Plex TV Series scanner is broken finding media files since v1.26 when using TVDB Ids to match items

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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1

Hello

I am a Plex pass lifetime subscriber using Plex for many years and I am facing a severe issue that is blocking me to use any version of PMS above v1.25.8.5663

Server Version#: 1.26.2.5797 - 1.28.2.6106
Player Version#: any

Description:

After updating PMS beyond v1.25.8.5663 on any platform (Windows, Synology or Shield) I observe that mediafile scanning is not working anymore with the “Plex TV Series” scanner. As a result no files are detected thus the library stays empty.

The problem is not an access/permission issue and/or a network storage issue as all files are visible in the logs or in the GUI progress status bar when scanning without any access issue.

For TV Shows my library is structured like this:

Sample TV Shows library structure

\# Soldiers Or Zombies [SP] (2021) {tvdb-403342}
  \Season 01 # 040_45 (WEB-DL) # GEEZ
      \tvshow[s01e01].mkv
      \tvshow[s01e02].mkv
      \tvshow[s01e02].mkv
      \tvshow[s01e04].mkv
 ...

The problem is present with any PMS version above v1.25.8.5663 and this up to v1.28.2.6106

If I downgrade PMS (on any platform) to v1.25.8.5663 and execute the “steps to reproduce” everything works like a charm without any error (all items are scanned and matching)

If I upgrade PMS to any version above v1.25.8.5663 and execute the “steps to reproduce” my “TV Shows” libraries stay empty.

Tweaking the agent settings doesn’t help in any manner

If I choose the legacy “Plex Series Scanner” with the “TheTVDB” agent then the scanning works but the gathered metadata is of course less complete that what I could get from the new “Plex TV Series” scanner/agent

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Setup some video files as suggested in the example
  2. Setup PMS
  3. Configure a “TV Shows” library with the "Plex TV Series " agent specifying a remote folder directed to the files in 1) with appropriate filesystem permissions to read the files
  4. Start the scanning process

Expected:
All media files in the “TV Shows” library should be detected as individual episodes grouped int seasons/TV Show

Actual:
The library is still empty after a full scan as the media files where not recognized by the agent

Next Steps:
Looks like we are dealing here with a major functional regression that is preventing me to upgrade Plex on any platform
I would be very grateful if this problem could be analyzed and taken care of in any subsequent version of PMS

Thank you very much in advance
Best regards
Long live to Plex !!!

2

Naming & Organizing Your TV Show Files

Rename and reorder to use Plex recommended structure. Then Plex Dance the show.

  • Use the show name for the episode, not “tvshow”
  • Do not place sXXeYY in brackets. Plex ignores information in square brackets.
/TV Shows  <-- Folder added to library
.../Soldiers or Zombies (2021) {tmdb-403342} [other info]
....../Season 01 <-- leave off the other info, GEEZ, etc.
........./Soldiers or Zombies (2021) s01e01.mkv  <-- Show_Name (year) sXXeYY.mkv
3

Thank you so much !!! You just found it :smiley:

The issue’s root cause was only because of the “[…]” square brackets in the episodes’ name

If I use “tvshow_s01e01” then everything works back well and the library can be fully scanned

I want to avoid putting the tvshow’s name into every episode file because I have so much to maintain and I don’t want to be dependant on how the show is named

With the introduction of the {tvdb-id} as an alternative way to accurately match a media item it should not be necessary to put the name into every file for the scanner to work

I hope that Plex will never roll-back this awesome capability in future versions of its new scanners

It would be even better if when doing a “fix match” operation through the GUI the user could also specify a tvdb-ID or a tmdb-ID or a tmdb-ID (depending on the media item’s type) instead of always having to know what the exact name should be to trigger a match, but I guess this is another story…

The problem have been solved hence this ticket can be closed

Thanks again
Best regards

Long live to Plex !

4

Glad it is working for you.

Just be aware that you are still not following Plex naming conventions and your naming convention may again stop working.

Look at Tiny Media Manager. With the free version you can easily rename your libraries to Plex standards.

Filebot is another popular renaming application.

Use the IMDB ID for Title (ex: tt12345) and leave Year blank.

Adding the IDs started with the Plex Movie and Plex TV Series scanners & agents. It won’t be going away anytime soon (and won’t be added to the legacy agents).

5

Gonna copy/paste my standard naming post:

If you want to save yourself a lot of time I would recommend using Download - tinyMediaManager and use:

Episode format:
${showTitle} - S${seasonNr2}E${episodeNr2} - ${title}

Folder format:
${showTitle} (${showYear}) {tvdb-${tvShow.ids.tvdb}}

1 Like
6

Thanks dbirch for the details around TMM :slight_smile:

The good news is that I am already using it to gather the relevant Ids (imdb for Movies or tvdb for TV Shows). Then I have some nice scripts which pick-up these IDs from the NFOs to create the relevant folder structure for Plex without altering the original source files (the trick is to use hardlinks).

As a result my created folder structure is
For Movies:
After Earth 01.01 # After Earth (2013) {imdb-tt1815862} # 030_31 (BRD-SR) # NoNAME
→ movie.mkv
…
For TV Shows
Soldiers Or Zombies [SP] (2021) {tvdb-403342}
\Season 01 # 040_45 (WEB-DL) # GEEZ
→ tvshow_sXXeYY.mkv

So as long a Plex keeps reading the media file’s direct folder to match the correct movie or TV show title over the internet it should be OK

I understand the validity of the official naming scheme but for me it is not practical to repeat at every level the title name (particularly when you need to maintain Plex libraries in different languages for different users (most people in my household doesn’t like english and I do prefer English for my own account).

So yes definitely combining TMM with Plex is a good approach and I am already doing it …

Thanks again
Best regards

7

Thanks for the feedback: it works and help

About the naming structure in itself it is important for me to keep the ability to maintain separate libraries according the media quality type
EX: 010 —> LD & SD (DVD) quality
020 —> HD (BluRay SDR) quality
030 —> UHD (BluRay HDR, HDR10+ or DV) quality
then I can even separate Dolby Vision titles (code 034) from HDR only titles (code 032) so that when I am looking for a title I don’t have the risk to ply it on an incompatible device
This is the reason why putting all variations of the same title under the same folder (as suggested by Plex) would not be the best fit for me. Another reason is that for large libraries having a folder structure as much flat as possible is always simpler to maintain particularly when you have to apply automation scripts on it.

That being said an ideal evolution for me would be that Plex could directly read the NFOs made by TMM then complete the scraping from the internet if whatever would be missing from Plex standpoint in these NFOs
I am aware of the unofficial XMBCnfo importers agents but their installation on the nVidia Shield platform is not supported (although I suspect it could work by just putting the files at the right place using an android file manager)

Therefore it would be really fantastic if Plex could add NFO reading functionality – as an option – to their existing new agents & scanners (-- note that I am not recommending to add a new agent --). This would not alter the Plex strategy with regards to the dependency with the Internet and would make the life of Plex enthusiasts like me a lot much easier because the functionality would be officially playable and supportable on all Plex platforms …

Let’s now hope that Plex could think about the possibility to add NFO reading capabilities to their existing agents though…

8

@globzur

I am not certain it still exists… but at one time it was there albeit minimal.

In the NFO

tt=PUT_NUMBER_HERE

Example:

  Movie.mkv
  Movie.nfo
10

Come on, Chuck. Of course it still exists :wink: Been using it for more than ten years. Please don’t ever remove this functionality, and if at all possible, it would be awesome if this could be extended to TV Shows, like KODI does (tvshow.nfo in show’s root folder).

11

There are already official tags in the XBMC NFO format to distinguish TMDB Ids, TVDB Ids and IMDB Ids, so the extended agent would just have to consider them if the Id is not specified in the folder or file name. The point I am trying to make here is that if some text is changed in the NFO (ex from TMM) then this text would override whatever would have been scraped by the agent without considering the NFO. That would be totally awesome …

1 Like
12

@VBB

I don’t use the NFO because I have FileBot :stuck_out_tongue: lol

I can’t keep track of everything! :roll_eyes:

:rofl:

13

This is getting slightly off-topic, but yeah, if I had to start over today, I would use the tags in all my movie and show folders instead of .nfo files. Unfortunately, for those of us with existing massive libraries, renaming thousands of folders is not feasible, especially if all media is stored remotely. NFO files work 100% for all movies. Never a wrong match, unless you enter the wrong IMDB ID :stuck_out_tongue: I’d be so happy if this worked for shows (not that I have a matching problem). Been trying to find the one show out of my 3,619 that Plex won’t match (and won’t show at all) LOL

14

I’m going back to my dumpster :fire: which is from the events of the week.

Best of luck.

You know where to find me :slight_smile:

1 Like
15

Filebot is great, and I couldn’t live without it, but I keep the original file names for both movies and shows. FB only adds episode names.

16

Best of luck!

17

Look into Releases · WebTools-NG/WebTools-NG · GitHub

18

Yeah, I’m aware of WebTools, but have yet to try it. Pure laziness on my part :slight_smile:

I do have a feeling, though, that this one missing show is a merged one. Would be nice if Plex had a filter for everything that can be split apart.

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