New movie files not identified by plex server

[mmbe7]

Server Version#: 1.32.8.7639
Player Version#: 4.121.1

Hello Plex Community,

I am running Plex Server on an Linux Ubuntu machine and cannot access new medial files that are posted to my library directory. A blank library with no files shows up. Here are some relevant details…

• I purchased a DVD and used the linux program dvdbackup to rip the files to a local directory on my server.

• The VTSxxx.VOB file was converted to mp4 via FFMPEG.

• The MP4 files was moved to my plex library movie directory where all my other movies reside and appear. File permissions and user/groups are all correct but the new MP4 file does not show up on plex.

• Library files where scanned and the machine even rebooted and the new movie is still not showing up. All the other movies that I have previously placed in the directory show up on plex without difficulty. The file name is similar for all movies in my directory movie_name.mp4

• I downloaded handbrake and reconverted the VOB file to MP4 and it still did not work.

• I tried remuxing the file to MKV and it still does not appear in the directory.

Any assistance in getting plex to recognize my new mp4 files (all old files are also mp4 and work fine) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Marc

[ChuckPa]

please share a ls -la of one of the movie’s (and the directory it’s in).

Most of these issues involve naming or permissions.

MP4 files include “Title” fields which Plex reads and can cause failures when erroneous data is in those fields.

MKV files are always matched on filename alone.

[mmbe7]

Hello Chuck,

Thank you for your reply. Here is the directory listing. I had mp4 containers for the northern_exposure* files as well and it still did not work. The other files appear and play without difficulty and the naming conventions are the same. What are your thoughts?

-rw-rw-r-- 1 mediacenter marc 224591285 Dec 23 11:14 northern_exposure_S1E2.m4v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mediacenter marc 224069183 Dec 23 11:14 northern_exposure_S1E2.mkv
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mediacenter marc 980734182 Oct 28 2009 one_hundred_one_dalmations.mp4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mediacenter marc 868281378 Feb 26 2013 one_man_one_cow_one_planet.mp4

Thank you.

Marc

[ChuckPa]

@mmbe7

Your naming is incorrect.

1. Incorrect structure
2. Stop using underscores.

/vol/plex/qa/tv/
  Northern Exposure/
    Season 01/
      Northern Exposure - S01E01 - Pilot.mkv

All those underscores are hurting you. Movie names / Series Names do not have underscores in them (except for the rare few which do).

Consider:

• One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
  – Matches instantly
  – Has full metadata
  
  

[chuck@lizum One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) [1080p].1990]$ ls -laR
.:
total 21470064
drwxrwxr-x   3 chuck chuck          90 Dec 23 15:55 ./
drwxr-xr-x 129 chuck chuck        8192 Dec 23 15:54 ../
drwxr-xr-x   2 chuck chuck         183 Dec 23 15:53 Extras/
-rw-rw-rw-   1 chuck chuck 21985327366 Dec 23 13:25 One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)  [1080p].mkv

./Extras:
total 3762028
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck        183 Dec 23 15:53 ./
drwxrwxr-x 3 chuck chuck         90 Dec 23 15:55 ../
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck  867360100 Dec 23 13:24 Bringing the Book to Life.mkv
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck  494696047 Dec 23 13:25 Cruella DeVil.mkv
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck  146687924 Dec 23 13:24 Musical element development.mkv
-rw-rw-rw- 1 chuck chuck 2343565425 Dec 23 13:24 The Making of One Hundred and One Dalmatians.mkv
[chuck@lizum One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) [1080p].1991]$ 

• Northern Exposure

A renaming tool , TinyMediaManager or FileBot or others , which perform the internet lookup/search for the proper name FIRST is the way to go.

Best Results - Rename and structure your media BEFORE giving to Plex.

[mmbe7]

Hello Chuck.

Thank you for the response. I tried using FileBot to rename the file. FileBot created the following filename
-rw-rw-r-- 1 marc marc 224069183 Dec 24 07:31 ‘Northern Exposure-1x02-Brains, Know How and Native Intelligence’

which I copied to my video directory. I emptied the trash. Removed all previous files that were not recognized and re-scanned the directory. Still did not load.

I decided to try an old script I had written years ago that used mencoder that ripped the chapters directly from the DVD into an MP4 file…

mencoder dvd://$dvd_chapter -nosub -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=1800 -oac mp3lame -lameopts br=128 -alang en -o $video_file_name

This worked perfectly and the file was recognized by plex and played without difficulty. I wanted to see if the file would still be recognized by the underscore naming convention and it was. I’m sure this is not optimal for metadata and I will use your file naming convention above. However, it appeared to be more of an decoding/encoding issue for file recognition.

Thanks for your help.

Marc

[OttoKerner]

@mmbe7

FileBot created the following filename
-rw-rw-r-- 1 marc marc 224069183 Dec 24 07:31 ‘Northern Exposure-1x02-Brains, Know How and Native Intelligence’

You forgot to tell filebot that you are using Plex.

[ChuckPa]

@mmbe7

My TV series renaming rule (run from computer, storing onto NAS)

/nas/tv/{n}/Season {s.pad(2)}/{n} - {s00e00} - {t}

– ‘/nas’ is where my fileserver NFS mount is
– ‘tv’ is the NFS shared folder for all TV series
– Everything below this point is in Plex naming standard.

FileBot takes the names you drop in the left pane,
Matches them,
Lets you confirm the names/matches,
Renames (and moves) to the pathnames shown in the right pane.

As Otto has stated, you didn’t tell it about {plex} naming rule or write your own (like I did)

Don’t forget the spaces!

FileBot can go back over what you’ve already named and fix it pretty easily.
Look at that part. Full pathnames make this a safe operation even when doing wholesale library restructuring / moving.