Almost all of these files show up as part of some Reggae album and as “Various Artists,” so they do not appear when I try to sort by artist name. What’s the problem here? And how can I fix?
Also i’ve created playlists for everything. But I can’t seem to find them.
The problem is that you aren’t giving Plex enough information to identify your music. Whatever information it has is telling Plex that you’ve got a bunch of music from different artists, and they appear (to Plex) to be in a single album, so it’s not surprising that “Various Artists” is the best it can do.
Plex essentially has two possible ways to identify your music - either by the folder/filename structure, or by accurate embedded tags. I don’t know if Plex supports ID3v1, but upgrading to ID3v2.3 or 2.4 couldn’t hurt.
So you either need to organize your files into folders/filenames according to Plex’s guide, or get the embedded tags in order.
Filenames are all properly titled and formatted. The issue may be idv1 support
Please show one example of 'properly ’ ?
01. Come Together.mp3
isn’t going to be enough.
I’ll share this as example.
This is how my library is named and structured (per the standard).
All my music (some 800 CDs worth) scan & match in about 30 minutes for me
(slow internet here)
total 44
drwxr-xr-x 16 chuck chuck 4096 Jun 26 2019 ./
drwxr-xr-x 111 chuck chuck 4096 Nov 22 11:14 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Jun 26 2019 Supertramp - Breakfast in America/
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 271 Mar 6 2018 Supertramp - Brother Where You Bound/
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Jun 26 2019 Supertramp - Classics, Volume 9/
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 335 Mar 6 2018 Supertramp - Crime of the Century/
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Mar 6 2018 Supertramp - Crisis? What Crisis?/
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 281 Mar 6 2018 Supertramp - Even in the Quietest Moments.../
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Mar 6 2018 Supertramp - "...Famous Last Words..."/
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Mar 6 2018 Supertramp - Free as a Bird/
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Mar 6 2018 Supertramp - Indelibly Stamped/
drwxr-xr-x 4 chuck chuck 46 Mar 6 2018 Supertramp - Paris/
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 331 Mar 6 2018 Supertramp - Slow Motion/
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Jun 26 2019 Supertramp - Some Things Never Change/
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Mar 6 2018 Supertramp - Supertramp/
drwxr-xr-x 3 chuck chuck 81 Mar 6 2018 The Very Best Of Supertramp/
[chuck@lizum Supertramp.2023]$ cd *Paris
[chuck@lizum Supertramp - Paris.2024]$ ll
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 4 chuck chuck 46 Mar 6 2018 ./
drwxr-xr-x 16 chuck chuck 4096 Jun 26 2019 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Mar 6 2018 Disc 1/
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 330 Mar 6 2018 Disc 2/
[chuck@lizum Supertramp - Paris.2025]$ ll *1
total 271072
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Mar 6 2018 ./
drwxr-xr-x 4 chuck chuck 46 Mar 6 2018 ../
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 9298686 Jun 20 2016 01 - School.mp3
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 40037165 Mar 10 2017 02 - Ain't Nobody but Me.flac
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 28612129 Mar 10 2017 03 - The Logical Song.flac
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 50091727 Mar 10 2017 04 - Bloody Well Right.flac
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 20856661 Mar 10 2017 05 - Breakfast in America.flac
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 24901328 Mar 10 2017 06 - You Started Laughing.flac
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 47753291 Mar 10 2017 07 - Hide in Your Shell.flac
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 48401522 Mar 10 2017 08 - From Now On.flac
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 2568710 Mar 6 2018 cover (1).jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 2041963 Mar 6 2018 cover (2).jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 2568710 Mar 6 2018 cover (3).jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 416363 Mar 7 2017 cover.jpg
[chuck@lizum Supertramp - Paris.2026]
Minimally, you’re going to need the Track number with each one in the name.
The track number is part of how PMS can identify the album that song is on.
(It analyses the first and last song of each album).
If you don’t have track number.. it’ll have no choice but to analyse everything – which will go nowhere really fast.
Tags aren’t enough.
Plex’s forte isn’t music. Plex’s forte is video. However, if you name your media (music or video) per expectation – it’ll work really well.
[chuck@lizum Gordon Lightfoot.2027]$ ls -la
total 72
drwxr-xr-x 4 chuck chuck 101 Sep 20 13:16 ./
drwxr-xr-x 111 chuck chuck 4096 Nov 22 11:14 ../
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 63219 Jul 4 14:49 cover.jpg
drwxr-xr-x 4 chuck chuck 57 Sep 20 13:16 Gordon Lightfoot/
drwxrwxr-x 4 chuck chuck 46 Jul 4 15:54 The Complete Singles 1970-1980/
[chuck@lizum Gordon Lightfoot.2028]$ ll The\ Complete\ Singles\ 1970-1980/
total 8
drwxrwxr-x 4 chuck chuck 46 Jul 4 15:54 ./
drwxr-xr-x 4 chuck chuck 101 Sep 20 13:16 ../
drwxrwxr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Jul 4 15:54 Disc 1/
drwxrwxr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Jul 4 15:54 Disc 2/
[chuck@lizum Gordon Lightfoot.2029]$ ll The\ Complete\ Singles\ 1970-1980/*1
total 351936
drwxrwxr-x 2 chuck chuck 4096 Jul 4 15:54 ./
drwxrwxr-x 4 chuck chuck 46 Jul 4 15:54 ../
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 14068240 Jul 4 15:54 01 - Me and Bobby McGee.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 13594446 Jul 4 15:54 02 - The Pony Man.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 22060819 Jul 4 15:54 03 - If You Could Read My Mind.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 15730899 Jul 4 15:54 04 - Poor Little Allison.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 17426066 Jul 4 15:54 05 - Talking in Your Sleep.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 23076983 Jul 4 15:54 06 - Nous vivons ensemble.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 27646538 Jul 4 15:54 07 - Summer Side of Life.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 20326575 Jul 4 15:54 08 - Love & Maple Syrup.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 18829906 Jul 4 15:54 09 - Beautiful.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 15500401 Jul 4 15:54 10 - Don Quixote.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 18484267 Jul 4 15:54 11 - That Same Old Obsession.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 16645220 Jul 4 15:54 12 - You Are What I Am.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 12200681 Jul 4 15:54 13 - Can't Depend on Love.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 14434179 Jul 4 15:54 14 - It's Worth Believin'.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 23177207 Jul 4 15:54 15 - Sundown.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 23460621 Jul 4 15:54 16 - Too Late for Prayin'.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 24173795 Jul 4 15:54 17 - Carefree Highway.flac
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 39510063 Jul 4 15:54 18 - Seven Island Suite.flac
[chuck@lizum Gordon Lightfoot.2030]$
I used MusicBrainz Picard to write tags and create structure.
I’ll share my renaming rules if you’re interested.
If your file structure and metadata is not to Plex’s liking, you are very likely to see weird stuff like that.
Your best path to a happy Plex music library is to learn some new tools like MusicBrainz and mp3tag and give Plex what it wants.
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