Missing Movies,TV episodes, and posters

General Discussions
1

So I have had Plex for around a week now and I’m learning as I go. Files (movies) I know are on my hard drive are not displaying as well as tv episodes. I have a season 1 folder and so forth. I don’t know what to do. I’m also missing posters; movie and TV shows. I have no idea what I’m doing and the only reason I have gotten this far is guessing

2

Sometimes Plex will fail to recognize your content properly and lump 2 or more files together. You’ll have to comb through your library and manually separate them.

I’ve also had TV shows not show up in my library because they weren’t named properly.

1 Like
3

Thanks… I understand not naming them properly, that makes sense. I take a stab at it again

4

See the Media Preparation Guidelines for info on naming & structure of movies, TV shows, etc.

You must keep movies & TV shows in separate libraries. Matching online databases and downloading metadata will fail if you do not.

Not mentioned in the guidelines is that Plex ignores text between square brackets. If you want to have resolution, audio format, or whatever in the file name put it between square brackets.

For example:

/Movies
  /Avatar (2009)
    Avatar (2009) [720p, DDP51].mkv  <-- This is OK.
    Avatar.2009.720p.DDP51.mkv  <-- This is not.

Plex can be very picky with TV shows. Definitely use the recommended layout. It might work otherwise, but you’re just getting lucky.

Also, Plex matches TV shows against thetvdb.com. Organize your seasons and episodes the same way for best results. For example, the BBC show “Spooks” aired in the US as “MI5.” TVdb.com has it as Spooks, so it should be named Spooks in Plex. Trying to name it MI5 may lead to weeping & gnashing of teeth.

Example TV show folder & episode structure from Media Prep guidelines. The episode name is optional:

/TV Shows
   /Grey's Anatomy
      /Season 01
         Grey's Anatomy - s01e01.avi
         Grey's Anatomy - s01e02 - The First Cut is the Deepest.avi
         Grey's Anatomy - s01e03.mp4
      /Season 02
         Grey's Anatomy - s02e01.avi
         Grey's Anatomy - s02e02.mkv
         Grey's Anatomy - s02e03.m4v

Finally, after you rename/reorganize files and rescan the library, Plex may still not pick up the new name. This is usually because it is using the previously cached data. If this happens, you’ll need perform the Plex Dance with the media. It is a bit of a PITA, but it will clear out the old, incorrect metadata then re-download using the new file names / structure.

5

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.