V:\TV Shows\Cosmos - A Personal Voyage\Season 1\Cosmos - A Personal Voyage - S01E01 - The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean.m4v”
I’ve tried these naming conventions and agian it consolidates under the same newer Cosmos series as a 2nd version.
“V:\TV Shows\Cosmos\Cosmos - A Personal Voyage\Season 1\Cosmos - A Personal Voyage - S01E01 - The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean.m4v”
“V:\TV Shows\Cosmos - A Personal Voyage\Cosmos - A Personal Voyage - S01E01 - The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean.m4v”
It seriously shouldn’t take this damn much work to get plex to recognize a tv show; what i’d like would be a better way to know EXACTLY how the tvdb looks for the series. Am i missing something obvious? i’ve been messing with this for now about 3 days w/ZERO luck.
Well… finally a work around but damn… shouldn’t have been this much work… so i had to do the following…
did the plex media library dance to clear out both the cosmos series from my tv show library
copied over just the 1980s/Carl Sagan version of the Cosmos and then did a library scan.
it found it as the new cosmos even though i’ve named it exactly as the tvdb says it is.
fixed the match and pointed to the old Cosmos - A Personal Voyage
moved over the new cosmos series and ran another library update
it found it as the new one of course and now… i have both… something is a miss when you have both these series since i’ve named the original every possible way to make sure it’s differentiated from the new one. btw… i’m a lifetime plex pass owner and this really annoyed me…
Known problem by Plex. Totally undocumented. Plex/TVDB unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
A TV Show Library/
…Cosmos (1980)/ <— must inject (YEAR) into show name - not shown at TVDB
…Season 01/
…Cosmos (1980) - S01E01.xxx
…Cosmos A Spacetime Odyssey/ <— will match to the new Cosmos
…Season 01/
…Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey - S01E01.xxx
…Cosmos/ <— will also match/default to the new Cosmos - exactly as shown at TVDB - produces wrong match
…Season 01/
…Cosmos - S01E01.xxx
Yea, FileBot is supposed to be The Easy Button for file naming in the Plexiverse, but Plex/TVDB put a stop to that. Now you have to actually go to TVDB and retrieve the Year to manually inject into your TV Show file names and folders.
Plex: Doing everything they can to throw a broomstick into the spokes on the wheels of progress.
Filebot will indeed fetch the year from TVDB. I have it adding a (YEAR) field to all my TV Shows and Plex still drops the ball on 20%. Life in the Plexiverse.
I just ran into this issue myself. Both series folders matched to Cosmos (2014) in Plex. I used the “split apart” option which resulted in duplicate Cosmos (2014) library items. Then I just found the one that was matched incorrectly and updated it.
Plex borks all remakes - even though FileBot provides the exact name used at TVDB. There’s really nothing tricky about it. Plex undermined the TVDB API in order to better serve Plex-DVR - that is clearly in so much trouble ATM it’s beyond time to back up 10 yards and punt.
I resist making my default TV Agent TMDB - for rather obvious reasons.
I may try the new scanner.
