Hi all.
I have the same issue as a lot of others for years.
(I think, that the oldest post I found was like 2015.)
I have one movie, but two files each in different language.
(i.e.: Austin Powers - International Man of Mystery (CZ 1997).avi, Austin Powers - International Man of Mystery (EN 1997).mp4)
When Plex scans my library it merges both files into one library entry (as probably expected), but it is really persistent about its decision.
Even when I manual split them, try to fix match one with different agent, rename to local title, … at the end it always end up merged.
So is there a reliable way to have one movie and two entries in one library for two files/languages?
I consider the more common scenario would be having 1 file with 1 video stream and 2 audio tracks. If your files have the same length you can create a single-file from them e.g. using MKVToolNix.
This use case will allow to pick the audio track (or subtitles) on the movie pre-play screen.
Admittedly I have a bunch of movies where the video is different for different-language versions – e.g. Star Wars movies with the famous flying text which is translated in different language versions, and a number of Pixar movies which have essential texts localized (e.g. “My Adventure Book” vs. “Mein Abenteuerbuch” in “Up” or translated “newspaper snaps” in the Incredibles). I consider that’s more of a rare scenario.
TL;DR: if you keep your files as they are, Plex is recognizing them as different versions of the same movie – however the audio tracks available in each file is not showing in the “play version” selector.
The only reliable way to figure out which is which without playing the video is to check out the Get Info action from the movie’s context menu (see the support article on investigating media information and formats).
I know about this option, but it is not applicable in my case for the similar reasons as You mentioned.
It is rare scenario for me too, but in general I do not think, that it is that rare as multiple users faced the same/similar issue for years.
The most frustrating is perhaps persistence of Plex when it thinks, that it is smarter than its users.
When I split something it originally merged, I do have a reason for it.
Also it has absolutely no problem finding information, texts, posters for both languages. So only thing that it should do is not to merge them back.
Well… simply split the item in your library.
Plex will not merge it back again on its own. If it does there’s something more substantial off with your library (e.g. automatic library updates/scans are configured w/ automatic emptying of Plex’ trash and some external storage that’s occasionally too slow to spin up for Plex, causing Plex to think a file is gone, deleting the record and re-adding it anew at some later point… also more of a rare scenario, easily fixed by disabling automatic trash emptying).
Ahh! That’s not a broken Library or Trash problem, at least.
You can split them apart, and they’ll remain split. Plex won’t re-match or automatically merge them.
But if you force them to Match again, when Plex recognizes that they’re the same movie, they will be merged once more.
And it is the same movie, with the same underlying identifier, despite the different languages in the file. Searching for a different language will also return that same movie identifier.
After splitting them apart, you can instead edit one of them manually, changing the details as desired.
I’m going through something similar, and haven’t decided on a perfect approach. If I append the language to the Title, it isn’t visible in all client views. I may prepend the language to the Title, and rely on Title Sort.
