Movie in directory will not show in Library

Plex Media Server
1

I have the movie Top Gun in my collection, formatted like all my other movies. I can play the movie from the directory on my computer, but Plex will not list it in my library. I’ve tried rescanning the library, updating metadata, deleting it from the directory all together and then re-adding it, and even ripping it again…but none of this has worked.

2

How exactly is that „format“?

Have you already checked your library for duplicates (filter) to see it it might have been mismatched and merged as a different-quality version of another movie in your library? Similarly… could it be the movie was added but mismatched (in that case it should still be listed as the one that’s been added most recently).

Alternatively you could switch to displaying your library by folders and check if/what item Plex sees in the movie‘s folder (assuming you keep your movies in their own per-movie folders).

3

Hi tom80H. My movies are all formatted as mp4. They each have their own folder, and all those folders are in a folder I call Movie Collection. I don’t see any movies in my collection that are mismatched. I noticed that the Top Gun folder only has the movie file in it. When I look at my other movie folders, they have some HTML and JPG files from I assume after Plex scans the library and adds the meta data. How do you change Plex to display the library by folders?

4

No. Plex doesn’t write any data to your media folders.

Switch library mode
Switch library mode302×207 24.1 KB

5

Thanks for the tip on Folders view. I changed to this and could see both Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick folders listed in Plex. When I looked at details, it was showing the path to both of the different movie files on both folders. I renamed the folder of the original movie to Top Gun 1986 and then Plex was able to separate them and display both.

6

For proper naming, try to stick with the naming schema:

e.g.

Movies  <- the folder linked to your movie library
  Top Gun (1986)  <- year in brackets!
    Top Gun (1986).ext
  Top Gun Maverick (2023)
    Top Gun Maverick (2023).ext

Where .ext is the file extension.
If titles contain special characters not supported by the file system (e.g. : in Top Gun: Maverick), don’t replace those with other characters but simply drop them.

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