I recently set up some libraries in my PC so I’d be able to access everything through my smart tv or smartphone anywhere in the house. I download everything I can, so I have every movie and every tv show organized inside folders according to its genre.
I set up 3 different libraries: Movies, TV shows and Cartoons. Since I already have my own logic, I prefer to browse my media displaying them by folders, and not according to Plex’s metadata software (I dont even know if that’s how it works, but I hope you get what I mean). When browsing through movies, everything works just fine. When browsing for TV shows, tho, it somehow gets messed up.
The path all the way to the media file itself works as intended, but when opening the last folder, the files are all messed up.
For example, here is what happens when I try to open the first season of Friends, but this is how I have them organized inside the folder.
Path: Series (root library) > Terminadas > Friends > Season 1
Does this happen to anyone else and do you guys have any idea of what I’m doing wrong?
PS: If I create the library using the Friends folder (with every season inside a separate folder within the main folder) it works as intended. I can’t see the episodes’ names, but at least I can watch, so maybe it has something to do with how Plex scans the folders to find files? IDK
Thanks!
Server Version#:1.21.1.3876-3c3adfcb4
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Plex is very picky with TV show naming and organization. In order to have the shows appear correctly you will have to name and organize your shows according to Plex’s recommendations.
If you do not wish to do so, then use an “Other Videos” library. Plex will not try to match the media with any online databases, download cover art, organize it into seasons, etc.
/TV Shows <-- TV library must point here. Name does not matter
../Friends
..../Season 01
....../Friends - s01e01 - episode_name.mkv <-- You can add episode name if desire, but Plex does not use the info.
....../Friends - s01e02 - episode_name [resolution, audio info, etc].mkv <-- Place miscellaneous info inside square brackets.
Edit: Noticed you do not have a language code with the subtitles. Without a language code the subtitles will appear as “Unknown.” Also, any Plex settings such as auto-selecting subtitles based on language will not work.
Edit 2: After renaming & reorganizing, you will most likely have to Plex Dance the show. This clears out any incorrect metadata from the Plex Server database.
To assist with naming, many people use FileBot, https://www.filebot.net/. It has pre-defined templates for Plex and makes renaming movies and shows much faster than performing the task manually.
just want to add a quick tip, you can copy/paste or drag/drop, or attach pictures directly to the forum reply, you don’t need to link to imgur or wherever.
You can keep the shows stored in thei genre, just make sure you add each genre folder to the tv library, not the series folder itself, but each sub folder, so your library for example your tv library would have the folders comedy, sci-fi, fantasy, added, not tv shows, if that makes sense. Then on your hard drive they would still be stored the way you wish them to be stored, or another option is to make a seperate library for each genre, if that is how you wish to have them listed in plex.
I did that and it works like a charm! For now, I like it the way it is (even tho I won’t be able to use everything Plex has to offer), but I’m seriously considering adopting a new naming system for that. In any case, thanks a lot!
Maybe I expressed myself in the wrong way. For TV shows and Cartoons, I actually have 2 subfolders: Active TV Shows and Cancelled/Ended TV Shows. This way I can keep track of whether a certain TV show’s had new episodes released or not. In movie’s case, I separate them by genre. Anyway, thanks for taking your time to reply. I’ll definetelly keep that on mind.
