Plex not detecting all video files - help please?

General Discussions
1

Hey. I am admittedly not a videophile of any sort. I DO however, have a fairly moderate video collection. I can use programs like format factory or avidemux to change containers and do simple re-encodes-using program presets-that’s about it.

PLEX is a mystery to me in that it consistantly does not detect files or file types that are name like the following: 1,2,3,4,5 etc,etc,etc.

I have some files in some directories that are named 1x01,1x02,1x03 etc,etc. some of these are detected(MOST ARE detected) some are not(few).

The example I want to use now is this: I have a directory on the root of a hard drive called media, the directory is named media - not the hard drive.

Within the media directory, I have a directory named with one word, No spaces, no special characters no preceding/trailing spaces - nada out of the norm.. Lets say it’s named example.

Within that folder I have 14 directories named 1-14 no preceding/trailing spaces, just the number typed out: 1,2,3,4,5 etc,etc,etc. So 14 folders named 1-14.

Within each of the 14 folders there is a mixture from 1 or 2 files up to as many as 28 or 29 files. All the files are named via number sequence 1,2,3,4,5 etc,etc. All have verified no preceding/trailing spaces. Folders 1 through 9 and also 11 are detected and playback fine by Plex. Folders 10 and 12-14 are not detected by Plex at all. The don’t show up in the UI in any way shape or form.

ALL the video files are playable via VLC or MPlayer (only two programs I tried - I verified at least 50 files played fine in vlc or Mplayer or both - then chose a couple for the attached screenshot) on the Windows PC I use as my Plex Server, my Linux box and my Windows 10 desktop. I copied some files I had tested to my personal desktop - all play fine in VLC or MPlayer - and opened them up in MediaInfo and to a screen shot and then marked the files that play fine in Plex as good and the ones that don’t get detected at all as bad.

Can anyone see ANY reason why the files marked BAD won’t be detected via the Plex media scanner? I cannot. Hense my post here. This has been driving me wankers for 3 upgrades of storage medium (2TB - to 4TB - 6TB hard drives). It does not seem to have any rhyme or reason why it will detected one file, then not another. As you can see at least two are MKV files with little difference except for vid codec and another file with a different container(avi) but the same codec works fine?

I need help. Thanks all and stay safe everyone.

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2

To what type of library (Movies, TV Shows, Other Videos) are you attempting to add these files? Plex expects files to be named in a well-defined way, using the guidelines outlined in the articles here:

https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/your-media/naming-your-movie-media-files/
https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/your-media/naming-and-organizing-tv-shows/
https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/your-media/naming-and-organizing-personal-media/

Using the naming scheme you’ve described won’t work with Movies or TV Shows type libraries; I’d actually not recommend it for Other Videos type libraries either, but it may work.

3

That may not be the case. Plex and tv series is very unique. IF plex does not know the series in question then the season folders within may match another series. We really need the real series name to better understand and troubleshoot.

Never seen this before… Plex see a file type and then adds to your library. Plex doesn’t determine it won’t play or incorrect.

4

Hi. Thanks for your responses.

OK. It is a TV show. and the layout is as below:

Media

  • TV
    • South Park
      - Season 1 (Season 2, etc)
      - 101 - Cartman Gets an ■■■■ Probe.avi

ALL are as above Seasons 1 through 14 and named exactly the same. The differences are each file is either avi or mkv and some of the encoding varies - IE some avi’s are encoded mpeg-4 Visual (XVid) and MP3 audio and some avi’s are AC-3 but the differences seem to be in the codecs used and/or the file size. The container seems to be, in this case meaningless as I DID take the avi file’s in the non-detected season 10 folder and convert them to mkv files using AVC/ACC and after deleting the avci’s and copying in the mkv’s to the season 10 folder Plex still doesn’t detect it.

Further, when I first noticed this issue I was trying to click on Season 1 within the Plex menu so I could watch episode 1, season 1 (it’s been a while), but whenever I attempted this Plex just spun like it was trying to load but couldn’t for whatever reason. I backed out of it and tried another file in another tv show folder and it worked fine. I could SEE the Season 1 folder even though I could not SEE the Season 10, 12-14 folders. So I thought, it MUST be the AVI files (the other tv show was mp4 files). So, I converted the first episode to mkv using AVC/ACC. Then moved the avi out and the one mkv into the directory. I tried within Plex to go into the Season 1 folder again and it worked no problem and started playing episode 1 (which is now mkv with AVC/ACC) BUT it also played all the other (AVI??!!??) episodes in the season 1 folder with no issues. I can play any of the files that Plex detects with no issues whether they are avi/mp4/mkv. But it does not detect the Season 10 or 12-14 folders at all. Even though they are named exactly the same and all the files are encoded exactly or similarly to files that are detected.

It’s a mystery to me. Any ideas now that all is known?

5

Hmm… You forget something or you just making a joke. I’m game for either. But can only help with the former

6

Was your last message complete? It appears to be missing some detail…

If it’s a TV Show, it’s going to need to be named as below, in a supported directory hierarchy:

Media/              <--- This level is completely optional
     /TV Shows/     <--- Library points here, name not important
          Battlestar Galactica (2003)/
               Season 01/
                    Battlestar Galactica (2003) - S01E01.ext
7

Sorry guys - the reply was sent by mistake so I edited it - took a while

8

For Plex to recognize these names with any consistency, this will need to be:

TV/
     South Park/
          Season 01/
               South Park - S01E01 - Optional Episode Name.avi

If you use any other format, you can expect issues such as you’re currently seeing. I think technically you can leave the show name out of the file name, but the SxxExx piece is mandatory.

If you have a lot of files you need to rename, a tool like Filebot can be very useful. And once you have everything renamed properly, you may need to perform the “Plex Dance” to get things recognized correctly. This is particularly true if they were matched as duplicates of other episodes or a different series entirely:

9

And be sure the entire series is actually matched.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201018497-fix-match-match/#toc-0
If you see Match then the series is unknown to Plex and any seasons/episodes you add could end up matching to something else.

10

OK. Ty all for the replies.

Please review my steps below and give me any comments?

I will rename accordingly and take the clearing of meta data steps.
This comes at a great time as I currently have a new hard drive that is blank but same make/model/size as the almost full one that is currently used by Plex.
So I’ll do the steps philipsw suggests except instead of moving the data I will attached a completely identical drive with the same root folder structure but empty of files, remove the libraries from within Plex, then re-add them AND THEN

  • scan the library library (to detect changes)
  • empty trash
  • clean bundles (in menu next to server name)
  • double check naming schema and move files back
  • scan the library

Hopefully this will work as expected and thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

11

That should be fine. The main idea is that Plex should see the files as having been completely removed before doing the scan, empty trash, clean bundles, etc… process.

If you’re going to be creating an entirely new TV shows library you don’t really need to go through that process as the new library won’t have any of the baggage left over from the old one. In fact, you can just create your new library and point it at the TV shows folder on the new drive and let it do its thing. You can leave your old library in place while you do this to compare the results.

1 Like
12

That actually sounds like a great idea.

1 Like
13

I just had to logon to say BRAVO!!! to the dev of filebot.

OMG it makes this SO easy. Well worth the cost for sure:-)

1 Like
14

I didn’t even use the new drive yet - it’s still doing the “test it before you use it” process, won’t be ready until tomorrow Im sure.

Either-way, I simply used file-bot to change the file names on all the files that needed it (very,very easy), stopped the server, rebooted windows, restarted the server, deleted trash, refreshed mete data, re-scanned libraries and everything is there now. Even for some of the other directories that I fixed while I was at it. All done.

TY all so much. I should’ve asked for help much sooner than I did and save all the frustration.

Cheers:-)

15

No problem, glad it’s working.

16

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