I’m having an issue with Plex not using the episode names I put in the file names when I try to put specials in as episodes of “Season 00”. (I’ve tried to use the methods for putting these files in folders such as “Behind the Scenes” etc. as explained in this thread: https://support.plex.tv/articles/local-files-for-tv-show-trailers-and-extras/ , but I can’t get them to show up at all that way in either my Plex browser/player or my Roku player). I don’t want to try putting them in-line with the actual aired episodes since they aren’t always related to a specific episode, so I’ve just kept putting them in as “episodes” in a season 00. When I name the files something like S00E15, they show up just fine under the Season 00 group in the players, and if they happen to be one of the specials listed in TVDB as specials, Plex picks up and uses the relevant episode name found on TVDB for that special. HOWEVER, for all those specials not listed on TVDB (which are always numbered higher than the highest number shown for specials on TVDB), Plex refuses to use/display the episode name from the file name. For example, if the file name is “S00E23 Blooper Reel”, Plex displays it as “Episode 23” - I always have to go into Plex, edit the episode, and copy the “Blooper Reel” part from the file name into the “Title” field and then save it down.
Is there some way I’ve missed to tell Plex to use the episode name in the file name as the title for these kinds of special episodes?
Plex doesn’t use the text in a file name as episode titles. [edit: if you’re using mp4/m4v/mov files, you might try embedded metadata]
As for your specific situation… the web app won’t display local extras except they’re on the show level. The Roku should also list local extras for seasons. You can find the list of what clients support what types of local extras.
If you’re using a series tier that’s supported on your particular client but the extras aren’t showing anyway… would you mind sharing the actual file names and their folder structure?
Thanks for your prompt and helpful response. Can’t help but wonder why the devs would have chosen not to implement such a seemingly simple and elegant approach to naming such “unlisted” specials, since there seem to be so many of them on some of these full-series DVD sets these days, but so be it.
In my test I think I was using extras on the “show-level” (at least, that’s what I was trying to do). The couple of files I was trying it with were named as follows:
TV - 2B-Hb\Seinfeld (1989) {tmdb-1400}\Behind the Scenes\Inside Look at S1E1.m4v
and
TV - 2B-Hb\Seinfeld (1989) {tmdb-1400}\Behind the Scenes\Inside Look at S1E2.m4v
All the main episodes (and other specials numbered as S00Enn per usual) that were in the “Seinfeld (1989) {tmdb-1400}” folder showed up in Plex just fine (on both my PC/browser and Roku TV), but the “Behind the Scenes” specials did not show up on either.
What agent are you using for this library?
Local extras should only work with the current generation “Plex TV Series“ and after refreshing that show‘s metadata.
I’m not sure if the s01e01 segment in your extra names might be throwing the agent off. This should obviously be episode level extras… though given the limited support for those in most apps, I can understand why you might want to keep them at a season or show level.
Scanner = “Plex TV Series”
Agent = “Plex TV Series”
Just ran a couple of more tests - I suspect that the “refresh metadata” part of your response was the key to making the folder-ized extras show up, as they now do on both my PC/browser and my Roku TV. As it turns out, having the SnEn segment near the end of my file names didn’t present any problems. HOWEVER, it looks like I’ll have to keep using the “Season 00” approach after all, since I’ve run smack into the other problem I’ve griped about in a separate thread a while back - the fact that “extras” done via the folder-ized approach just seem to show up in some random order and apparently can’t be sorted. Given that this Seinfeld series set has some 279 special “episodes”, having them presented in one holy mess of an unsorted horizontal line below the cast isn’t going to cut it.
But thanks for clarifying how to get the folders to work - perhaps it would be an acceptable approach for a series that only had a small number of extras.
and ONLY on mobile Plex apps.
You know if it works, when the material appears at the end of the respective season page after a metadata refresh. If you want to order them more just add a counter or an episode number sowmewhere into the filename.
I hope it will be available in all Plex apps a.s.a.p.!
This part of Plex has always bugged me. I specifically bought a Roku Ultra as it will display show-specific extras that I store for each season under “Featurettes” folder. You don’t have to modify the name of the file for that. However, this feature for “season level extras” does not work on other devices “Fire Cube or Apple TV” If you do go the route of putting the extras in Season 0, then you have to go into modify the files in Plex to show the actual names of these files as many times they are not in TVDB.
This is one area that Emby/Jellyfin handles on the Season 0 level as it will pull in the “name of those files.” However, I think Plex does great at the episode specific commentaries.
