Thanks for all the comments.
Look, I’m not saying that anyone is wrong in pointing out the naming convention. This convention has existed for untold years, and I am very much familiar with it. On the other hand, I can’t help but observe that my setup has worked flawlessly for years without manual intervention, until something like a few months ago. This is a long time after the replacement of legacy scanners mentioned in a previous post, leading me to believe there is no link between both events.
You know, after a bit more thought, I’m pretty sure that PMS has matched my movies based on the .nfo file that is always present in my movie folders and that always contains an iMDB link. I noticed that on occasions where the iMDB link was incorrect, the movie would be recognized incorrectly. And correcting the .nfo file would put PMS back on track.
I suppose this explains why and how my “improper” folder organisation has worked so well: the folder name was perhaps not used at all in the matching process.
Another interesting fact is that PMS does suggest the correct match most of the time when I manually match the majority of movies that were not automatically recognized. PMS is not totally clueless about the identity of the movie files.
I see that some forum users are unwilling to open mindedly think with me on what might have changed UNLESS I first rename all of my thousands of folders. Like I said: this is to me an extremely unattractive option, not out of some stubborn inflexibility, but because it would imply a ton of work caused by a new requirement that is rumored to have appeared out of nowhere for a system that has worked for years. It’s like the mechanic informing me that I would now have to fill up my trusty old car with unicorn tears instead of petrol because of memo x.
So, if we assume that matching happened based on .nfo file content, and I now notice that matching mostly fails, I can’t help but guess that something has changed inside of PMS that makes it not “see” or interpret those .nfo files anymore.
- Is this a feature that was dropped? I reviewed the Release Notes ( Plex Media Server - #649 by chris_decker08 ) but did not see this mentioned. It is a looong page, so I may have overlooked it. But really, why would this capability ever be removed? Dropping “legacy” components does not imply losing functionality. It should only imply switching code base for improved coding efficiency, maintainability, performance and perhaps security - and in many cases it creates the opportunity to evolve the product and to add features.
- So perhaps I did somehow screw up the installation so that the Agent (?) or Scanner (?) has become damaged?
- Should I try a PMS reinstall?
