Movie metadata such as actors, etc., is not displayed/added in collections

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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1

Server Version#: each in the last years
Player Version#: web, android

Hello everyone,

My movie library contains individual movies, and if there are multiple parts of a movie, I create a collection. For the movie library, I have configured Plex Movie under “Scanner,” Plex Movie under “Agent,” and “Hide movie if in a collection,” with a minimum collection of “2.”
I actually wanted to set “Plex Movie Scanner” under “Scanner,” but then I get a message saying the configuration could not be saved. Only when I set both to, for example, “Plex Movie” can the configuration be saved.
Now, when I add a movie, I always edit the details “Title,” “Sorting Title,” “Original Title,” and “Release Date.”
98% of movies, metadata such as actors, etc., is added to single movies. Sometimes (even with well-known films) everything remains blank, no matter how often I run “Reread Metadata” on the media library.

For example, if I upload films with multiple parts to the film folder and reread the media library, it shows me the three newly added films. I edit the details described above and create a new collection where I add the films. However, the additional metadata, such as actors, etc., is generally missing from the collections when I click on one of the films in the collection. This metadata is never added, regardless of the collection.
How or what do I need to configure so that the metadata is added to the films in collections, just like for individual films?
The Plex server is installed on a Synology NAS 220j with 7.2.2 DSM.
I hope I haven’t described the problem too confusingly or complicatedly, and it would be great if someone has a solution.

Regards,
Vanni

2

Would you mind sharing a specific example to illustrate what you experience? Possibly including some screenshots to help understanding this better?

3

Ok i try :upside_down_face:

For example, this is the “John Wick Collection”, where the four parts (which I have brought together via “add to collection”) are shown below. I understand that there’s “only” a brief description of the film series here, and no actors, etc. If I click on the first part, I get to the main content of the film. But there’s no further information like actors, etc.

John Wick Collection
John Wick Collection1080×867 72.2 KB

If I click on the first part, I get to the main content of the movie. But there’s no further information like actors, etc. only the 4 movie parts again.

John Wick 1
John Wick 1984×856 97.8 KB

It is different for a single film that is not in a collection like this one:

Einzelfilm
Einzelfilm1326×845 71.9 KB

Here’s a brief movie info, the actors, etc., added by the Plex agent.
However, it occasionally happens that this information is missing or hasn’t been added for individual movies (not in a collection), and I still don’t understand why, since I entered the details like the original title and release date, as with all movies. However, the agent still doesn’t add any additional metadata.

Vanni

4

Looks like that movie isn’t matched to begin with.
How are those John Wick movies named/organized in your library folder (compared to the ABBA movie)?

5

tmdb shows the info for the collection ( John Wick Collection — The Movie Database (TMDB) )

So first check how your files are named / organized etc.

6

The first movie doesn’t have “chapter” in its title. Not in the original, nor in any localized versions of the title.
It’s simply “John Wick”.

7

When i ripp my movies the file Name is allways [Source] [Movie Titel] [(Year)].[Extension] like:

“DVDRip John Wick (2014).mp4”

And in Plex i edit the 4 points in the details when i add a new movie to Plex: “Title, Sort Title, Original Titel, Year” like:

John Wick Meta
John Wick Meta580×423 49.9 KB

8

You won’t have much fun if you keep doing that.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/your-media/

9

I know. Look at the screenshot i posted above. John Wick: Kapitel 1 is the Title show in the Plex Mediathek and/or the Sort Title. In the Original Title field is the original title from IMDB also the year.

Vanni

10

Manually overwriting the item’s title won’t fix a missing or wrong match. And thus, won’t change anything about missing or wrong metadata.

11

What’s the crucial difference between the filename I use and the one listed in the Plex knowledge base, other than adding the source media at the beginning?

Knowledge base: “/Movies/MovieName (release year)/MovieName (release year).ext”

My structure: “/Movies/[Source] [Movie Title] [(Year)]/[Source] [Movie Title] [(Year)].[Extension]”

Is the source information at the beginning of the filename, indicating the original media in my media collection (VHS, stream recording, DVD, or Blu-ray), really the deciding factor in preventing the agent from populating the metadata when the film is in a collection?

Because the filename/folder structure is the same for films where there is only one part, like in the film “ABBA” – where the information was populated by the agent. The only difference is that the film in the Plex library isn’t sorted/combined with other parts of the film series, because there’s only one part, in a collection with the other film sequels/parts, like the “John Wick” films, for example.

What I could add to the file name (which makes sense to me—to be honest, I didn’t know this until now) would be the IMDb ID to uniquely identify the film for the agent. I’ve also been searching IMDb for the original title and the release/theater premiere, so I can also find the ID instead and add it to the file name.

However, I don’t know why manually entering the four fields, as I wrote in a previous post, should be a problem? If I add a new film to the library and have it reloaded, only the “Title” (as the film is labeled in the library overview), the “sorted title,” and a “dummy date” fields are automatically entered in the details. The fields “Original Title,” “Actor,” etc., are only populated when the agent loads and updates the metadata, e.g., from IMDb (or whatever I configured in the agent). The first two fields shouldn’t actually be of interest to the agent because, as I understand it, they “only” serve for labeling and sorting in the media library overview.
As far as I understand, the relevant fields for more precisely defining the film are the “Original Title” and “Release Date.” Or am I misunderstanding something?
At least, that’s how it is with the relevant film collection database programs, in which you enter and manage your film collection. That’s how I programmed/defined it in my Access database at the beginning. One is for viewing, the other for a clear definition.

My experience so far has been that metadata and additional information like actors, etc., were often only found and added after I had filled in the two fields “Original Title” and “Release/Theatrical First Show” after adding the film and manually “Update Library.”

However, it’s unclear to me why the agent adds the information for films with only a portion (98% of the time, but it doesn’t work for 2% of the time), but when I add/sort the film to a collection after adding and manually updating the library, the information isn’t added/entered.

Maybe I’m just making a mistake, but I don’t understand the difference between “Film is in a media library collection” and “Film is not in a media library collection” when it comes to adding the extended film information by the agent.

Thanks for your patience and explanations so I can gain a better understanding and possibly find a solution to the information problem!

Vanni :innocent:

12

Precisely this. It is double important that there is something at the beginning that has nothing to do with the title. This can throw off the matching algorithm severely.
You need to either omit anything that has nothing to do with the official title of the item, or enclose all other information within one pair of square brackets.
But that is also written down in the naming guidelines I linked above.

If you want to avoid manual corrections, get it right with your folder structure and file names.
Otherwise, you’ll have to repeat the manual corrections every time you move a media file or recreate a library.

13

OK, I’ll pay closer attention to this.

I just tested what happens when I add the IMDb ID (for John Wick, for example, {imdb-tt2911666}) to the file name.

The file name is now: “BDRip John Wick (2014) {imdb-tt2911666}.mp4” and what makes me happy and relieved is that it works :partying_face: :

John Wick 1.1
John Wick 1.11139×826 65 KB

So, I’ll definitely add the IMDb ID to the filenames of all my movies. With almost 340 movies, it’s a rainy-day activity.:winking_face_with_tongue:

Do you know if there’s a field in the details where I can enter the source media to exclude it from the filename?:thinking:

For me personally, it’s a relatively important piece of information, definitely saving time. It lets me know where to look for the original media if necessary, or if I want to change/update the movie quality, for example.:woman_shrugging:

Vanni

14

If you include the correct ID number, it will override practically everything else in the file name.
However, this would have worked as well, it saves you from looking up the ID number in most cases, so that you only have to do it in difficult cases:
[BDRip] John Wick (2014).mp4

15

Ahhhh, ok. That would be faster with multi renaming of the part in the filename :blush:

Thank you for this tip :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: