This is the first time I’ve had a problem like this since I started using Plex about 3 years ago. I have my TV shows in Plex\TV\ER\Season x and their names are like ER - 1x01 -
episode.mkv.
I’ll copy newly ripped and encoded (using Handbrake H.264 - same template I’ve used for many months with no problems) into my directory and sometimes they show up, most of the time they don’t. I completely moved the ER folder out of Plex and started copying them back one by one or season by season. Now, it will only show the first 9 episodes of whatever season I move in there. I’ve very strange. I’ve edited the file metadata hoping that was the issue, but didn’t change anything. I’ve made sure the permissions were similar to all other files that work… no difference. I’m at a loss as I’ve added hundreds of TV shows with this exact same methodology in the last few months and only now am I having an issue.
Update - I copied episode 10 of ER season 8 by itself into Season 8 directory and it showed right up so I copied the rest of the season in there and it will only show 9 episodes 1-8 & 10.
/TV <-- Plex TV library points here
../ER
..../Season 01 <-- "Season" in English. Two digits for season number.
....../ER - s01e01.mkv <-- Two digits for both season and episode numbers.
From the Plex documentation: " The most important bit in the file name is the appropriate season and episode number notation s02e17 which in this example means Season 2 Episode 17."
Plex reads metadata from mp4 files, if configured to do so, but not from mkv files.
When you do this, you need to do the full Plex Dance to remove any bad metadata from the Plex server database.
Try it with the s##e## format vs. #x# format you’re using. Plex can sometimes figure it out if you don’t use the specific recommended formats but when it doesn’t - it’s best to just roll with it and use the recommended format.
Edit: If you have a lot to rename there are some tools that can help.
Maybe Plex thinks some of the episodes are duplicates. I created a duplicate for s01e12. Now has the option for Play Version, which does not appear if there is no duplicate.
The real fix is to rename according to Plex recommendations, as shown in first post. If you want to test, remove the entire show from the library, rename one season, then put it back into the library. If it works, rename the other episodes.
As @Insomnic_1 mentions, there are tools to help with renaming.
Many people use FileBot. It has Plex templates and can rename your entire library quite quickly.
For Windows, there is PowerRename, part of PowerToys. While not nearly as powerful as FileBot, it can be used to easily rename all the files in a given folder.
Linux has a limit on the number of directories it can monitor. When exceeded, Plex does not pick up new media added to the system. I do not know if this applies to unraid (I run Plex on a Synology NAS).
If this is happening, you will see iNotify errors in the Plex log files. Look in Plex Media Server.log (wraps to .1.log…5.log). Aug 06, 2019 17:15:24.569 [0x7fcb07fff700] WARN - [Notify] Received unexpected inotify event: 8192
@tvannaman2000 … on Mac (looks like you may be on Mac so just in case - could be Linux Unraid though), the built in “rename” function will let you do similar as PowerRename that @FordGuy61 suggested but I’d definitely recommend FileBot is worth the cost on Mac as it’s more flexible, particularly if you’re gonna be doing this a lot and want to keep things like episode titles.
I installed the binhex version of Plex and rebuilt my library in a new instance and not only did it recognize all the ER files I had, the “recommended” tab of TV Shows is no longer broken. This pretty much proves that it wasn’t the files themselves but some other issue such as maybe too many files (such as fordguy61 suggested) or just a corrupted Plex meta db. I have had several power outages (need to get new battery for UPS) that could account for corruption.
Any idea how I can debug the corrupted system? I tried looking at debug logs and other such stuff to no avail.
Database corruption is easy to spot. Look in the Plex Media Server.log files (same as mentioned earlier). You’ll see entries similar to ERROR - SQLITE3:(nil), 11, database corruption at line 64817 of [bf8c1b2b7a]. Warning level entries are typically not a problem.
You’ve performed the Plex Dance, so that takes care of emptying the trash and cleaning bundles. Perform a database optimization as well.
Post your server logs and we can see if there is anything interesting. Post the entire ZIP file. The Plex Media Scanner or other files might have useful info as well.
