I just started using Plex and put all of my media into a separate hard drive. There is a Music folder, a Photos folder, and a Movies folder.
All of my Movies and Pictures show up in Plex with no issues, but my music will not show up. All of the music files are mp3s in that folder (about 10,000) and I have edited the metadata for each and every one using mp3tag.
Any ideas? Thanks!
Two things come to mind. Is the drive where the music files are stored on a linux-based system, such as an NAS? If so, look at permissions.
When you say there are 10,000 files in that folder, does that mean they are all in one flat folder (as opposed to a folder structure like music/artist/album/track.mp3)? That shouldn’t cause Plex to not add them, but it will almost certainly affect Plex’s ability to catalog them correctly.
Thank you for your response. They are just on a standard 8 TB hard drive that is installed in my computer. They are all in one folder but like you said that shouldn’t mean that they should show up correct it is a Microsoft windows system in the hard drive is just an 8 TB hard drive.
And the library is set as a “Music” type, and is pointed to [driveLetter]:\Music?
Sorry if these are overly basic questions - I just can’t think of anything else that could cause Plex to just not see them, so double-check the basics. If you inadvertently selected “Movie” type, or pointed to the wrong folder… 
Oh no, I appreciate the basic questions haha! Completely new to this!
So now I’m looking and there is one folder under my music in Plex, called “various artists” and all 10,085 songs are under it! Which I guess I’m happy they are there haha, but what can I do to make Plex recognize the artist/album covers? Like I said, I painstakingly went through every mp3 one by one to edit the metadata with mp3tag so I know for a fact all of the artists, album artists, titles, track numbers, album names and covers, etc are all present and correct?
Thanks in advance for all of your help!
Are you willing to try an experiment?
x:\Music\artistName\albumName (replace ‘x’ with the appropriate drive letter)
Does Plex add the album?
So the way my current computer is set up is:
C: OS
D: Media Drive
Wishing the D Drive, I just have 3 folders (one for each type of media (Music, Movies, Photos)
In the Movies folder on my D Drive, there are no folders at all, Just all files listed with Artist - Title.mp3
Are you saying to create folders within the music folder? I used to have Plex On another computer and didn’t have to do that, so just asking as I can’t imagine having the time to create hundreds of folders and reorganizing if I don’t need to haha. The “Various Artists” folder only appears in Plex, I have no various artists folder on my actual hard drive.
So Plex is adding the music, it’s just adding everything to “Various Artists?” That’s exactly what people are seeing when their music is in a flat folder like you have it.
It can be anywhere, just so the artist/album/tracks structure exists. Maybe put it in D:\Trial\Artist\Album to avoid confusion. Point the new library to D:\Trial.
NOTE: the Artist folder name should match the AlbumArtist embedded tag exactly, and the Album folder name should match the Album tag exactly.
I just want to run an experiment to see if it solves the problem. From what you’ve said, I’m pretty confident it will work, if all the tags/art are correct.
Plex recently (last summer) did a major overhaul of the music scanner. It’s a lot more powerful and accurate than the old one, but for reasons I don’t understand, it is also a lot more dependent on the folder structure. That seems backwards to me, but it’s the case.
Shoot, I guess the big change explains why this structure “used to work” on my old computer but not on this new one then? Was trying to avoid reorganizing the folder structure of all 10,085 songs since all of the metadata is perfect, but I guess I don’t have a choice 
. Brutal! Thanks for trying.
They might fix it so it doesn’t depend on the folders, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
I can say that my music is organized and tagged like I’ve described, and Plex’s error rate is not zero, but a lot closer than it used to be. It picks up the artistSort and albumSort tags, for instance.
Thanks for your responses, not your fault haha
I forgot to ask that, but that option hasn’t solved the problem for others who have this issue.
It wasn’t checked! I just checked it and am now updating library to see if it works, crossing my fingers!
Nah, no dice, will have to create a folder structure I guess 
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