So I’ve been trying for a while to find a way to get TV show specials to work but apparently none of the guides are accurate anymore.
I have a special episode that is listed on theTVdb.com, and I tag all of my files using data from that site (using MetaZ on Mac) so it’s correctly tagged as season 0 etc.
I don’t see why Plex should be so inflexible when it comes to specials; my library is actually migrated from iTunes, so season 0 is normally dumped in the show’s root folder, e.g-
TV Shows/Psycho-Pass/12 Psycho-Pass Movie.mp4
But no matter where I move these files, or what I rename them to, Plex seems unable or unwilling to recognise that they exist.
I would like to suggest the following behaviour:
Any file found in the show’s root directory, a season 0 folder or a specials folder, should be matched as a special using a best effort episode number from the filename and/or metadata.
Files placed into the Movie extras folder structure, e.g- Behind the Scenes, Featurettes etc. should be matched as for movies.
Any movie style extras folder located at the show’s root folder will be available as extras for that show, whereas folders under each season are extras for that season specifically.
Currently I have no idea what Plex intends for me to do, but whatever it is it’s not any of the things listed online. And it really is bewildering why it’s so inconsistent with movies, and just so generally bad; I have to watch all of my extras in VLC which rather defeats the point of using Plex!
Another possibility would be to have Plex gain a section for all unmatched files, e.g- under a tab at the top, where I can go in and identify files as extras etc. directly. Currently Plex just ignores everything it doesn’t understand, which only makes it all the worse.
This is what I’ve tried; Plex will not recognise it any combination that I use. It is not a problem unique to this episode either; I have never been able to get Plex to recognise any TV extras no matter how I name them or where I put them.
Since your file is a mp4 file, embedded metadata may interfere.
Remove/correct them or do this:
Go to Settings - Server - Agents - Shows - TheTVDB
In there, grab the line ‘Local Media Assets’ with your mouse and drag it downwards, so it ends up being at the bottom of the stack of active agents.
Thanks for the suggestion but it made no difference; I don’t think it should anyway as like I said, I get my metadata from thetvdb anyway so it should all be the same except on the few files Plex gets wrong, in which case I prefer my metadata to take priority.
It just doesn’t want to work; Plex is detecting other episodes I’m adding just fine, and likewise with movie extras, there’s just something wrong with its handling of TV extras and I think it really does need to be ripped out and done again, as it should not be this frustrating and unreliable.
I didn’t have to rip anything out and re-do it and this handling of TV Show Extras isn’t what a lot of people want, but I don’t expect it to change any time soon.
So I tried again (without changing anything) and it’s now listed in Plex, but it hasn’t downloaded any metadata; even though the file is named exactly as you show in your own attempt (with .mp4 in place of .ext). I had to set all the metadata myself… again.
This is what I mean, it’s just so damn inconsistent; it shouldn’t be this difficult. Besides, what should it matter where the file is an what it’s named? Okay obviously if it’s in a season folder it should be treated accordingly, but what does it matter if it’s in root or under Season 0/Specials and what does it matter what the name is if the metadata contains the correct season and episode number (exactly as it appears in the thetvdb)?
Aside from the flakiness, I’m still determined that it needs to be reworked, it just isn’t intuitive, and apparently isn’t reliable either, plus as mentioned there are still no support for season-specific extras such as those from a DVD/Blu-Ray.
