Hi, I am just having an issue recording some movies and TV soap. If I set up a recording, the only option I have is to save it as a single recording. I don’t have the choice of recording the entire serie. I have tried to uninstall Plex Server and start from scratch, but I get to the same point. I also deleted a key in the registry as it is suggested in another post. I am really at lost for this one, even reinstalling doesn’t work. there should be some data hidden somewhere where it picks the info of the previous Plex install. Here are 2 screenshots of what I have and what I should have…
Yes, these are from another thread, but represents my issue exactly. The reason I didn’t include screenshots from my own server is because my setup is in French, and I guess not everyone can understand French, but since I am bilingual, fixing this issue in English should be the same in French. If you need, I can include some of my own server in my next post. And I am trying to record The young and restless, which is a well known series airing since 1973!
I guess I mean those screenshots are showing the correct things. Adventures in Babysitting is a movie and doesn’t have ay extra options. Sesame street is a TV show and in the screen shot is set to record all new future episodes. Both are from this article Setting Up Recordings | Plex Support
Yes, for a movie it is ok, but for the series I don’t have any options to record the entire serie. Take a look at my screenshots. First one is to record a movie and the second one is for a serie. I tried deleting everything and start from scratch and it is the same. How to solve this issue?
Do you use the Plex-provided EPG data, or do you supply your own XMLTV guide data? If you use XMLTV data, ensure the program information for the show in question has the elements which indicate it is a series. For example:
<programme start="20210206210000 -0500" stop="20210206220000 -0500" channel="4.1.hdhomerun.com">
<title>Law and Order: Special Victims Unit</title>
<sub-title>Ballad of Dwight and Irena</sub-title>
<desc>Rollins and Kat respond to a dangerous domestic violence call while Fin gives his deposition in the lawsuit against him.</desc>
<category>Drama</category>
<icon src="http://img.hdhomerun.com/titles/C184536EN7H7S.jpg" />
<episode-num system="SxxExx">S22E02</episode-num>
<episode-num system="xmltv_ns">21.1.</episode-num>
<episode-num system="original-air-date">2020-11-18 19:00:00</episode-num>
<previously-shown start="2020-11-18 19:00:00" />
</programme>
The “episode-num” elements provide the hint that it’s not a one-off airing.
If you’re using Plex’s guide data, I’m not sure what’s going on. Aside from the obligatory “it works here” with Plex guide data:
I used the xmltv file from my provider. I’m sure it has all the infos in your example, because before I was able to schedule a recording, but how do I look into your example, but on my list? The only thing I have is a url for EPG data. I guess I messed up with the library and this is why I can’t schedule recordings anymore. Reset a few times, uninstall few times, but still the same results. Now I am stuck with having to record manually every day, which of course sucks… I didn’t mind to start from scratch because it is my mistake, but nothing is getting back schedule recording. Unless it is a bug in Plex which doesn’t reset all data, when you start over it still picks up some previous settings somewhere. I even tried to setup on another computer that has a fresh install and it is still the same, no way to schedule recordings. Otherwise, everything is working as expected. I am at lost… really!
Download your guide data; you should be able to do so by browsing to its URL. It may open the data in your browser directly. Either way, search for the show name you’re interested in and you should see a block of data similar to what I posted above. Check it for the “episode-num” elements. Or, paste it here.
If you delete your DVR and add it again, that should have the effect of starting clean. That should wipe everything, with the exception of your scheduled recordings which you’ll need to delete manually.
However, I think it’s more likely that your XMLTV guide data is just missing that information. I understand it worked in the past but that’s no guarantee that your provider hasn’t changed the format of their data. The best thing to do would be to have a look at it to see what’s there.
Hi again and thanks for you answer! Sorry to be dumb, how do I download the guide data? I tried with the XMLTV url or the M3U url and this is what I get:
Note, There is no season and episode number even if it is a TV series showing in the EPG.
Before I messed up, I had a few series recorded with the season and the episode as shown here and the other one below shows the change. A serie is not recorded as a serie, but single recording.
Note that TV Series have been recorded properly with episode numbers until february 2, 2021. After making the changes, it stopped recording TV series as a serie, but now as a single recording. Before I made the changes, it was even recording a news channel as a serie… That is why I tried to change some settings, because I didn’t want a news channel to be recorded as a serie and it offered me to schedule multiple airing as the same as a serie, which didn’t make any sense to me. One should be able to either record one episode of a news channel or record the whole serie. The same should be when you want to record only one episode of the serie. In the meantime, I tried other players which doesn’t fit my needs. And I just paid a premium to Plex to use its PVR, so I prefer to have Plex working properly or did I just throw away 49$ for a year? Anyway, let me know. There should be something to do to have it working properly again…
Yes, the first one is the XMLTV url and the second one is the M3U url opened in notepad. As I said before, shame on me for doing that mess… That is why I didn’t mind to reset and fresh start a couple times, because my mistake. What I did is hard for me to remember, may be deleted a library related to series and replacing it with another one. For the xml url, that’s bad because my username and password is part of it… Anyway, I’ll keep an eye on this issue when I have time. For now it kind of work and I still can record with Plex. I also have another device dedicated to recordings until I find a solution with Plex.
reading through this thread it seems that Plex needs series info eg Season, episode etc to perform a Series record?
I’m trying to record a sporting event which has multiple live episodes…it doesn’t have Season 1, Ep 1 etc… the problem with this is that because each airing has same title it always thinks it’s recording the same thing…therefore fails.
It’s almost as if it’s thinking ‘look…you recorded this episode yesterday, so i’m not going to do it again today’.
Is that just me that has this problem?
I run an Emby server as well…both utilise the same data for tv…yet Plex seems to mess with it…different descrptions. This is all utilising xteve by the way.
Yes, otherwise it wouldn’t know that it’s a series instead of a one-off program. There are at least a few systems for identifying such content in the XMLTV “spec.” One of them must be used, and must present each episode as unique. Here’s an example of an episode of “Sliders” showing 3 different episode numbering systems being available:
<programme start="20210329180000 -0400" stop="20210329190000 -0400" channel="40.2.plex.tv">
<title>Sliders</title>
<sub-title>This Slide of Paradise</sub-title>
<desc>The sliders land on a world where animal and human DNA have been fused by an evil scientist, creating a civilization of carnivorous creatures.</desc>
<icon src="https://metadata-static.plex.tv/4/gracenote/4a98761baf70cfc9b4fb5b323ac91c24.jpg" />
<episode-num system="SxxExx">S03E25</episode-num>
<episode-num system="xmltv_ns">2.24.</episode-num>
<episode-num system="original-air-date">1997-05-16 08:00:00</episode-num>
<previously-shown start="1997-05-16 08:00:00" />
<category>Adventure, Science fiction</category>
</programme>
Do you have an example of a program (the XMLTV data, like above) which isn’t working as you expect?
Here is a screenshot of 3 episodes. It will only record 1st one and thinks the others are same.. They aren’t. Emby uses same xml and can cope with this. Seems to only using title name..? Doesn’t seem to notice difference in descriptions between the three and that they are different
Even if Plex allowed me to record each one of the below separately would be great (not even a series)..but it doesn’t.
I just noticed that you’d provided the XML example.
Aside from the time and channel information, it only provides title and desc elements. And in this case, since the titles are not unique, Plex will treat them as the same show (even though the descriptions are different).
My experience with Plex’s XMLTV data ingestion suggests that it needs an episode-num element in order for the the program to be considered a series. As mentioned above, there are at least a few different “systems” which can be used; in this case, original-air-date would likely be appropriate. That system includes the date and time, and would thus be unique between the two airings. Plus, it could be deduced from the program start time.
Having said that, I haven’t explored every corner of Plex’s XMLTV data handling. It may actually be the case that having a unique previously-shown element of these programs will be enough for Plex to consider them to be different programs and not a re-airing. But there’s not much for Plex to go on in the XMLTV data above and it’s erring on the side of not creating a potential duplicate.
As to why Emby behaves differently with the same data, it’s likely down to it making different assumptions. Or maybe it just errs on the side of a potential double-recording of the same program if it there’s not enough data to say conclusively one way or the other. But I don’t use Emby, so I can’t be sure.
looks like it comes own to find data which would have those extra elements in there then. I noticed if i use the built-in Gracenote data, I don’t have the same problems. However, I can’t use Gracenote because it doesn’t recognise my channel listings…they are unique and do not align with any of the more commercial TV providers out there.
I could sit here for a day and manually map each and every channel to a Gracenote alternative, but it sort of defeats the purpose.
I have access to several epg providers, but they all have the same issue…
