Long file path not supported by transcoder

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Server Version#:1.41.8.9834

Hi, long file names don’t seem supported by transcoder.
This file can be read without issue on direct playback, but once a transcode is asked, it hangs and throw this on console.

\\test\Reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally long folder name\Reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally long filename.mkv: No such file or directory

Here are my transcoder settings.

2

Is your transcoder temporary directory really set to blank? If so, I’m curious how you ended up with such a long transcode session path.

3

Transcoder directory isn’t the culprit here.
Some Japanese animes, especially nowadays, tend to have titles so long they should be named synopsies. It’s kind of meme.

So

\root\ShowName\Season #\ShowName # [+tags].mkv

can be quite long of a path

4

Workaround is to do one or several of these:

  • avoid putting the root folder of your library into a very deep folder hierarchy. Create your media folder very high up and keep its folder name short.
  • use the abbreviated show name. The worst offenders among the anime shows usually have an abbreviation listed as alternative title. Help matching by including the TMDB or TVDB ID in the folder name.
  • shorten the file names of the episodes. If the show folder is correctly named, there is really no need to include the show title in the file names.
  • omit the episode titles from the file names. Plex doesn’t use them anyway.

In the extreme case this can look like this:
(Using the last example from above)

/Anime shows
   /Banished From the Hero's Party {tvdb-400573}
      s01e01.mkv
      s01e02.mkv
      s01e03.mkv
      ...
5

Indeed an extreme example.
I wouldn’t recommend anyone to remove the show title from episode file, even when if not required by a specific software (here Plex)

6

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