How do you REALLY merge TV Shows?

General Discussions
1

So, I’ve been having trouble merging items.
Every time I have a new file for a particular show, it creates it’s own category (needs to be match correctly). So I proceed to merge it myself. Except, every time I merge, I always end up with a show that has been incorrectly matched.

Now, I just read this ‘Note: The first item you select is what all selected items will be merged into.’ from your page (https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201018248-Merge-or-Split-Items) and proceed to select the correctly matched item first and merge with the other. Still the same results.
So, the question is. How do you REALLY merge tv shows?

2

@dotzeno said:
So, the question is. How do you REALLY merge tv shows?

In my opinion, you don’t.

Let me explain: Merging should only be the last option, after correcting the show’s file and folder naming did not yield the desired effect.
But I am pretty sure that you can get the show “to behave” with proper naming.

But first let’s deal with something else:
A frequent cause for trouble and mismatches are embedded metadata.
If your files are in mp4/m4v format, they could contain internal metadata which can potentially throw off Plex’s scanners.
To avoid such troubles, 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 active agents.

Now the proper naming:

  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.
1 Like
3

Sorry for the late follow up.
Fortunately, the show I was watching was short.

Ultimately, my solution was to just delete the show entirely.