Plex ignores articles (the, le, la, les...) in sort and search

Plex Media Server
1

Hi !

Plex is sorting my library with ignoring articles (le, la, les…). I want to use it by not ignoring any articles at all. I don’t want to edit the “sort title” of every movie.

Is there a simple way to do it ?
Thanks !

2

There’s a hidden option to configure if/what article strings Plex is going to ignore. This option is however not available in the user interface.

See ArticleStrings in the related support article

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If you want Plex to ignore all articles, set ArticleStrings to "".

Then Refresh Metadata on a few items.

Then check the Sort Title on those items.

Then Optimize the Database. Plex updates the search indexes during that process.

Test a few searches for those items.

If that works, Refresh Metadata on the entire Library.

Sort Title
4

Hi Tom !

I used Regedit in Administrator mode to make the changes. See below, I hope I well understand what to do (adding french articles) :

article strings

I Reboot the server and relaunch Plex Merdia Server. This make no difference in sorting movies with articles (still ignoring articles in sort) :

les
les977×338 431 KB

Is there something wrong ?

5

If you want Plex to keep an article, you need to remove them from the property. If you want Plex to keep all, you need to empty the property value or delete it for good.

Changing this setting will only apply to new additions to your library. For the change to apply to existing ones you need to refresh their metadata (make sure the sort-title field isn’t locked… unless you manually set a different sort title).

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I don’t understand what to do. I want Plex to stop ignoring articles. I don’t want this sorting (see below) :

cosmos

At first install of MPS, property ArticleStrings was set to nothing. Plex ignore all articles. Bad.
Now i change ArticleStrings to “le, la, les, de, des, Le, La, Les, De, Des”. Reboot Windows. Plex is still ignoring articles after refreshing metadata.

Don’t understand the difference

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  1. set the value of ArticleStrings to an empty string
  2. restart your Plex Media Server for it to pick up the change
  3. (optional) make sure the sort title of the shows you want to be “corrected” isn’t locked (lock icon not highlighted in orange)
  4. refresh the metadata – you can do this for the entire library or start with only the show La croisière s'amuse as a test
  5. wait for the refresh to finish – Plex should now no longer ignore the articles in the sort title.

Edit: not sure what you had configured on first install or in between – let’s give this a try.

1 Like
8

Looks like I’m off for a very painful & long refresh but… This is working fine !

ArticleStrings should only be created null. And articles will not be ignored after refresh.

Thanks a lot Tom

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If it’s working you can subsequently simply refresh the library metadata. No need to do this one item at a time.

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