Until recently all the files in my “Other Videos” Library (.mp4 Videos that include accurate metadata in their tags) were named like such:
Artist Name - Name of Video Title
Now Plex has removed the Artist Name and my other videos appear as:
Name of Video Title
Ever since I created this library it has been named so I can locate specific videos. Not anymore, what happened and what can I do to go back to the original naming convention? Is there a way to force Plex to use the metadata in the file for the purpose of creating the Library Directory?
To add. My files have 0 embedded metadata. If you have data, then PMS will use what you have. If the title is set to only be the title, then PMS will use that and it won’t show what you have in the filename.
My media files do have embedded metadata and used to appear in my library properly. This has been the case based on selecting the following option for my Personal Media Library: “Local Media Assets” is an Agent source that loads local media files or embedded metadata for a media item. To do this, ensure the Agent source is enabled and topmost in the list:
The Local Media Assets agent will read embedded metadata from MP4 files. If you have the title set, that will be used by PMS. If you had the title before but it was using the filename, then that would have been a bug and it is actually working properly now.
Thank you for your reply however I am not finding your experiences with your library to be the same in my library. As I have noted previously I have .mp4 files with embedded metadata that used to appear correctly in my library and now it does not.
My metadata includes both an Artist and Title which both used to display in my library. The library was not using the file name to display as far as I can tell. Either way, the file name is correct like the metadata and should properly display but it doesn’t. This appears to be a bug and I’m looking for a fix.
What do you have embedded in the title field? If you have the title field filled, it will use exactly what is in that field and only that field. If that field is empty, it will use the filename.
I have both the Artist field and the Title field embedded in the metadata as well as how the files are named. Your statement “it will use exactly what is in that field and only that field” is what is happening now. The Artist Name is no longer appearing and that is my issue. Sorry if I created confusion, but I can’t understand why the Artist Name used to appear and now it doesn’t. I guess my question is why? What is the logic for not including the Artist name? More importantly, why can’t I force it to display when it is in both the metadata and the file name?
The artist name field isn’t used for movies. Never has. If it use to show the artist and title then something was wrong and maybe it wasn’t using the embedded metadata but using the filename. Or did you possibly change the files and they use to be mkv or something else? PMS can only read tags from mp4 files so it would have used the filename previously.
As stated in my original post “Until recently all the files in my “Other Videos” Library”, so these are not Movies. I did not change the files so they were never .mkv converted to .mp4. To be perfectly clear, these are .mp4 files with embedded metadata in both the Artist and Title fields. here is an example:
Filename:
BBC - Depeche Mode Live at BBC Radio 6 Music Festival (2017-0326).mp4
File metadata is as follows:
BBC is in the Artist field
Depeche Mode Live at BBC Radio 6 Music Festival (2017-0326) is in the Title field
If PMS can only read tags from .mp4 files, is is not reading them properly anymore.
My “Other Videos” library used to list all my BBC shows together, now they are not categorized by the Artist field. So, Depeche Mode is alphabetized to the “D” and ZZ Top is alphabetized to the “Z”. Again, they used to be categorized as BBC - “Title”. Something is wrong since it used to be listed correctly. I realize you are trying to help me, but I’m trying to get this problem resolved. I didn’t change anything, Plex changed and now it is broken.
Sorry, I meant PMS has never used the embedded artist field for videos.
I don’t know how/why things changed, but it appears to be working as expected now. Why it was showing the artist before, I can only guess it wasn’t reading the tags and using the filename. Did you recently “refresh” the metadata, or enabled the auto refresh option under scheduled tasks? This could have triggered a new check of the metadata and started using those now.
You can try fixing this by turning off the local media agent, hitting refresh, and it will go back to using the filename.
Thanks for the suggestion to turn off the local media agent in order to force it back to using the file name. I will give that a try when I get home tonight.
Success! Thank you for following through with this issue. I unchecked the Local Media Agent, did a refresh of the Other Videos Library, and all the Titles corrected themselves based on the file name (which was identical to the metadata within the .mp4 files). I am now able to search this directory the way I like. Thanks again!
