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Hi, I have been using Plex for some years now and recently added almost 30 TV series. I discovered that Plex for some of the TV series shows correct name and short summary for the TV series and also correct episode names and short summaries for the episodes. However for some of the TV series only the correct name and summary of the TV series shows while the name of the episodes only shows as “episode number” and the episode summary is also missing.
I have gone through the video file names of these TV series to see if there are any obvious differences between the TV shows that have correct episode information (both name and short summary) and the TV series missing episode information. I can’t find any clear differences. Yes, there are differences in the names. Some have:
space between the words others have a dot .
the release year of the TV series in the name, others not
the resolution in the name (1080p) others not
S01EP03 format in names in some series, just EP03 or E03 in others (one season series)
None of the mentioned differences seem to matter for my problem. All variants come up with the correct TV series but it seems a bit random if the episode name and summary is showing or not. Can somebody please help me?
It’s likely this inconsistency which is causing issues. Plex expects series to be organized in a fairly specific (but very common) way. The naming and organization guidelines can be found here:
Here’s an example of what’s described in the linked document:
Media
├── DVR TV <--- Library points here, the name is not important
│ └── Psych (2006) <---- The show name, including the optional release year
│ ├── Season 01 <---- It's recommended to place episodes in a season folder
│ │ ├── Psych (2006) - S01E01 - Pilot.mkv <---- All episodes should include the season and episode numbers in sXXeYY format
| | | ...
│ │ └── Psych (2006) - S01E15 - Scary Sherry Bianca's Toast.mkv
│ ├── Season 02
│ │ ├── Psych (2006) - S02E01 - American Duos.mkv
│ │ ├── Psych (2006) - S02E02 - Sixty-Five Million Years Off.mkv
| | | ...
Plex tries to make sense of what it’s given and sometimes is able to do so. But if the guidelines aren’t followed you’ll experience the inconsistent behavior you’re seeing. Or, in the worst case, shows won’t be detected at all.
Note: Technically, for the file names only the season and episode information is required. So S01E01.mkv is just as good as Psych (2006) - S01E01 - Pilot.mkv as far as the scanner is concerned. As long as the files are organized as above. But folks generally include the show name and episode title for human readability.
Hi and thanks. Now I did a quick test with only one of the TV series not showing name and short summary of episodes. Changed the file names to only: name (2021) - S01E01.mkv name (2021) - S01E02.mkv etc for all 16 episodes (name = the name of the TV series). This is a one season TV series and I still do not get name and summary for episodes. Do I need to do more than simply refresh metadata for this TV series after I changed the file names?
The only changes I did was adding (2021), remowing P in S01EP01 to S01E01 and removing 1080p from the name.
Minimally you will need to perform a library scan. However, I’d recommend performing the Plex Dance for the series in question to ensure the changes are recognized.
Look up the series at both TheMovieDB.org and TheTVDB.com
These are the main sources that Plex is using for tv shows, with TheMovieDB being primary one. See if the show exists at all at these two websites.
If it exists on both sites, compare the data. Sometimes the two are disagreeing how many seasons there are and/or how many episodes are supposed to be in a given season.
That is the reason why there is an “Episode Ordering” preference that can be set for each tv show individually.
Moved all files out of the Plex media folder and did a TV series Library scan. When Plex do not se the files anymore a red trash can is visible over the banner for this TV series.
Did SETTINGS > MANAGE > LIBRARIES > TV SERIES > EMPTY TRASH and then this TV series disappared completely. I do however not find clean bundles??
Found the TV series on TheMovieDB but and it showed 16 episodes but… it ONLY had the name of episode 1 and only showed “episode and number” as the name for all the next 15 episodes.
TheTVDB also had the series and 16 Episodes but with episode names only in the original language and not english!
Does that mean I have to enter the episode names manually for this TV series?
Among the almost 30 TV series I added recently there are 3 Korean:
Vagabond
She would never know
Vincenzo
They all are among the 7 of the new TV series in my Plex server that do not show the name and summary of episodes. I still found that a bit surprising since I from earlier have 5 Korean TV series in my Plex server where both episode name and episode summary are visible.
Well, maybe the quality of metadata is poorer among Korean Movies and TV series on TheMovieDB and TheTVDB?
Plex has always been using these two data sources. Since they are both community -driven, it might just be that it can take a while before someone enters data for brand-new series.
Well Otto, for some TV Series it don’t seem to be only caused by TheMovieDB and TheTVDB or other community -driven data sources. I now tried to search for episode names for these 3 TV series but gave up after 2. After visiting a lot of webpages with reviews and a lot of other info on the 2 first I did not find any episode names!? However I did find short episode summaries for one of the TV series. If I want to have the summaries on my plex server… how do I enter them?
Also, since it seems like you’ll be doing some hand-editing of items, ensure the following server setting is disabled:
Settings -> [Select Server Name] -> Library -> Empty trash automatically after every scan
When enabled, if your media becomes unavailable for any reason when a library scan occurs, it will automatically be removed from the PMS database, thereby removing all of your manual changes. Disabling the setting prevents this from happening. Instead it will stay in the “trashed” state (trash can icon on its poster) until a subsequent scan is performed while it’s available again.
BTW: I disabled the “Empty trash automatically after every scan” many months ago after experiencing a glitch in my LAN between my NAS and my Plex server
After manually entering the episode summary I even found the episode names and added them too. But now… the cast list (names and photos) has gone. The cast list was visible before I entered episode name and summary. This is not exactly “straight forward”, Any idea on how to get back the cast list?
Both TheMovieDB and TheTVDB have cast lists 18 actors in TheTVDB and 19 in TheMovieDB but I am not sure wich one of these that where visible in my Plex before I added the episode names and summaries manually.
Make sure to be on the overall “show” preplay page, and not on a Season or Episode page. Because these can have a different cast list.
Also, to see the cast list anywhere requires the show to be “matched” to the metadata source. If you look at the Plex media info XML of your episodes, and you see the term local somewhere in an xml property that has guid in its name, then this is a case of not “matched”.
