I’m running the Plex server on Windows 10. I have 2 videos in a subfolder of my library. When I change one of the filenames from Windows Explorer and update the libraries in Plex, both videos change to the name of the file I changed.
E.g.:
If I have two files called File1.mp4 and File2.mp4 in the Windows folder, and I changed File1.mp4 to File3.mp4, both File1 and File2 change to File3.mp4.
The files are different but the names in Plex changes.
Sounds like an incorrect match problem. Does plex show a single movie with a 2 in the poster’s corner? If so, open the ellipse menu and fix match or split apart. Once separated plex can continue to see them as separate files. Not a bug
This worked. But should this match problem happen in the first place? Initially, only one file showed up in the folder no matter how I tried to update the library files. Maybe there should be an option to force Plex to completely re-match all files in the selected folder.
Many of the glitches are caused by odd file names for movies, not following the naming rules for TV episodes, mp4 files have their own Metadata that could be used if the local agent has a high precedence, poor or incorrect data on TMDB or TVDB, and sometimes its how you hold your tongue when you load files. If PLEX is configured correctly and the files and their paths are following the naming conventions you will seldom get problems of this nature.
I understand there are many ways to mess up if you don’t follow the prescribed naming conventions or metadata rears it ugly head unexpectedly but , in this case, Plex got the correct filename, just didn’t see them as separate files. It would help if there was an option to just force the use of the actual filename for personal media. Maybe I’m being naive. Maybe naming conventions play into various categorizing efforts. but “I” should be the boss, not Plex. If I can tell it to use the actual filename for my personal media, Plex should just do it. My two cents.
If you have personal media (home videos?) that you load to an Other Videos library you can make the local media agent the highest priority in Settings>>Agents>>Movies>>Personal Media, but I don’t think that is what you were referring to above. You can do a wholesale forced refresh of meta data doing The Plex Dance ™. This is not a single click refresh solution but it works well. But if your off on the naming, pathways, or agents you might still have a bit of a mess.
This is useful information. Thanks.
Basically, by personal media I mean any files in my local network. I don’t use online content. I just want to serve up files from my local Windows 10 networked computers. I use the Other Videos category to hold everything in my Plex library. Basically, I want Plex to serve up my files the way Windows does them, files within folders or sub-folders. And I don’t want to change my file names to suit Plex’s naming convention.
Your information has shown me how to handle this problem of unrecognized files in the future. Thank you.
I have a similar problem. All my video files are in libraries of type “Other Video.” I do this because I want my movies named the way I want them named and I don’t want to use a convention. In a folder called “Movies” I have sub-folders of “Comedy”, “Science Fiction,” etc. I have found that in many folders there is a video called “1 Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl.” I have actually removed this movie from the plex libraries. I deleted it. It still shows up at least 20 times in various folders.
Here is an example of what has happened. In the “Comedy” folder there is a folder called “Smokey and the Bandit.” In that folder are three videos. the first is “1 Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl.” Second is Smokey and the Bandit", Third is “Smokey and the Bandit Part 3.” If I click on the 1 Pirates of the Caribbean movie and click the get info option I see the path to the video which is correct and shows as Smokey and the Bandit Part 2.
The first video shown in many folders the the Pirates movie, even though the actual file name is something else. I thought selecting the Other Video option as the library type made it so I could see the file name instead of something else. I should note that the Agent chosen for this library is the “Personal Media” agent and the scanner is “Plex Media Files Scanner.”
How can I fix this?
I found the solution. I deleted the library, which doesn’t delete the movie files, and re-created the library. Problem solved. Hope it stays solved.
