Server Version#: 3.67.1
Player Version#: 2.20.0.909-46413dd1
Alright. I’m starting to get frustrated, so if I get a little uncouth, I apologize. Plex is no longer functioning properly. I added Star Trek Voyager to my server tonight. All 7 seasons. All in folder marked Season 1 - Season 7 in my TV parent directory. Each episode is number and labeled “1. Caretaker”. I’ve scanned the library at least a dozen times and it refuses to add Voyager. What is wrong with the server? This is not the first time. Last time, I had to relabel all the episodes to get them to show up. This time, nothing is working.
Based on your description, this could be linked to a naming issue.
The videos might actually show in your library but being misplaced (e.g. showing as a different show or as duplicates of existing shows/episodes).
Names / folder structure should be as follows:
TV Shows ← the folder linked to the library .. / Star Trek Voyager .. .. / Season 01 .. .. .. / Star Trek Voyager - s01e01 - Caretaker (1).ext ← episode title is optional and will be ignored by Plex; ext is your file extension (e.g. mkv or mp4) .. .. .. / Star Trek Voyager - s01e02.ext ← this time without the episode title .. .. .. / Star Trek Voyager - s01e03.ext .. .. .. / ... .. .. .. / Star Trek Voyager - s01e16.ext .. .. / Season 02 .. .. .. / Star Trek Voyager - s02e01.ext .. .. .. / ...
When it comes to tv shows, Plex is particularly strict and expecting you to follow their naming conventions.
There’s apps to help with the renaming (e.g. FileBot).
Alright. It’s adding voyager. I know I’ve been out of the IT field for a while, but you just don’t forget how the basics of Windows Server operates. I’m running Server 2012 Essentials, wish I could have afforded the real version, but anyway… It wasn’t adding libraries and it was running slightly slower than normal. So I rebooted the server machine, and it’s a real Dell PowerEdge, so it takes a few minutes. It finally rebooted, I logged in and it said Plex Server couldn’t start because “msvc140.dll” was missing. So, being me, I downloaded a copy of the dll, manually placed it in the plex server program folder and it came up and said that Plex still couldn’t start and gave some random numbers for an error. I ran a repair in the Programs control panel and now it works. But where did “msvc140.dll” go to that it was missing? Does anyone have any ideas? This is not the first time that any version of Windows has lost files on me.
BTW, thank you very much, tom80H. Yeah. I renamed s01e01 to a minor variance of what you gave me just now… Voyager - s01e01 - Caretaker.ext and now it is adding all of the other episodes which are not following the same naming convention. Thanks again, tom.
From what I could find, this sounds like a missing .net or visual studio library
here’s a post from one of the gurus who’s been dealing with this before:
As for your naming…
If you got lucky and this “minor variance” works for now, keep your fingers crossed it keeps working. When it no longer does… remember the official naming schema
side note:
The particular file name you gave in your last post is definitely not going to work!
Plex will eat the dots as separators ok – the troublesome part is the multi-episode section:
is
s07e09-10
should be
s07e09-e10
If you want to keep the technical blahblah at the end of your file name, you could put it in square brackets. Plex will ignore information in square brackets and not get confused if there's some misleading/conflicting information.
Alright. Renamed s01e01 and 2 the way you suggested, s01e01-e02 and it displays Caretaker 1 and 2 in the episode list now. But Caretaker 2 plays the entiret of both episodes. It’s suppose to be one of those tv movie type getups where its 1.5 hours long. I dunno if I’m making sense or not…
This is one of the more tricky parts.
Plex follows the organization given by TheTVDb.com, while the organization on your discs could be quite different – in particular when it comes to double episodes which aired as a tv movie.
When it comes to organizing your Plex library, you’ll have to bite one bullet when it comes to such a use case.
Option 1:
If your priority is to get a consistent view on your library, your best shot is to use Plex multi-episode naming approach.
Option 2:
If your priority is on getting a straight forward / uninterrupted and consistent watching experience, you can consider to skip this.
Approach
Option 1: Use multi-episode naming
Option 2: Ignore multi-episode naming
Example (file)
s01e01-e02
s01e03
...
s01e01
s01e03
...
Example (displayed as)
s01e01
s01e02
s01e03
...
s01e01
<gap>
s01e03
...
Pro
Your library shows every single episode as it is intended with all individual episodes showing in your library.
No interruptions in your watching experience. If you binge-watch a season, there'll be no duplicate videos.
Con
Unless you remember the file organization and manually flag the subsequent parts of a multi-episode file as watched, Plex will play the full video with every episode -- completely ignoring it just played it.
Your library will show some gaps (e.g. for the "Caretaker" episode, Plex will show episode 1 and directly jump to episode 3 afterwards). In some cases you might have additional efforts if you want to clean-up the episode names and descriptions (e.g. manually removing the trailing "(1)" in the episode name that will be downloaded by Plex
Summary:
Personally… if there’s a very clear cut between the parts of a multi-episode, I tend to separate the file (e.g. using MKVToolNix, splitting at a certain chapter). However that doesn’t always work or gives an even weirder watching experience.
Thanks, tom. I was thinking about splitting the episodes. Not positive just yet. But definitely a big thank you for the help last night and this morning.
But definitely a big thank you for the help last night and this morning. 