I’m new to Plex so perhaps there’s something simple that I’m missing. I’ve created a Plex server both on my computer and also on my Synology NAS. I’ve not yet paid for any type of Plex subscription or license because I’m trying to make sure that Plex is the right platform for me. My challenge is that Plex is not picking up the correct metadata for my audio files. Specifically, I have a lot of audio books. Most of them are an MP3 format and have the genre in the metadata set as “audiobooks”. The challenge is that when I go into either of my Plex servers and sort by genre I’m not able to find very much. In fact, some of the albums have inaccurate genres or none at all. When I try to go through Plex to edit the tags I see locked icons next to genre and all other categories. I assume this is because I have not paid for a license. Until I get this genre situation sorted out I don’t think I can pay for a license. Can someone please help point me in the right direction?
Seems the most commonly recommended options are Audiobookshelf and Prologue.
Also, here’s a feature request for proper audiobook support that’s nearly 10 years old and has over 1800 votes, feel free to vote and voice your opinion there:
Thanks for your reply. I’m aware that many audio applications are not really build with audiobooks in mind. I used an iPod for many years and didn’t like the way it natively handled audiobooks either. For that reason, I’ve structured all of my music and audiobooks very carefully based on metadata. If I could just get Plex to show the appropriate genre that is already embedded in each file I would be a very happy person. What do I need to do for Plex to recognize the ID3 metadata embedded in each mp3 file?
separate your music and audiobook libraries. Mixing these will cause problems.
artist = Author, album = Book Title, Track numbering X/Y.
use ^^ process and it should make your life easier. Then for the audio book library use the Plex media Scanner, and Personal Media Artist agent and check the prefer local metadata option.
I use plex to manage a large collection without much issue.
Thanks for your reply. I’m having a hard time finding the setting you mentioned. I’ve gone to settings>settings>agents>artist (and albums). The option to select personal media artists is pre-selected for me and there are no other options. I can deselect local media artists. I just can’t seem to find the option for preferring local metadata.
It’s so weird, when I display my audio content in album view I am able to select genres and it does display everything I expected to show. However, when I display the content by artist and then try and select genres I can tell that The media agent is trying to figure out the genres on its own because it’s showing really weird stuff for genres.
If I could just display my files in artist view with my local metadata providing me information for genres then it would work perfectly. Do you have any other suggestions.
One more thing, can someone please tell me why some files have locked fields. If I could supply my own tags and/or metadata within the Plex server then I can make something work. The files themselves are not right protected.
Thanks, I was able to find that menu now and I’ve changed the setting to prefer local media.
I feel like I’m getting really close to where I want to be. Thanks to your help Plex will show the appropriate genre if I display music by album. In album mode I’m able to highlight one specific genre and it will show exactly what I want. The problem is, Plex shows every possible album. I just want to see artists in one particular genre. With that in mind, my questions are as follows:
Is it possible to edit a large number of albums or songs simultaneously? So far I found no way to highlight more than one thing at a time. If there’s a way to edit multiple albums at the same time then I can try and manually fix things. It’s just not feasible for me to go in album by album and fix things because I have over 40,000 individual tracks and something like 4000 albums.
Is there a way to get Plex to stop trying to apply what it thinks is the correct genre for a particular artist and instead use the locally supplied metadata? I don’t understand why this is so hard. It works in album mode but seemingly not in artist mode.
Yes, I set the agent to personal media artist. The two separate libraries thing is something else. My audiobooks and other audio files have been mixed together since the beginning. I’ve always found ways to sort by Genre> Artist> Album. This method worked particularly well on my iPod classic. I can probably find a way to separate them but that will be a big undertaking. Isn’t there some way to get Plex to just show the genres that are in the metadata? I know the date is there because it shows in album and track view just not in artist view.
Even if you get all this metadata and library stuff sorted out, the first time Plex loses your place 20 hours into a book and starts over from the beginning you’re going to be awfully frustrated. Honestly, I wouldn’t bother with all of the workarounds, I would start with a proper solution from the get go. Just my own two cents, it wouldn’t be worth the aggravation to me personally, just thought I would caution against it. Good luck either way.
The lock on some fields only serves to protect tags that you’ve manually edited from being overwritten during a metadata refresh. When you enter something in a field with a lock icon, the lock will automatically turn orange, which means locked, or maybe “protected” is a better word. You can click on the lock as well, which toggles it.
I should say, there have been reports that Plex would overwrite tags in some cases, even if the lock is engaged. I haven’t seen such a report in a couple of years, so maybe that has been fixed, I don’t know, but I personally don’t rely on the locks, except in just one or two cases.
The problem with mixing audiobooks in with music files is because the agents are different. The audiobook agent tries to match with Audible.com’s database, and the music agent tries to match with MusicBrainz. Plex urges you to keep movies and TV separate from music files for the same reason.
If you configure Plex to prefer local metadata, and your metadata is very accurate, you may get away with having books and music in one library, but I really don’t think you’ll be very happy with it.
Another issue is the setting to “Store track progress.” This setting will only be useful if your audiobooks are in single, huge files. If your books are in multiple files, as they probably are if you ripped them from CDs, Plex will remember where you were in a particular track, but it won’t remember which track you were on. And the “Store track progress” setting will not be helpful with music files. Here’s an example of what will happen: Playlists/Albums advance through the next song
