Plex in Music Libraries in 2023... updates?

General Discussions
43

The current music naming standard that Otto mentioned is important. How important you ask? I’ll share what Plex has to say in Why Is Some of My Content Not Found

  • The biggest reason by far for items to not be found during a library scan is due to naming.

I always have my filenames exactly match the Plex standard. I always have Picard tag the files too. MP3Tag can do that, but Plex relies on Musicbrainz who makes Picard and Picard adds tags like

MUSICBRAINZ_RELEASETRACKID               : 1400d40c-a0d3-40d7-9dfb-9dd32c6cbb08
MUSICBRAINZ_RELEASEGROUPID               : 6ae76995-b59f-3206-bfd9-83378eac5b4e

You asked about DTS files. Plex Players will play that out to your receiver / DAC. There is no need to change those files. Just name them correctly. Downsides? It’s not gapless playback afaik, well at least not on my system.

naming example showing mka, dts, ac3 tracks working 
$ tree "Pink Floyd"
Pink Floyd
└── Dark Side Of The Moon
    ├── 01 - Speak To Me.mka
    ├── 02 - Breathe (In The Air).mka
    ├── 03 - On The Run.mka
    ├── 04 - Time.mka
    ├── 05 - The Great Gig In The Sky.dts
    ├── 06 - Money.mka
    ├── 07 - Us And Them.ac3
    ├── 08 - Any Colour You Like.mka
    ├── 09 - Brain Damage.mka
    └── 10 - Eclipse.mka

1 directory, 10 files

You asked about putting the year in parentheses in your Album names, and I was impolite and told you how to do it Plex’s way. Your folder structure is great too, and we can make it work :plexheart: If it’s a retail album you match correctly and tag in Picard, you’re all set.

You asked about only scanning your music test library not all of them.
On the library name in the left column Rollover it → kebab menu ︙ → Scan Library Files

If everything that has to do with Seal has correct folder names and filenames now, then you fix the duplicate usually by taking your top level Seal folder, moving it ouf of the library so Plex can’t see it anymore, then erase any traces Plex has of Seal by doing a Plex Dance. By that I mean you use the Plex Player menus to

  1. Scan Library Files
  2. Empty Trash
  3. Clean Bundles
  4. Optimize the Database

Doing those four things cleans Plex of any knowledge of Seal. Then you put the Seal folder back and Scan. To prevent duplicates, name and tag your albums correctly in an outside folder staging area, before introducing them to Plex Media Server. Once PMS scans them try not to change them.