having spent hours naming all my media, i was a tad upset shall we say when a update now means non of the hard work means anything and all episodes are now episode 1 2 ect, whereas before it displayed the episode title… can someone please tell me how to fix this, would be eternally grateful
You don’t say how you have named your tv shows, but I would recomend that you use this guide as Plex somtimes can be a bit pickey about the naming and you will avoide many problems if it is done correct.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/
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sorry that didnt cross my mind but basically i just rename the .mkv or ,mov file to whatever the title is so for example S01E01 pilot each episode is in its own season folder within the shows main folder so the tree would be D:\supernatural\season 1\s01e01 ect
many thanks for reply tho will take a look at the article this evening
J
Incorrect.
Correct:
D:\TV Shows\Supernatural\Season 01\Supernatural - s01e01.xxx
You MUST create a TV Show Library Folder off the root of your drive. You must NOT throw TV Show Folders onto the root of a drive (if you expect Plex to work).
You MUST NOT put TV Shows into Movie Type Libraries - and vice versa.
You MUST ONLY add the single TV Show Folder (can be any name) as the path (“D:\TV Shows”) to the TV Show Type Library (do NOT add individual TV Shows as paths), Unless, of course, you want to include other properly named and structured TV Show Library Folders residing… where they happen to be - but for now let’s fix the one on D:\ that you’re making now (we hope).
The default location of Local Media Assets is simply WRONG. You MUST visit each Agent and LOWER Local Media Assets to the bottom of each Agent list - so that bogus info embedded into MP4/M4V files will not continue to bork matches. You are advised to leave LMA ENABLED (subtitles/etc), simply demote down the list to the bottom of the active Agents.
The longer you wait before you employ FileBot - the more pain and suffering you will need to endure, because to reduce the MOST pain and suffering all at once you will realize that Plex works best when you feed it properly named and structured material - PARTICULARLY. - TV Shows.
If you don’t think FileBot is worth whatever @rednoah is asking for it… check back in a year from the psycho ward after this stuff makes you crazy:
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There is actually no real reason to include the name of th show in the file name. It doesn’t hurt, but as long as the directory has the same name as you see in thetvdb.com, a simple version of this will work.
D:\TV Shows\Supernatural\season 1\s01e01.avi
I’ve had to do this for shows with REALLY long show names. Stuff like:
L:\TV Shows\8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown\Season 03\S03E01.mkv
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For Plex, you are absolutely correct but it’s always a good idea to add the show name.
I came really close in doing that with
\SHOWS\Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, The (2009) [COMPLETE]\Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, The (2009) [COMPLETE]
Luckily 3rd party file managers will copy LFN whereas Windows Explorer won’t.
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You are welcome to do what you like, but Plex Veterans know all too well that naming inconsistent with the instructions laid down for your behavior in the Plex Guidelines for material naming and structuring will - eventually - cause an issue and the only real way to combat this is to FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS!
The thing about incorrect/inconsistent/wrong naming and structuring is that it may work today, and it may work for a while, right up until the day it doesn’t work. Properly named and structured material works today, tomorrow and the next day.
Most Plex Veterans with as much experience as I have don’t have a lot of time to waste futzing with our stuff. We like doing it once and then watching it, but the novice Plexer always has to find out these things on their own - then quietly adapt later…
Note:
With FileBot you could properly name and structure your entire (enormous) library in a weekend (an hour or so more likely) and eventually many people will find that out and wonder why they’ve resisted so vehemently.
Note 2:
Plex matching with TVDB is already a wild-ass crap-shoot even with proper naming and structuring, but the adventurous with a lot of time to kill are welcome to push the envelope.
Note 3:
Veterans like to give solid advice to newcomers - so they can avoid issues brought on by bad practices, we already had to deal with, but have since corrected.
damn having spent entire weekends on renaming files only to find that plex no longer displays them in the same way was gut wrenching i shall look into filebot forthwith lol anything that saves me re typing 2tb of tv shows!
I probably shouldn’t even reply to this but I got to say it. I really do.
The truth of the matter is the title of the filename can actually cause issues.
If you look at Plex Series Scanner.py
You will notice that plex has to compensate for possible errors/erroneous info with the filename title. So the less information the filename has it actually better for plex to parse.
Though I say the above but still would always add the show name in the filename.
TL;DR: Always add the title of the show in the filename.
I have this dream where perfectly ‘Pre-Matched’ and ‘Pre-Named’ items pristine in their creation (by FileBot) for the complex Plex palate take less overhead to deal with than a poorly named file Plex has to think about.
Even if it’s bogus - it’s the dream I’m going with…
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And I like it!!!
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… and Heaven forbid the user accidentally (can’t imagine anyone doing it on purpose) hit ‘Refresh Metadata’ for an entire library consisting mostly of ‘Fix Match’ items.
There’s a dream that’ll make ya wake up sweatin’ in soiled undies.
Anyway, the moral of the story and my parting shot is that there are plenty of ways for Plex to come up lame, out of the blue, for no apparent reason, but if you KNOW your file naming and structuring is Pristine you can eliminate that possibility from DAY ONE with FileBot. (mostly - everyone didn’t used to, but now has to, ‘Fix Match’, occasionally)
I never do. I refuse to. I will spend 5 hours plex dancing the movie/series till it’s right(aka. what plex wants. eg, Simon and Simon (1982) but aired in 1981)
I admire your tenacity.
I will Fix Match if a pristine name and structure won’t work - I probably have a Doctor’s Appointment to get to…
“Most Plex Veterans with as much experience as I have”
I bet you are lots of fun at parties. I guess I don’t count as a veteran. I’ve only used PLEX for three years on about 27 terabytes of media files. You can put the names on there if you want. 90% of the time I do. But saying you HAVE to is not true. Carry on.
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I see what you are trying to say but I see Juice’s point. It’s all about the FAQ’s that plex has created for the masses to use. They all say(used by example) the show name. So “have to” may be a bit strong but you won’t find any official FAQ that will disagree.
Where this becomes anissue is for those of us who back up our media libraries to off site dirves. My Synology may have few problems with really long file paths, but when you copy that to an external drive for backups, you can run into issues with the path name being too long for the file system to save the file. Happens most frequently on classical music tracks but it can pop up on TV shows with ridiculously long show names. When it does I truncate the show name off the file name. It also works a lot in Teaching Company episodes that also tend to have names that go on forever.
Again, best practice to have the name? Sure. Hard rule? Hardly.
Oh, I know. I see this from time to time. Windows Explorer refuses to copy/move/delete/or even recognize file(s) with long filenames/paths.
I use Total Command to do the operations in those cases.
While we’re on the topic, does anyone have experience with with writing Plex scraper plug-ins?
Scraping metadata directly from xattr (if available) as written by FileBot (or potentially other apps) would allow Plex to identify each file instantly and accurately:
https://www.filebot.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=324
No experience here…
