Plex Seems to have stopped recognising VOB Files

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

I have recently changed PC’s so had to install Plex. Everything went well and I can see my movie library barring any movies that are in the VOB format. Not sure what the issue is here and I cant see any obvious setting.

I should say it sees the folder that contains the VOB file but comes back as empty

Any help appreciated.

2

Does this folder have only one vob file per movie or several VOB’s per movie?
While Plex may successfully recognize the former, the latter will inevitably fail.

As a test, use makemkv (google it) to transfer the content of the VOB file(s) into a MKV container (there is not quality reduction involved here!).
Make sure it conforms to the Plex ´file naming rules: https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/your-media/

3

Hi,
Only a single VOB file and its the same for any vob files in other folders.
Equally if there is a folder with multiple versions (mp4, VOb etc) then it recognises all files barring vob.

Naming conventions should be good as I had this working fine before

Will try converting to MKV as a test but would prefer not to have to convert half the library :slight_smile:

4

Further update.

  1. Installed MKV and it does not see the file either.
  2. Transferred the file off SAN onto local drive to eliminate network access issues — Same issue
  3. Installed VLC PLayer - That recognises the file and happily plays it from both local and network drives.
5

That’s “makemkv”.

Are you saying that you don’t have fitting VIDEO_TS.IFO files for your VOB files?
In which case it might work to drag the vob file directly into MKVtoolnixGUI instead.

6

Apols, yes MakeMKV installed

7

OK so… MKVtoolnixGUI successfully installed and I managed to convert a .vob file to MKV. Plex will happily recognise this file format.

So I guess the question still stands as to why these .vob files are being ignored when previously the weren’t.

8

It might have to do with the change from the old to the new movie scanner and agent.
VOB files were never officially supported in the first place, because of https://support.plex.tv/articles/201426506-why-are-iso-video-ts-and-other-disk-image-formats-not-supported/

if you put this into a .bat file

for %%f in (*.vob) do (
REM replace with 
REM for /r %%f in (*.vob) do (
REM to do it recursively

        echo %%~nf
         "C:\Program Files\MKVToolNix\mkvmerge" -o "%%~nf.mkv" "%%~nf.vob"

)

Try it on a copy of one of your smaller folders first!
I take no responsibility for any mess-ups.
You’ll have to remove the .vob files manually, afterwards.

If all your vob files have only one audio track, in one and the same language in them, you can also add the language tag in the command line. See How to remove tag spam and set language in several MKV files at once for more scripting goodness.

2 Likes
9

will give it a go thanks

10

I just tested and VOB worked fine for me. Did you check that it didn’t get matched as the wrong movie?

If you can Plex Dance the VOB file and then provide the full PMS logs, I can look whats going on.

11

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