Is it possible to force Plex to use only my metadata?

[del_f7]

Server Version#: 4.144.1

Seems like a simple enough question.

I suppose what I mean is can I “de-identify” a release the way I can in Roon & literally force the software to only use my metadata?

All of this “prefer” nonsense simply doesn’t work.

I have all of the correct settings, as far as I can see, (although the settings system is a bit of a mess. I’ve done my best to follow the suggestions given to me but, as yet, no one’s replied to confirm that what I’ve done is correct).

With these “correct” settings in place, Plex is refusing to follow my instructions & currently, my library is a total mess.

[Insomnic_1]

You can switch the agent in the Library settings to Personal Media: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200241558-agents/

That should - I believe - tell it to only read local metadata. That setting is usually used for setting up a Library for things like home movies that’ll never match but still treat the content like the library type (movies or series).

[del_f7]

Okay. Done that. Doesn’t make any difference.

Next!

[BanzaiInstitute]

You switched agents but did you rescan? I don’t think it takes effect immediately.

And sometimes you have to do the Plex Dance anyway.

If the whole library is an unusable mess, just delete the library and recreate it with the new settings. (turn off time-consuming features like Sonic Analysis until the basic metadata is showing up as you wish.)

[OttoKerner]

No agent switch can change what is still a sore point in Plex’s music capabilities:

• there is so support for composer
• there is no support for conductor
• there is no support for contributing artists (classical, jazz)
• all tracks must be members of a release (album/single/EP) etc.
• each release can have only one albumartist (i.e. there are no collaboration releases). If there are tracks from different artists within one release, they must be all tagged with a common albumartist (e.g. “Various Artists” for most compilation albums)

The folder hierarchy must mirror what the metadata say about albumartist and albumtitle.
It exists solely to make clear to Plex which album belongs to which albumartist. It is all about creating a database which is organized by the above principles. All deviating folder structures (like tracks organized in folders by e.g. Dance music, DJ mixes, Conductor etc.) have the potential to confuse Plex.
They may in the best case “split” albums apart, and in the worst case make the whole library a complete mess.

Even if you are supplying all your own meta tags, you cannot escape the above restrictions, which (I’m assuming), are largely responsible for your troubles – particularly with classical music.

[del_f7]

I mean, when I switched agents, it re-scanned anyway, but I guess I could force a whole new re-scan.

I recently deleted my entire library & re-made it, which took 7 days. (It’s a big library.) Now it’s worse than before as, despite whatever settings I choose, Plex simply refuses to do what I’m asking.

The Plex Dance looks interesting. I think I’ll go & learn the steps for that!

It’s utterly beyond me how people can write software that doesn’t do these things automatically. I mean, yes, of course I want to clean this up or sort that out. Why the fck wouldn’t I & why the fck do I have to do it myself?

[del_f7]

I disagree. All of my tags are clean & succinct & organised in the way you describe.

In my first thread on the subject (& I apologise for repeating versions of the same question but the threads seem to die & people stop responding) I’ve shared a couple of screenshots of my hierarchy.

It’s very clean &, as far as I can tell, adheres to each of your conditions (apart from the composer one. I use the composer field in my classical music, but I can easily remove it & add the composer to the beginning of each track. I mean, it’s a lot of work, but it still makes sense to me to do it that way, as I already do that with albums that have more than one composer.)

In any case, I don’t need support for a composer tag because I’m wanting to organise by album artist & the album artist tag is correct & there is most definitely only one for each release.

Plex is ignoring or misappropriating many of my meta-tags

Hi all. I’m finding that Plex is very often using the wrong metadata (when I’ve asked it to prefer my tags… Although I’d much rather it was an explicit instruction to actually use my tags rather than to “prefer” them). Sometimes it uses the wrong tag for the correct album, in some cases it’s just outright using a tag from a completely different part of my library! Unfortunately for Plex I have quite an idiosyncratic system of tagging. It seems that, when Plex recognises (for example) the arti…

[BanzaiInstitute]

If you did remake the library, then the dance would not be any better. The dance is just a way to get a totally fresh start for some media, which making a new library will do as well. It’s just that making a new library can often be faster than the dance, if the library in its current state isn’t worth saving.

[del_f7]

Out of interest, in my advanced setting for the library, I have a choice of scanner: “Plex Media” & “Plex Media Scanner”.

What’s the difference?

It’s been on “Plex Media Scanner” so just because I’m trying everything, I changed it to “Plex Media” & it simply will not save the change. It’s just spinning.

It’s been like that for an hour, but if it’s doing something substantial, I may need to wait longer at it’s churning through 20,000 albums.

[del_f7]

Also worth noting that when I choose Plex Media Artists instead of Plex Personal Media, the options to remove the bumph & to prefer my tags disappear.

[del_f7]

I should probably add that even though I feel as though I’m adhering to each of the rules you outlined, there’s obviously something that’s tripping Plex up & breaking a rule somewhere. Even though I’m convinced it’s none of those.

I just have to narrow things down until I find out what it is.

I do think to be able to “de-identify” things the way I can in Roon, despite it being a bit of a blunt instrument, is a great way to stop the software trying to think for itself & propagate my hard won filing system with a load of stuff I don’t want.

[BanzaiInstitute]

A few other thoughts –

Since you have a big library that takes a long time to rescan, I would start by copying a small sample of troublesome files, and using them to make a new test library. You can then do faster experiments by deleting and remaking that library (or doing the Plex Dance) after you have made changes to the files.

If you are making big changes to tags, filenames, and folder structure, be aware that mp3tag is awesome free software for this purpose. As long as the data I care about is somewhere in the tags, it can be used to create any kind of folder/name structure I may want.

The file and folder names you showed in the other thread do not match the Plex specs.

Your ah-ha folders:

Plex wants:

While Plex does have some flexibility in naming, I do not know where it ends. It may be the case that your current folder names with the extra info and leading date codes are simply incompatible, even when using local metadata.

If you had to make changes to folder names, would that be acceptable? Would it be OK if your metadata like the catalog numbers were safe, but not visible in Plex? It may come down to something like that.

(@OttoKerner do you know if Plex music folders can put notes in [brackets] as with video folders?)

It’s also unfortunately possible that Plex just won’t work for you. Plex is downright weird about music, with some really unfortunate restrictions too. It can work very well for those who follow the rules and don’t hit the limits, but … That isn’t everyone. It should be better, but it is what it is. Good luck!

[OttoKerner]

@BanzaiInstitute

(@OttoKerner do you know if Plex music folders can put notes in [brackets] as with video folders?)

Unfortunately not.

[del_f7]

Thanks for the replies. Lot’s of food for thought.

There are some tags I can change or move around (or delete entirely) but Album Title isn’t one of them, I’m afraid. It’s a unique & idiosyncratic system that I’ve developed over several years but I finally have it down. It works really well for keeping multiple versions of the same album in chronological release order in the finder as well as in Roon:

What Roon also allows me to do is to show unique album art for each release. It’s sits within a square but shows the full image, rather than scaling it to fit the square so that some of the sleeve is cut off.

What Roon doesn’t have is the fabulous “Detail View” that allows me to see the whole of the album title, so that I can see all the different versions, (as I can in the Finder) rather than having them truncated in grid view.

Sadly, with the tags working incorrectly, all I see in Plex is this:

I’m sure you can appreciate the difference.

I’m not sure how I can order & identify the albums correctly without it being right there in the title. I don’t want to have to click on each release to go in & find out which one’s which.

It’s kinda frustrating that by simply following my metadata & not poking around on the internet for information I don’t want or need would completely solve this & I don’t know why that’s so difficult. Just have an option to only follow my tags. Boom! Done.

(I’m sure it’s not really that simple but ultimately, that’s what Plex needs.)

The other thing that Roon doesn’t have is a good “out of home” player & the reason I came to Plex in the first place is because of Plexamp, which just works brilliantly.

So, all in all, given the comments above, I think my best bet is to continue building my library for Roon & just muddle through choosing things to play in the car by searching for specific albums & adding them to a queue before I set off in Plexamp.

Thanks again for taking the time with me on this.

[OttoKerner]

You are expecting Plex to behave like a glorified file browser.
This is precisely what Plex is not. It has a wholly different philosophy towards exploring and interacting with your media collection. For people who always thought in folder structures, it is sometimes hard to adapt

That being said, I have “prefer local meta tag” activated in my library as well.
When I put something into the Album Title meta tag, I can see it verbatim in Plex.

e.g. Need help sorting albums with same name - #2 by OttoKerner

And yes, each album version can have its own individual album art.

[del_f7]

Yes, but I can’t tell the versions apart unless I can have it in the album title.

Also, if I uncheck the box for bios, etc. it should bloody well remove the bios etc.

If I ask it to use my metadata it should bloody well use it.

If it’s not doing this, it’s basically broken.

As our friend upthread said, Plex is pretty crap with music.

[OttoKerner]

Exactly. That’s where this extra info has to go. And that means into the Album Title meta tag.

[del_f7]

It is in the album title tag but Plex isn’t showing it.

(Sorry, I edited my post before your reply,)

[OttoKerner]

@del_f7

It is in the album title tag but Plex isn’t showing it.

What do you have at the moment as scanner and agent?

[del_f7]

In my main settings I have this:

In the Advanced Library pane I have this: