It would be nice to be able to add things that exist in other places to Special Features for a movie, maybe TV too, but I’ll focus on Movies.
An example. I have a shorts library where I have shorts that come with my movies sometimes. For example The Cartoon series Ice Age has Scrat shorts. Now if I want to have a Scrat short that came with Continental Drift in the movie specials as well as in the Shorts I have to have 2 copies of the file.
I personally manage this with Hardlinks, but hardlinks aren’t always great on Plex. If I have a hardlink of a movie in the same library as another movie it is listed as a special feature on Plex only allows one of those to exist, when it re-adds one it removes the other, even though the file exists in both places. This works fine when they are in different libraries however.
Another example of usefulness would be in a series. If I’m watching The Hobbit & the movie ends for me to watch the next one I have to go back, find the next one, go to it, & start it. It’d be nice to have a link to the other media in the special features so instead of playing it when you click on it it will go to that title.
Some other examples would be things like Remakes, it’d be nice to easily be able to get to the original. Or Movies like Jumanji, there’s a cartoon series that would be nice to be able to link to.
A more advanced ability that ties in with this would be the ability to set a “Play Next” to make it easier to watch a series like Hobbit 1, Hobbit 2, Hobbit 3, LOTR 1, LOTR 2, LOTR 3. So after the movie ends instead of just having a list of all the things in the collections it’s a part of & the special features & a Related Movies random sampler, it’d be nice if you could set a Movie to appear next to the Just Played with a title like Watch Next that the users could set in the Library UI.
Now if the Play Next option doesn’t work out with the link in the Special Features would make it almost as easy because the Special Features are right there & you could click it & it’d take you to the next one.
On what platform are you having problems with hard links? I used those in the past — mostly with movies that were also listed as specials of a related show or to keep music videos that are related to a movie as a local extra of that movie while also listing it in a dedicated music video library. I’ve never had any issues with that on macOS or Ubuntu.
As for auto-playing the next release of a franchise… Plex should already do that if you’re playing a movie from that collection.
I’m using a Windows 10 server, but I had the same problem on an Asustor NAS.
To be fair I haven’t tested it in the last year, but during quarantine I did pretty extensive testing & discovered what I posted, that it’s a problem in the same Library only.
This essentially means that the issue is that Plex identifies the media by it’s Inode in some way, which makes sense, & that Inode index number is stored in the library, so it can only exist once per library. That being the case makes a lot of sense for other things, like how if you name a file as a S00E07 so it matches with TVdb, then lock the fields in the details, then rename it to S03E101 it will keep the metadata associated with the file even though it’s name changed. The most logical explanation of why that works is because the file is identified by it’s Inode & not it’s name. That’s a very good way to do it. I appreciate it mostly for things like the example above, but it’s more stable in general. The problem with Hardlinks is that they are essentially 2 separate files but both have the same Inode. So the operating system should have absolutely no bearing on it
For anyone reading who doesn’t know what I’m talking about an Inode is essentially it’s address on the HDD for a file, similar to how a webpage is actually an IP address (Similar to the Inode) & you type google.com (Similar to a filename) & get to it but your DNS translates http://google.com into 142.250.217.142. But you can have multiple addresses that go to the same place kinda like how if you type gmail.com or mail.google.com they go to the same place. That’s a simple explanation of how hardlinks work. Edit a file that’s hardlinked (change that data that is stored in the location of the Inode) the other file changes too, rename or move or delete a hardlinked file (affecting the index of what it’s called & where it’s located) & it doesn’t affect the other.
So I just checked & it seems to work right now. But I can’t say for certain until some time has passed as it seemed to work before, but sporadically, & I actually noticed it when a refresh deleted the special feature & I couldn’t get it to come back, but it had been there before. When I later saw it was back I thought it was fixed but then I discovered that the other movie was now gone.
So this is the problem. Plex will play the next item onlyIF you started playing the collection from the collection Play button, not if you clicked on the item in the collection & played it. So, for example, if you started playing the 4th Harry Potter movie, because you watched 1, 2, & 3 the day before, you have to either start the collection & then skip to 4, or click on 4 & not have a Continue Watching. I also don’t think it should be a Continue Watching thing. It shouldn’t automatically play it, but it should tell you what comes next in the series.
So Hardlinks, when the New Scanner started, had some problems.
If you had a Hardlink in the same library it would only allow 1, so every time you re-scanned the library it would go from 1 to the other. Now, at least for Movies & Special features of Movies, that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
But for TV libraries it doesn’t work.
I thought maybe it was within a show, but I just tried making an episode of a show a S00E100 of a different show & it does the same thing, every library scan will move it back & forth between the 2 but only allow it to exist once.
As I mentioned earlier it seems that Plex is identifying items by the Inode rather than the file name & using the file name as though it were metadata.
I actually appreciate this in most cases because it makes it easy to move a special feature episode.
Before I’d have a blank file with the S00EXX name & the Actual file where I wanted it, I’d have 2 tabs open & would copy the information over. Now if I name the file as the TVdb wants it, S00E03 or whatever, then lock all the fields, then rename it, Plex knows it’s the same file & just changes it’s numbering, & since the metadata is locked it doesn’t re-fetch it & replace it with whatever it finds. The only thing that doesn’t get preserved is Episode artwork.
As far as logs go I’m not sure how that would help, & this is a feature request not a support thread. The hardlinks are just being referenced as the current best work around. & the problem being outlined as problems with that workaround
Not a bit.
Copied files work just fine in every scenario listed above.
I don’t think Plex has ANY means of detecting duplicate files, because I accidentally copied like 10 episodes of a show when I was selecting them & didn’t realize it until I noticed Plex had 2 versions of each file’s subtitles. Naming was in the same directory, same name just with a " - Copy" at the end of each file. Plex treated them like they were different files.
I also have a show that my roommate asked me to put on the server & it has like 150 episodes, but after I had added it I ran a duplicate check that found that every other episode was an exact copy so Episodes 1 & 2 were the same 3 & 4, 5 & 6, etc. But Plex had them in for each episode. When I hardlink replaced them every other episode disappeared & I ended up having to delete every 2nd one & rename the 1st ones S01E01-E02.
I don’t know what other situations Plex would have for detecting duplicates, but it doesn’t seem like something Plex even tries to do from my experience.
