Plex Won't Order MP3 Tracks Properly (Filenames follow protocol)

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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Server Version#: 1.32.3.7162

I’m trying to order the tracks for several “albums” of podcasts in MP3 format. Initially, each filename started with the date of broadcast, which Plex does not recognize. Following the support article here, I added two digit numbers at the beginning of each track (e.g. 01 - yyyy-mm-dd trackname.mp3). That didn’t work, so I deleted the date entirely (e.g. 01 - trackname.mp3). This seems to be what is suggested by the support article, but the server still fails to order the tracks accordingly. Any ideas on how I might fix this?

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  1. Is your Plex library configured to "Prefer local metadata?
  2. Is it possible that there are track numbers in the files’ embedded tags?
  3. Which Scanner and Agent are set for this library?
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Thanks for the quick response!

  1. No
  2. I don’t think so. At least, not that I’ve found.
  3. Both are set to Plex Music.
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There’s a long-standing workaround for issues like this called the Plex Dance. They’ve made a lot of improvements, so it’s not needed nearly as much as it used to be, but one situation where it is still needed is when files are renamed, as you’ve been doing. So I think that’s the next thing to try.

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Unfortunately, the Plex Dance did not work either.

Edit: also realized that Plex is ordering the tracks alphabetically. Not sure if that helps narrow things down.

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Update: I managed to get it to work by adding “Track” before each track number (e.g. Track 01 - trackname.mp3). Not ideal, but at least it works.

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Hmm, weird. That shouldn’t be necessary, but I don’t know what else to try.

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I recommend embedding meta tags. Particularly if the “album” is not listed on Musicbrainz.org
There is a “track number” meta tag. Use it.
If you have already added a track number to your file names, it is relatively easy to extract it from there and write it into the meta tag. For many files at once.

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Do you recommend a particular software for this?

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On Windows or Mac, I think MP3Tag is one of the best tag editors.

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