Is Split apart still working for TV Shows?

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 1.24.3.5033
Player Version#: Hosted Web App

Is split apart for TV shows still working, as I seem to have a problem splitting apart a TV Show.

In that when I try it does not split.

I have a TV in Show in both 1080 and 4K

The different resolutions are in separate folders.

But it stubbornly refuses to split it.

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What’s the function you’re trying to achieve by splitting it? Splitting for resolution has different reasons and those reasons might impact fixes or suggestions.

I did learn recently that the “split” will still keep the same GUID assigned to both objects so for movies I split I had to split and then unmatch and leave it unmatched in order to treat it as a completely separate object (this was more director cut vs theatrical etc rather than just resolution differences). That might be an impact on TV show splits as well.

3

I finally bit the bullet and combined my 4K shows with my regular shows (yep I did see the post about nesting folders to get round this, but did not really want to use the nested folder solution)

The problem I have is I found one of my users (well his daughter ) trying to play a 4K episode, when they generally struggle to play 1080 without transcoding.

Although tbh, I would be surprised if she could even find the option to select the version to play. So I am guessing that Plex decided to serve up the 4K instead of the 1080 version, I know it shouldn’t. But am I surprised it did
 no.

So I though ok, I will just split the Show and tag the 4k version so it is not shared.

I will try unmatching it first and see if it will split then


Nope will not even split apart once unmatched, just get:

Something went wrong
An unexpected error occurred.

4

Gotcha.

I don’t want to manage a separate 4k library either so I do the same as you and hope the “automatically select the appropriate version” thing works. It usually does but like you said, not always.

Splitting TV shows might just be particularly finicky and it might be worth some extra education with that user to help them understand how to flip the switch vs fighting your library setup. :slight_smile:

Good luck! Hopefully some other folks might have more experience with TV Show splits can help as well.

Edit:

That doesn’t surprise me
 It doesn’t know what to “split” if it’s unmatched. There might just be a trick to getting the split to work right and then you can unmatch the 4k version and then it will be a separate option that way.

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haha, I have tried that and even her dad struggles, so I don’t hold out much hope on that :wink:

And it does not help that you can no longer see at glance which files have duplicates
 but I am not going to reopen that can of worms :wink:

I thought maybe I could use folder view to see the different folders and do something that way, but that only shows 1 folder


I might try removing them both, then adding back the 4K first and then the 1080 and see if that makes any difference to what Plex decides to serve up, but for know I think I will just move the 4K version of this show out of the way.

And wait and see if anyone from Plex or a Ninja can confirm if you should be able to split shows that are available in different resolutions

6

Completely understand. :slightly_smiling_face:

I’ve been using the “Duplicates” filter on episodes - might help:
Screen Shot 2021-09-25 at 3.35.11 PM

Folder view should show all the individual TV Show folders and do “Show (2001) [4k]” and “Show (2001) [1080p]” if they’re in the same library but the same show
 like you said, might need someone else to weigh in on that one.

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It does if they have different names but if they have the same it only shows 1 folder.

I renamed the folder in my 4K library and it then shows up as a separate item in the folder view, but not if they have the same name.

The duplicates filter is not really very helpful for TV as you can only use it when viewing episode, so in my case I get a list of of over 1800 episodes with duplicates, so trying to find the 1 episode you want to watch is too much like hard work.


and fwiw She started another episode using Plexweb on chrome and I think she still has the default speed set to 2MB, (I have told them so many times how to change that), and it still tried to serve up the 4K version!!!

Edit

Hmm, Plex/Plexweb definitely does something weird when Playing an episode that exists in 2 resolutions


I just tried playing back an episode with 2 versions, after setting Plex Web to 2mbps 720 and I ended up with 2 playback items in the activity dashboard, stopped play back and 1 got left showing the 4K version paused. But no playback was actually going on in Chrome.

So maybe it is not actually trying to play the 4K version, it just looks like it from the dashboard.

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With movies I had split, I was getting the two different movies showing up in my Continue Watching section (Star Wars Official and Star Wars 4k77). It was in that thread I was told they GUIDs stay even after a Split so an unmatch was necessary.

With same title different resolutions, I think it tracks it for the title not the file itself. All of my 4k movies also have a 720 version for compatibility and if I start watching 4k on Roku Ultra and then switch to my Roku3, it automatically continues the movie where it left off but with the 720 instead of the 4k. In order to do that it would make sense that the activity monitor might show it that way maybe?

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Is there anyone from plex that would care to comment as to if you should be able to split shows that have 2 resolutions, 4k and 1080p (they are in separate folders).

I just want to know if it should be possible?

sorry to tag you @BigWheel but I see you recently commented in another thread about fixing matches.

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It is possible to split a tv show. The option is only available at the show level.

image
image863×579 76.5 KB

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Was just typing basically the same as above

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But when I try to split a show that is in 2 resolutions it just spits out an error.

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what exactly is the folder structure and naming for the two shows.

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I am just trying to find them
 bear with me.

they were in 2 different directories, but the show name and episodes have the same name in each folder. (as trying to adhere to naming guidelines)

Edit:

example

/Media/TV/The Morning Show/Season 01/The Morning Show - s01e01 - In the Dark Night of the Soul It's Always 3-30 in the Morning.mkv

/Media/TV4K/The Morning Show/Season 01/The Morning Show - s01e01 - In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3-30 in the Morning.mkv

and this is what I get when attempting a split:

Screenshot 2021-09-27 at 22.42.17
Screenshot 2021-09-27 at 22.42.17990×750 19.6 KB

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I will make a report for this, i don’t think they way you are doing it was expected as most who want qualities separate make separate libraries for them.

for now I would just add 4k or something to end of 4k show folder like below then scan for files (possibly refresh metadata as well) then split apart.

/Media/TV4K/The Morning Show 4k/Season 01

16

Thank you :wink:

I am an edge case as usual


I used to have them in separate libraries, but then you get 2 items in the ‘continue watching’ section without any indication which is which. So decided to try and consolidate into 1 Library

In this case a shared user was getting served the 4K version and then transcoding down to 720!!!
and there is (almost) no way she would have selected a version to play.

(No idea why she was getting served the 4K version, as if I limit my bandwidth and try to play an episode I get the 1080p version transcoded down)

So I though just split them apart so I could tag one to restrict it from shared users

I think I tried that, and do not think it made any difference, still could not split apart, but will try again and check.

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if you split them apart in the same library they will still both show up in continue watching. the only way to prevent that is to match them with different agents which you can’t do in the same library with the new Plex TV series agent because it is totally different type of code than the older agents.

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That’s true, so I suppose splitting won’t really help, as she will just get confused in her continue watching


It almost makes me want to switch back the old agents, as at least then you had options


(Yeah I know if I did that I could not update Plex once the old agents get removed).

Edit:

I think the best solution (at least for me) is going to be to spin up another server in docker for my shared users with only the up to 1080p content. and just don’t pin anything from that server.

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I was able to split mine so there is something going on. Can you provide me your PMS logs after trying to split again?

image

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fwiw, I have just tried splitting it on 3 different servers and they all fail to split. (they are all running the same version of PMS)

But I have not tested again with the folders named slightly different, so will do that first.

then if that does not work, I will grabs some logs a bit later. (is it ok to send via a PM?)

Edit:

Ok, So I renamed the folder of the 4K version to The Morning Show 4K Scanned the Library and refreshed the metadata for the show.

I then tried a split. It still spat out the same error as posted above, but it has actually split them.

So it appears to be an issue if you have the same show in 2 different folders but the Show Folder has the same name in both Folders.

So that’s progress.

Edit 2:

I suppose I should have taken as a clue the fact that when looking at folder view it only shows one folder if the 2 folders have the same name.