I have two versions of a TV show on my Plex, they are DVD rips. One from Region 1 (USA) and one from Region 2 (UK) and I’m trying to get them to display properly. All Plex does is merge both shows into one show, the only way I can get them to show separately is to put one in a different TV show library. Yes I had to create an entire new TV show library for ONE show just to get it unmerged from the other, ridiculous!
You’d think that would be the end of it, however even when I put them in separate libraries the shows are still linked to one another, because if I watch an episode of the show in one library the same episode in the other library gets marked as watched also, even though I never played it!
I tried changing the TV agents so they are different for each TV library but nothing works. I tried the new Plex library and the legacy options too and still the same problem exists. Is Plex going to fix this? it’s so annoying! We should be able to have two separate versions of the same show in the same library and have both of their watch progress separate from one another!
The programmers at Plex need to fix issues like this instead of meaningless cosmetic updates!
It sounds as if you’re talking about “Editions” for TV Series, which, as far as I know, don’t work (you can have different “Editions” of movies but even that doesn’t display properly yet).
I too would love to see Editions added for TV episodes as I quite often have the standard episode, and then another with the Picture-In-Picture commentary track overlaid.
Just out of interest, to what TV Series are you referring? Do the UK & US versions have different listing numbers on IMDB / TMDB / TVDB that you can add to the folder names?
You should also be able to manually split the shows apart when they’re in the same library as long as they’re in different top-level folders. Until multiple editions support shows (if that ever happens), the only way to keep them unlinked would be to unmatch one of the versions. Separate libraries + different agents should work as well (but you may need to manually refresh metadata for the show first).
I didn’t know about that option to manually split the shows. In my opinion Plex should prompt you first and ask if you want to merge the shows instead of merging them together without your permission so that you have to split them apart right after! Whoever designed that wasn’t very smart and has no common sense!
After I split the shows the watched progresses were still linked because they were attached to the same agent for the movie database. Also another stupid thing, just because both shows are connected to the same agent to retrieve info doesn’t mean it should link their watch progresses together because they are clearly separate items! Again, the people programming this stuff aren’t very smart!
I then had to change the Scanner back to the older Plex Series Scanner because the new Plex TV Series one doesn’t let you choose separate agents! I then chose the movie database for one version of the show and it retrieved the info properly, for the other I chose The TVDB but it wouldn’t find the show.
So I ended up having to leave that version unmatched and I went to The TVDB website and have been painfully adding all the info manually which is ridiculous! Show and season posters, episode thumbnails, summaries and episode titles. The only thing that managed to show correctly were the airdates. I don’t know why Plex can’t find The TVDB info because the website is clearly functional.
All I wanted was something quite simple, to have two different versions of the same show in the same library and not have them linked in any way and look at all the hoops I had to jump through and all of the hours I wasted having to do it this way.
Plex really is a joke and the people running it need to get their act together and address these issues instead of wasting time on useless updates that nobody cares about!
Actually, Plex works very well if you follow the naming schemas recommended by plex. Without specifics of what you are trying to do assistance is difficult.
If you are in fact trying to use editions (a colorized version, vs original black and white) plex currently does not support that for TV shows.
If instead you are using two different shows with the same name, IE The Office, it is just an issue of adjusting your file/folder naming schema correctly to account for this.
I’m not using two different shows with the same name. I am using two different versions of the same show from two different DVD releases. One is Region 1 US DVD rip and the other is Region 2 UK DVD rip.
All I wanted was to put both shows in the same TV Show folder on my computer, update that TV Show library on Plex and then have both shows appear side by side. I marked each show folder differently to account for the different region rips and since they are separate main show folders Plex should have just added them accordingly, but didn’t.
I’m well aware how to name files properly for Plex and it is all correctly done. But Plex makes it difficult because it chose to merge the shows into one without asking first, that should never happen. I then had to get help figuring out how to split them, which I finally did. But then they still got linked by watch progress if they are using the same agent, which also shouldn’t happen since they technically are separate shows in different main folders.
I was forced to then choose different agents for each version of the show to keep them unlinked by watch progress, but when I selected a specific agent for one of the copies of the show it wouldn’t retrieve the info! Forcing me to manually add the info to all the fields which takes hours to do it for a show that has 7 seasons and 144 episodes!
Plex does not ‘work very well’ in this instance when adding two copies of the same show, it should behave exactly the same as adding two completely different shows. As long as they are in separate main show folders which are each marked for each specific version.
This seems obviously down to overcomplicating the programming or just sheer incompetence by whoever set up Plex and the agents to operate this way. It needs to be addressed, but from my experience as a Plex user since 2014 when there are issues like this they go unanswered. I’m fairly certain this may never get fixed properly and even if it does it could take years.
