Metadata not being honored

[jeffreywhunter]

Server Version#: V1.25.5.5492
Player Version#: 4.69.1

Please see screenshot.

I have a situation where three different files from three different directory structures are identified by one TV program (TV Program>Episode>Info). How can this happen? How can I correct this situation?

Thanks!

[shark2k]

One thing I can see is that your season folders shouldn’t have the series name in them. They should just be “Season ##” (2 digits is what is suggested in this article also Naming and Organizing Your TV Show Files | Plex Support).

Also, what folder are you pointing to for the library for your TV directory?
Since you appear to be categorizing the shows, I’m guessing you have other folders aside from the Netflix one, you should add each of those directories to the library (i.e., /tv/Netflix/, /tv/Amazon/, /tv/Other_Folder/) [just using those as examples as I don’t know what other directories you might have].

Having the library point to the root folder which has sub directories that hold the series directories, can cause issues. So you shouldn’t point the library to /tv/.

Not sure if that is going to resolve your issue, but following the recommended naming conventions is really the first place to start. Even if something outside the recommended naming convention worked in the past, there is no guarantee that will continue working going forward.

-Shark2k

[jeffreywhunter]

Thanks for the reply! On a hunch, I moved the directories under Netflix to the root of the TV folder. Magically, everything resolved. Which is confusing, because I’ve not had any problems with movies like that (i.e. a set of movies being under a common folder - i.e. \movies\MCU\Avengers\Avengers (2014) - Age of Ultron.) So it sounds like too many ‘levels’ is a problem, at least for the TV side of the equation. Movies appear to be more tolerant? I’ll read the article again and see if I’m missing something.

[shark2k]

The way the scanner works for movies, multiple levels doesn’t pose the same issue as with TV series. The way the scanner works for series, it relies on the top level directory being the series name and the directories under that to be the season directories. I’m not sure off all the logic behind it so can’t really explain more in depth, but I think that is the basics (for TV) and hopefully explains it.

But, you can keep your directory structure if you want for TV shows, you just need to do as I mentioned in my first post.

Add each of these directories, and not the root /tv/ directory to the library to monitor

/tv/Netflix/
/tv/AnotherSubDir/
/tv/YetAnotherSubDir/

That will still allow you to group the series based on service/network/whatever criteria and allow Plex to work correctly. The /Netflix/ directory would become the root folder for Netflix shows and all other directories for whichever criteria you use for creating those would become the root directories (in regard to Plex that is).

Hopefully that makes sense.

-Shark2k