Plex intermixing TV shows

General Discussions
1

Weird scenario I’ve encountered.

All of my TV shows are separated into different folders where the structure is TV Shows > Simpsons > Season 1 > Episode 1, 2, 3 etc

With some TV shows Plex does this arbitrary thing where it randomly mixes the episode titles from one series with another series I have on the same hard drive. Sometimes, it even arbitrarily intermixes two or three series.

The titles aren’t related. The episodes are properly named using Filebot. The shows aren’t even in the same folders.

As an example, it took the first season of the Six Million Dollar Man, but decided they were a mix of 1967 Spider-Man episodes and Smallville season 1 episodes. No idea why, by I can’t seem to correct this!

Thoughts?

2

Are these shows you download from the internet, or shows you record? If you downloaded them, and they are MP4s, my bet is you have embedded metadata causing all your problems. What is the agent order for TV shows? You should drag local assets to the very bottom to prevent Plex from looking there first. You should also remove that metadata prior to adding them to your library.

3

These are primarily backups from my DVDs. The metadata is either applied by MakeMKV or iTunes.

Removing metadata going forward works for new shows, but makes solving this problem difficult with the thousands I’ve already got.

4

@DracIsBack said:
All of my TV shows are separated into different folders where the structure is TV Shows > Simpsons > Season 1 > Episode 1, 2, 3 etc

Simply put - that won’t work.

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/categories/200028098-Media-Preparation
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200220687-Naming-Series-Season-Based-TV-Shows

If TV Shows are not put in specific structures with very specific file names they won’t work and this isn’t a negotiation:

Step one is to find out the EXACT Show name used at TVDB: https://www.thetvdb.com/
Then follow the instructions:

A TV Show Library/
…The Simpsons/
…Season 01/
…The Simpsons - S01E01.xxx
…The Simpsons - S01E02 - Episode Name Optional.xxx

Do that and all is well. Do anything else and expect random or immediate failures, unexpected, unpredictable behavior and zero reliability.

FileBot (link in my signature) can handle that naming and structuring for you automatically or manually in seconds.

What FileBot can’t do is remove possible embedded metadata in the Title Field of MP4/M4V files. Plex will read this info and prefer it over a perfect file name/structure (you don’t have any of those yet), but you can combat that situation by moving Local Media Assets to the bottom of every agent list you can find. All tabs in TV Show and Movies here:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200241558-Agents
Just drag LMA to the bottom of the list and drop it. If you do have embedded metadata this will cure the issue, if you don’t it won’t matter. LMA will do what it has to from the bottom.

Renaming/restructuring is best performed OUTSIDE the library and you’ll need to write a new bundle for the show so The Plex Dance® was invented:

The Plex Dance®:

  1. remove show/movie from library
  2. update library
  3. empty trash
  4. clean bundles
    https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200392106-Library-Actions <— update library, empty trash, clean bundles
  5. bring names and structures into compliance/Move Local Media Assets/etc
  6. replace corrected show/movie into library
  7. update library

All Steps. In Order. No Shortcuts.

When the show has a successor - later version - reboot - upgrade - etc:
Doctor Who (1963) <— The Classic First Episodes
You have to go to TVDB and search out the (YEAR) of first airing. Then:

A TV Show Library/
…Doctor Who (1963)/
…Season 01/
…Doctor Who (1963) - S01E01. xxx

Start Fixing. Start Dancing. If you still have trouble - Log Files:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200250417-Plex-Media-Server-Log-Files
Drag zip file to message window and drop it.