I’ve followed the instructions to a “T”. Put TV shows in the TV Shows folder, and Movies in the movies folder. Files are named “Show Name - s01e01 - episode name.ext”. Plex is completely incapable of scanning my movies and tv shows and generating a correct view of what I have. My entire folder of King of the Hill (all files named properly), is littered with south park episodes, Rick and Morty episodes, and other random files that aren’t in that folder. Uninstalling, and reinstalling Plex does not fix the problem.
So far, purchasing this program has proven to be a complete waste of money. If I wanted random files played, I’d play all my content on “shuffle”. I’ve removed folders being randomly tossed into the mix, re-scanned the entire library, just to have it go back to alphabet soup as soon as I move the files back and re-scan again. Why the hell can’t I just organize everything the way I want? It’s worked fine for me for years, then along comes Plex with it’s “OWN” way of organizing things, which it can’t even get close to right. This forum is plagued with posts with this exact same problem. Devs, please get this fixed!
Running PMS 1.19.5.3112-b23ab3896 on Windows Server 2016.
PMS… this thing really does have PMS 24/7.
as for your technical problem…
would you mind sharing how you’ve organized/structured the files in folders (beyond the file naming) and which particular folder of that structure is linked to the Plex library
If that’s what you think you have - also make sure you’re doing this:
A Drive:\
......A TV Show Library Folder/ <---a Library Folder - not 'A Drive' - Library aimed here ONLY.
........South Park\ <----do NOT add this to 'Add Folders'.
...........Season 23\
..............South Park (1992) - S23E01 - Mexican Joker.mkv
So, if you’re doing that as well…
are you using MP4/M4V files?
if so… do this:
TV Shows require valid file names and structures.
If you’re following all the rules (and employing the required hacks) - there’s very little that can go wrong.
Do you realize how many people use Plex, and how many different ways of doing things all these people would use if they all organized the way they wanted to? It’s a very big number.
There’s no way that a program, such as Plex, would be able to correctly identify all these different organization methods and correctly organize the TV Shows and Movies in it’s on screen menu.
When you say , “It can’t even get close to right” do you mean that it can’t recognize the way that you’ve organized your files? If so, that’s not surprising.
As others here have suggested, provide a screen shot of your files and the directory structure so that we can make suggestions on changes you can make so that Plex will work better for you. You say that you’ve followed the instructions to a T but if it’s not working there’s a good chance you missed something. Maybe someone here can help you find something else to change. There’s also ways to automate the change in filename structure so it won’t be nearly as difficult as it seems.
Coming in and demanding that the developers change the program to suit your structure, without even identifying your structure, is not the best way.
I have a 10TB, (3) 8TB and (2) 4TB external drives on my computer and the file structure for each starts with the drive letter and then the following…
G:/TV Shows (with all of the shows in folders and seasons within this folder)
G:/Movies (with all movies in folders by genre, a personal preference but not necessary). The individual movies within the genre folders are not in folders of the movie name though.
G:/Music Videos…
G:/Music
G:/Cartoons
G:/Documentaries (etc…)
I then repeated this setup with each of the other drives i.e. H:/TV Shows, H:/Movies and so on. I added each of the folders for TV Shows to the Plex folder for TV Shows and haven’t had any issues.
With these settings, Plex did a wonderful job organizing my files properly and has even helped me fix some issues. It catches duplicates and let’s me know when a match can’t be found so I can research why. It’s usually something in the naming which I then go in and fix. If you follow these guidelines, I’m certain you won’t have any issues. It seems your file naming is good, so the rest of this should be easy for you. Even your file structure looks good I just found having them at the root directory level worked the best for me.
Yes, I read the instructions and basically I had everything set up properly. Here’s some tools that might help you @wetjet. I use MagicFile Renamer to change multiple files at one time. You can adjust it to change based on your needs. I also use FileBot to take a library folder of videos and it will utilize the metadata within the files to rename them the way you define and last I use MCEBuddy to take my recordings, strip the commercials out and resize the videos and compress them from MPEG2 or TS to MKV HVEC256 at 1280 x 720 so the file sizes go from 4GB for an hour show down to 800MB or so and half hour show from 1.8GB to 350MB or so. You can also define it to rename the shows at it strips out and reformats the videos. With these tools, I find keeping up with my libraries takes just minutes a day versus hours. I do a lot of recording for family and keep it updated on Plex for them.
I have over 2000 episodes of TV across nearly 100 different series. I’ve had the odd minor issue but generally it all tags correctly and looks absolutely fine in Plex. Just follow the naming convention (which really isn’t hard) and there aren’t any issues.
@wetjet hang in there, once you have it setup properly you will be very happy. Aside from the minor hiccup everything works great for me and I have almost 800 different TV series as well as over 1800 movies
The library structure of Plex is very simple and straightforward to understand. When you fail to grasp the concept and your only response is throwing a tantrum without providing any meaningful info whatsoever, my advice to you would be just stick with Netflix/HBO/iTunes.
Alternatively, you could:
Take a deep breath
Calm down
Consider the possibility that reality doesn’t match your rage-induced perception
Ask nicely for help like an adult and share your library info
This type of user is why I hated working in customer service. Runs into a minor struggle that is easily fixable — demands full refund and to “speak with a manager”. Example from his initial post. He bought a $150 piece of software (lifetime pass)before he even tests to see that he will like it.
I can see your disappointed in your purchase but don’t despair. You can sort it out and have a terrific experience. All you have to do is read some support articles and ask a few questions on the forum if you run into a problem. I would have to say all forum subscribers at one time have asked for help.
As a pointer, on the opening page of the forum there are plenty resources a click away.
Also one that comes in like he did claiming that his files were organized to a T and it’s the software that must be wrong. Then, not only fails to give examples of his file structure but also never comes back to the thread to reply at all.
My guess is he read some of the information given to him, realized he was naming his files wrong, fixed them, and now Plex suddenly works like he wants it to.
Why would anyone insist on their own way of organizing files? Plex’s methodology isn’t just good for Plex. It’s also the most sensible, clearest way to structurally organizing your files. It’s actually conventional wisdom before Plex even existed.
Seems like a weird hill to die on.
Btw, renaming TV shows can be a chore. I wholeheartedly recommend this totally free little utility:
It works very well, and makes your library clean af.
