Plex ignoring filename, shortening name of extra to single word, not even the first word of filenam?

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

Server Version#: Linux Version 1.42.2.10156 (on Debian via downloads.plex.tv repo)
Player Version#: Plex Web Version 4.147.1 (Firefox/Chrome) / Plex for Linux 1.110.0.351-4e48eb83 / …

I’ve run into some weird issues sometimes that require various shenanigans to resolve with regards to some extras just not showing up or whatever, but this is the first time I’ve had it appear with a name that isn’t the filename (even after doing the dance, even going so far as to remove the movie entirely during troubleshooting and putting it back again).

Specifically, the filename is “The Original Opening Bank Robbery Sequence (with optional commentary by John Carpenter and Kurt Russell).mkv” and whether I’ve got it in Deleted Scenes (which would be the most correct location), Scenes, Featurettes, etc, it appears in Plex as just ‘Opening’. This is for the movie Escape from New York, which I’ve ripped from my own discs.

All the other extras show up with whatever the filename is, but this one extra just shows up as ‘Opening’, which is very odd - is Plex doing some back end lookup and deciding to change this? I dumped all the metadata with mediainfo and there’s no mention of the word ‘Opening’ except for the filename itself, so it’s not like it’s pulling some metadata from the file that isn’t correct.

I want this to be named this way so that it clearly indicates what it is (not merely an opening but specifically the original opening that wasn’t used) and that it has an available commentary track (since movie extras, unlike Season 0/Specials for TV series, have no way of editing / providing metadata beyond the filename itself, and I would have to remember to check if there’s a second audio track otherwise).

The current relevant files:



$ find /storage/plex/movies/action/Escape\ from\ New\ York\ \(1981\)/|sort 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/ 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Behind The Scenes 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Behind The Scenes/Purgatory: Entering John Carpenter's
Escape From New York.mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Deleted Scenes 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Deleted Scenes/The Original Opening Bank Robbery Seque
nce (with optional commentary by John Carpenter and Kurt Russell).mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Escape from New York (1981) {imdb-tt0082340} - 1080p R
emux.mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Escape from New York (1981) {imdb-tt0082340} - 4k Remu
x.mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Featurettes 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Featurettes/Big Challenges in Little Manhattan: The Vi
sual Effects of Escape from New York.mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Featurettes/On Set with John Carpenter: The Images of 
Escape from New York.mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Featurettes/Return to Escape from New York.mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Featurettes/Trailers From Hell - Filmmaker Neil Marsha
ll On Escape From New York.mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Interviews 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Interviews/I Am Taylor: Interview with actor Joe Unger
.mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Interviews/My Night on Set: Interview with filmmaker D
avid DeCoteau.mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Interviews/Scoring the Escape: A Discussion with Compo
ser Alan Howarth.mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Other 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Other/Photo Gallery: Movie Stills & Behind the Scenes.
mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Other/Photo Gallery: Posters & Lobby Cards.mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Trailers 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Trailers/Radio Spot.mkv 
/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Trailers/Theatrical Trailers.mkv

Every other extra is named exactly in Plex as it is on the filesystem (whatever.mkv → whatever). It’s just the one for the original opening that is strangely being set to “Opening” for it’s name in Plex.

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2

You’ll need to name the files properly to include the tags.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/local-files-for-trailers-and-extras/

3

Are you referring to “Inline” extras? I use subdirectories method for extras. There’s no tag to be included in this case?

i.e. for the affected extra I’m having this issue with, the full path is:

/storage/plex/movies/action/Escape from New York (1981)/Deleted Scenes/The Original Opening Bank Robbery Sequence (with optional commentary by John Carpenter and Kurt Russell).mkv

But instead of appearing as a “Deleted Scene” with the name “The Original Opening Bank Robbery Sequence (with optional commentary by John Carpenter and Kurt Russell)”, it appears as a “Deleted Scene” with the name “Opening”.

4

Yes, I was referring to inline. I’ve personally never used the subdirectories method, but inline has always worked correctly for me, mind you I’ve never had an extra with such a long file name.

Seems like the filename is getting truncated, it is quite the mouthful.

5

The filename is long because there’s no other way to provide “metadata” for movie extras than a verbose filename… sure I could name it “Original Opening with commentary” but that doesn’t really fully describe it, and I have longer-named extras elsewhere that work just fine.

If it was simply truncated the cause would be obvious, but it’s using the third word in the name not the first, so that’s why I’m really baffled.

I originally started off using inline method way back when but ran into issues, I don’t remember specifically what it was but switching to folders solved the problem.

6

The problem is the occurence of the word “Opening”.
(“Ending” would be likewise)

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7

Sure enough I just renamed it so it is ‘0pening’ with a numeric zero rather than capital ‘O’ and it shows up as “intended” now.

That’s such a weird decision for Plex to make (renaming things with ‘Opening’ or ‘Ending’), and I’m not sure what the utility of it is. Is there any kind of reference of these special/reserved filename keywords, or are these the only ones?

8

These are the only ones AFAIK. And they were most likely introduced to appease the Anime fans, who often have the intros and credits of series as local extras.

9

Weird since causing it go from “Some specific opening” to “Opening” (when there’s potentially a different opening for every season of an anime, sometimes more) would seem to only add confusion. Maybe it’s a lazy optimization for people who don’t bother renaming files and it’s some convoluted file with CRC32 and everything in the filename?

Personally I’d consider this behavior (at least, without a way to disable it and ideally have it off by default on new installs and installs that haven’t triggered it yet) a bug, since it’s silently changing the metadata without any way to override it.

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10

This has been noticed before and it’s kind of inconsistent with the handling of local extras in general.
There’s a feature suggestion to address this for good (or to fix it)

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