Music Video not showing

[UKenGB]

Server Version#: 1.22.2.4282
Player Version#: 1.30.1.2115-81e1fc3f

I’ve opted to utilise a ‘Global Music Videos Folder’ (confusingly configured as the ‘Local music video path’). That aside, any videos placed in an Artist’s folder appear as Extras when viewing that Artist in the Music Library. So:-

…/Music/ABBA/
contains all the album folders and

…/Music-Videos/ABBA/At The BBC (HD).mp4
shows up as an Abba ‘Extra’ which confirms the basic configuration is correct.

However, I have a Music Video for this track:
…/Music/ABBA/Thank You For The Music/3-14 The Day Before You Came.mp3

I tried:-
…/Music-Videos/ABBA/Thank You For The Music/3-14 The Day Before You Came.mp4
and
…/Music-Videos/ABBA/Thank You For The Music/3-14 The Day Before You Came - The Day Before You Came.mp4

But it never shows up. I re-scanned the library and refreshed the metadata, but although any video I place in the Artist’s folder will be picked up and displayed, the album track’s music video never appears.

I tried moving the problematic video up a level so it was in the Artist’s folder (…/Music-Videos/ABBA/) and after re-scan/refresh it immediately appeared as an Artist Extra and was playable. Move it back into the album folder and again, Plex simply ignores it.

The docs I’ve read state that the Artist name is not required in the file name if the artist has its own folder, so I don’t think that’s it. But there’s obviously nothing wrong with the basic configuration, nor the video itself. Despite that, I cannot make this work.

Anyone any clues on this?

[UKenGB]

Not having any luck with this. Worse, I tried it with a different Artist and once again, invisible when in the Album folder, but when moved up into the Artist folder it showed up and when editing the …-videotype at the end of the filename, it changed the text Plex displayed under the video thumbnail. At first.

After I changed it a couple of times, it no longer displayed any change, no matter how I edited the filename. I moved it back down into the Album folder, but it still shows on the Artist page with the previous name.

I have now removed the video entirely, but it’s still displayed as an Extra for that Artist. Needless to say, if I try to play it, there’s an error as it cannot find the file, but just says to ‘retry’, which is of course no help at all as the file really is not there. Trouble is, I CANNOT get rid of this video Extra being displayed for that Artist. I’ve re-scanned, refreshed, Optimised the database and cleaned bundles, but that video simply won’t go away.

This is clearly a bug as it is displaying something that does not exist, generates an error when trying to view it, but provides no way to delete it.

Anyone suggest how to remove this phantom video?

Or indeed help with original question of why the Global video folder seems unable to work with track based Music Videos?

[UKenGB]

I have now deleted the ‘Local music video path’ setting. But the existing music videos that appeared as Artists’ Extras are still there (and playable if file still in place). However I can no longer add new ones.

So how can all the music videos in the Global folder now be unlinked? It rather looks as there’s a huge hole in Plex operation here. You can set up a Global folder and link all the music videos, but you cannot unlink them. The Artist’s display screen provides NOTHING for any linked videos, except to Play. You cannot even find out the path to the video. Just stuck with it displayed there for the Artist and no way to remove it.

Or I could be mistaken here and removing such video links is simple. In which case, pray tell as this is getting more than a little annoying.

I’d raise a support ticket for this, but Plex provides no such thing.

[UKenGB]

Aha. I’ve just read in another topic (now closed so cannot discuss it there) that this inability to eradicate linked but missing music videos has already been reported and identified as a bug. At least it’s not me going mad.

So that just leaves the problem of track based music videos not being linked to in the first place. Does the Global music video folder option only work at the artist level perhaps and the only way to link track based videos is when stored in-line with (i.e. in the same folder as) the audio track?

The documentation for this is unclear. When describing how to set up the Global folder, it mentions Artist videos, but does NOT mention track based videos, which it does when explaining the naming scheme required for in-line videos. I rather assumed this was simply an omission of the docs, but maybe not. Do track based music videos not work when using a Global music video folder?

Would help if someone could confirm (i.e. they have it working) that track based music videos will be correctly linked to the audio track when using a Global music video folder.

[UKenGB]

So I put all the music videos in-line with the music, in the mistaken belief that actually worked. Ha.

The ONLY videos that show up have music files IN THE SAME FOLDER. I was aware of the basic restriction meaning you couldn’t access music videos for an artist for whom you have no music, but this has been taken too far.

My music storage is rigorously structured as Artist/Album/Track. This is THE only structure that makes sense to me, as a database designer and it is basically acceptable for Plex. However this means there are never any music files in the actual Artist’s folder. Consequently I will never see Artist related videos. The only videos that appear are those in Album sub folders - that also contain music files.

Several things occur to me. Firstly, who thought this restriction was a good idea? It’s so misguided it’s not funny. I cannot see it being for any programmatic reason and as I said, it prevents you from doing what is so carefully described in the docs, about how to have Artist videos.

Secondly, this is the EXACT opposite behaviour that I have experienced when using a Global videos folder. In that case, the ONLY videos that ever were displayed were those placed directly in the Artist’s folder with NO need for any music files, while I was unable to get ANY music video to show up in an Album sub folder, even when said video was correctly named and that Album had music files in the actual Music library’s equivalent folder.

So however you may view this, whether or not it makes sense to only display videos next to music files or not, the stunningly obvious fact is that Plex has got it completely cocked up as the 2 options they provide exhibit OPPOSITE behaviour.

So it seems that I need to put all Artist videos in a Global video folder and Track based videos in-line with the music files. That ought to do it. Daft though it sounds, it looks like it might work and I can do that, but I need to know if this is the Plex defined correct way to achieve full music video support. I don’t want to be doing that and then Plex ‘fix’ things and I have to change it all over again.

Needless to say I’d feel less aggravated about this if there had been any response from Plex in answer to these problems. Which part of all this is a bug, or not. Or have I got it all completely wrong and in fact everything works perfectly? No, I don’t believe that, but some sort of response would be appreciated.

[UKenGB]

More testing with in-line music videos…

Any music videos in an album folder with NO music files will NOT display. Add a music file into that folder ‘can’ make those music videos appear, but ONLY if tagged for that same Artist. Any music file tagged for a different Artist will NOT cause the music videos to be picked up. The file naming appears to be irrelevant (certainly in my tests contained no mention of any Artist) so it MUST be looking at the tags for that music file.

After moving files around like this, I HAD to re-scan the files for that Library AND refresh metadata for that Artist. Then, providing the music file is tagged with the same Artist, the music Videos in that folder will appear.

Interestingly, then remove the music file and the music videos remain displayed and playable. This might be related to the bug that means you cannot delete associated music videos. The side effect is that once associated due to the existence of the music file alongside, that music file is then no longer required.

This also all applies to Artist videos, i.e. that sit in the Artist’s folder and not some Album sub folder. They won’t show up until a music file for that Artist is placed into the Artist’s folder, re-scan, refresh and the video now appears. Remove the music file and even after a re-scan and another refresh the artist video remains in place.

Which rather proves that this ‘only with music’ restriction is an artificial one imposed solely by Plex. There is obviously no requirement for this whatsoever as my testing shows the music videos remain fully accessible even when there’s no longer any music file there.

So that’s how it’s working and far from satisfactory that Artist videos are not possible as that folder will be unlikely (in my case never) to contain any actual music files.

Sadly, it’s all a complete mess.