Plex's File Matching is Really Broken

[PerryCS]

I like Plex but it has a horrible flaw. Lets take a 3 show fake example as an example… say I have a show named as…

Daves Show (2019)
-Season 1
–S01E01 - Pilot
–S01E02 - Dave Gets Frustrated
–S01E03 - Dave Gives Up

Regardless what “TheTVDB” has in it, Plex’s file matching is completely broken in many cases… I have seen Plex mis-match the files…

for example, S01E01 could end up showing in Plex Player as

S01E01 - Dave Gives Up
S01E02 - Dave is Frustrated
S01E03 - Pilot

My question is… Given that the FILES are labeled correctly, how is it possible that Plex cross matches the files? It’s just stupid.

S01E01 is ALWAYS going to contain Pilot. E02 is ALWAYS going to contain Dave Gets Frustrated and E03 is ALWAYS going to contain the content of Dave Gives Up.

On the SURFACE, sure, rearrange them for DVD Order, Airing Order, Absolute Order… but the biggest problem is…

Plex starts mixing and matching CLEARLY labeled files with INCORRECT data.

When I click on edit on S01E01 - Pilot I should ALWAYS see… “filename S01E01 - Pilot” not some other filename.

It’s so incredibly broken it’s not even funny.

It’s like Plex doesn’t even try to parse the filename after the S01E01 - (anything here is ignored) because it can’t possibly be this poorly programmed… yet it is…

Once THAT gets fixed for shows… then fine… I’m sure everything else will fall into place… but, if your software can’t even match a SIMPLE filename with a SIMPLE list of names… what good is it?

Where is the option that says… "You know what… don’t mix up the files… if the file says S01E01 - Pilot then find the FILE called S01E01 - Pilot. It’s not hard.

Maybe stop adding features till a CORE feature works… PLEASE!

If you need help programming let me break it down for you…

Step 1… Find the Container Folder. In this ficticuous example it would be Daves Show (2019). Everything INSIDE that folder is ONLY related to Daves Show (2019).
Step 2… Look for Season Folders. We found Season 1. So, everything inside Season 1 is ONLY related to "Daves Show (2019) Season 1.
Step 3… Pull in Episode List from DB.
Step 4… Match up files in DB to files as they are ordered on the drive. S01E01 - Pilot is ALWAYS going to contain the CONTENT of S01E01 - Pilot. Matching up a different episode to the Pilot is NEVER going to work properly because the CONTENT of that file on the disk IS going to ALWAYS be S01E01 - Pilot.
Step 5… NOW, Apply the order (DVD, Aired, or Absolute [as it appears on the drive]). In doing this step, S01E01 - Pilot will ALWAYS point to the FILENAME on the drive AND the DB as S01E01 - Pilot. The file contents can NEVER be something else. The ORDER we watch them in, CAN change BUT the data we SEE in the Plex Player… if a filename on the drive says S01E01 - Pilot it can NEVER point to S01E04 - Some other episode because that filename is ALWAYS going to contain the Pilot episode. In the case of Firefly, sure, we may watch the Pilot 6 episodes later but the file matching algorithm can never say the DISK labeled file called S01E01 - Pilot will ever be anything but the Pilot episode…

ALL My files are labeled cleanly.

I should add… if someone HASN’T labeled their files…

S01E01
S01E02
S01E03

Then sure, pull in and match from the DB. After all, you don’t know 100% that S01E01 is really the Pilot do you?

BUT if I do this…

S01E01 - Pilot

I don’t care if the DB has

S01E01 - Daves Goes to the Bar
S01E02 - Pilot

That file will ALWAYS contain the data of S01E01 - Pilot. It says so right in the FILENAME!!! This file IS the Pilot. Not anything else. Mis-matching S01E01 - Dave Goes to the Bar to my DISK file called S01E01 - Pilot is wrong. Plex does this. If I go inspect S01E02 - Pilot in this example, and I see the filename S01E02 - Dave is Frustrated then the contents are mixed up. It would make sense if Plex matched it to S01E01 - Pilot even if the play order showed S01E02 - Pilot.

So, the highest priority in matching files is IF the title of an episode is mentioned in the filename, then SURE, go by that 100%!

If it’s not, then sure, please GUESS and match the DB!!!

[OttoKerner]

@PerryCS

S01E01 is ALWAYS going to contain Pilot.

No.
In many or even most shows s01e01 is, erm, just that and the pilot is relegated to the Specials season.

Plex will always look up the show at TheTVDB. If they have a different episode order than what your files have, you’ll have to rearrange your files.
Unless you find that the order of your files is actually mirrored by either the DVD or the absolute order – if they exist for this particular show on TheTVDB.

And: Plex is only reading the season/episode code from the file name. It doesn’t read what comes afterwards. No matter which episode title you are inserting here, Plex doesn’t care about that.

Another issue are embedded metadata. If your files are in the mp4/m4v container format, they can have embedded ‘Title’ meta tags. By default Plex will read the content of that tag and use it as the episode’s title.
Make sure that embedded meta tags either contain correct information or are not present in the file at all.

So:

1. Look up your show on TheTVDB
2. Take the title as it is used on TheTVDB.
   If there is something in parentheses, take that too.
   If the title contains invalid characters (depends on your file system), like § : % *, simply leave them out.
3. Check the naming and the folder structure of your show.
   Name the top folder of the show exactly after the title on TheTVDB.
   No abbreviations. No additional subfolders. No aliases.
   Add the (year) in parentheses of when episode 1 of season 1 of this show was aired.
4. Name the episode files according to the above linked naming guide.
   Use the same title as for the top folder. Show's Title (year) - s01e01 - additional info.ext (‘- additional info’ can be left out)
5. After you corrected the naming and folder structure, perform the Plex Dance with all files for this show.

[PerryCS]

Thank you for your reply… I have read the Plex docs and labeled my stuff very carefully and cleanly…

@OttoKerner

And: Plex is only reading the season/episode code from the file name. It doesn’t read what comes afterwards. No matter which episode title you are inserting here, Plex doesn’t care about that.

That right there is probably why I get so frustrated. When I label my stuff, I have TheTVDB open and try super hard to match my stuff to it.

It gets frustrating when I have

(on the disk) S01E10 - Dave Buys a Car
(on Plex Player) S01E10 - Some mismatched episode pointing to (on disk) S01E12 - Dave goes to LA

At least I know WHY it ignores the text after the S01E01.

All I care about is…

if I have
(on the disk)
S01E01 - Dianes First Day
S01E02 - Diane is Born

and in the DB it shows

S01E01 - Diane is Born
S01E02 - Dianes First Day

When inspecting S01E02 it should ALWAYS point to S01E01 on the disk (both are “Dianes First Day”. Yet Plex will ignore (as you mentioned) all the TEXT after the S01E02 and mis connect the files.

So, my question is… how can I force Plex to always match up?

Where can I say

TheTVDB says S01E01 - Diane is Born

and have it match to the filename

S01E02 - Diane is Born on the disk?

Playing the episode “Diane is Born” should ALWAYS play the data “Diane is Born”. So, what is this “extra data” and how do you use it to force mis-matched files?

One of the worst real episodes is “The Outer Limits”.

On Aired Order, a few episodes are mismatched.
On DVD Order, some are mismatched.
On Absolute Order - numerous are mismatched…

There is no winning… so, how can I FORCE it to match!!!

[OttoKerner]

@PerryCS

how can I force Plex to always match up?

You can’t.

@PerryCS

Where can I say

TheTVDB says S01E01 - Diane is Born
and have it match to the filename
S01E02 - Diane is Born on the disk?

You can’t.

@PerryCS

So, what is this “extra data” and how do you use it to force mis-matched files?

“Extra data” are irrelevant for Plex and may be only there for the human who may read these files names occasionally.

You have these options:

• Consider, that it is actually your files which are using the wrong oder. Particularly when all three of the ordering alternatives on TheTVDB don’t fit your files. Then change the episode numbers of your files to what is listed on TheTVDB.
• Look up the show at themoviedb.org (TMDB) and see if they are using an episode order that fits your files better. If they do, use the ‘Fix Match’ (with ‘Search Options’) command to divert the matching to TMDB instead.
• use the ‘Fix Match’ command to match your files to the ‘Personal Media Shows’ agent instead. You will have to supply/type in all metadata yourself, including the episode titles (unless you are using mp4 files and they have the proper episode titles in their embedded metatags).
  You can supply the graphics as “side car” files, see https://support.plex.tv/articles/200220717-local-media-assets-tv-shows/

I my humble opinion, it is option 1 which takes the least effort. And software like Filebot can make even this a snap.

[PerryCS]

Thank you for your time in replying…

I’ll give it a shot, but, I have TheTVDB open when I filebot my rips. I then painstakenly play every episode on my computer by filename, and the original disk in my bluray player to make 100% sure Rip#1 = Episode #1 and then rename the files accordingly.

I wish there was a mode where Plex only went by the filenames and THEN queried the DB for that filename and pulled in that meta data for that exact file. That seems WAY simpler than the “seemingly messy” system it has now.

It would allow ME to have my order based on the filenames (which are going to be 100% correct).

If I had S01E01 - Dave is Happy

it would query the meta data for the show “Daves Life (2019)” and the episode “Dave is Happy” and pull in that. And IF it mis-labeled it, all we would have to do is go edit, and point it to the correct Meta Data.

Problem fixed for 99% of all the users complaints I see on here related to weird matching rules… and it would allow US to have any order of files WE choose… regardless of how the DB is numbered, maintained, ordered, etc. My way is SUPER SIMPLE… something the devs should look into.

I’ll give what you say a shot, but, to be honest… I have TheTVDB open when I label my files. And Plex still mislabels things. I did follow the “Plex Dance” you linked which I never used before. Normally I only “Scan Library”.

By mislabeling, I mean… Edit S01E01 - Pilot would show the filename S01E06 - Something Not Even Related to that Episode.

[OttoKerner]

@PerryCS

I wish there was a mode where Plex only went by the filenames and THEN queried the DB for that filename and pulled in that meta data for that exact file

Filebot can do that, AFAIR. i.e. it can supply your files with the right numbers if they have only titles.

[OttoKerner]

@PerryCS

I did follow the “Plex Dance” you linked which I never used before. Normally I only “Scan Library”.

The Plex Dance is necessary if you added the files to the plex library before you renamed them correctly. Otherwise they won’t change their “matching”.

[Cafe_Diem]

@OttoKerner

Filebot can do that, AFAIR. i.e. it can supply your files with the right numbers if they have only titles.

I did a forum post a while back about a variation on that concept, after TVDB changed the numbering on some episodes I had previously named. Could be useful info in this situation, too.

How to fix episode numbers with Filebot after TVDB changes the order

I found a solution to a problem and simply wanted to share it with the class. I have a series where TheTVDB’s episode order was not only clearly wrong, but also locked. A while back, I gave up and re-numbered the episodes to match TheTVDB, even though it was, again, clearly wrong. Well, they finally fixed the order recently. Now, the order is listed correctly in the Plex interface, but it plays the wrong episodes due to the file numbering now being wrong. So I was in a state where all the titl…