In the latest patch 1.31.1.6716, I saw the subject line. Wasn’t sure what it meant, but I have a number of files that are named this way. This occurs when a two part episode from a series is stored as a single file. Where in the past, I would get episode 1,3… etc when I had a file like this, I am now getting 1,2,3 with both the first and second episode pointing at the same file and both starting from the beginning. This is confusing for my users as they tend to play from the continue watching selection bar and plex is moving from the first to the second and they are getting a repeat. I don’t see a configuration in advanced which would seem to affect this. Can someone please elaborate on what the intended outcome of this new function was intended to be, and whether there will be a config to adjust it. I know I can just rename s01e01-02 to just s01e01, but that would be in error and I would prefer to keep the naming correct.
Looking forward to everyone’s thoughts and observations.
Note: Multi-episode files will show up individually in Plex apps when viewing your library, but playing any of the represented episodes will play the full file. If you want episodes to behave truly independently, you’re best off using a tool to split the file into individual episodes.
Would you happen to know what this change actually does ? I was interested when I seen it in the release notes but could not see any real change.
I’ve a number of files named as per the guidelines Lost - S06E17-E18.mp4 as one example and its always been picked up correctly as two episodes in plex so I’m not sure what the change does.
Maybe its just a more strict enforcement of that naming ?
Officially supported is only S02E17-E18
The “Extended” means something like S01E01-02 (notice the missing E before the second episode number). Which is now also recognized as multi-episode format.
But, why was it deemed necessary to recognize s01e01-02 like you would recognize s01e01-e02? I used this to indicate a two part episode at the filesystem level without plex displaying two episodes which point to the same file. I honestly don’t see the benefit in this. Two plex entries pointing at one file can only lead to confusion for the viewer. If I wanted to display them as two physical episodes, I could split the file in two.
Just trying to understand, so that I can decide to rename the files or live with the functionality. If they were willing to provide a config setting for this, it would be the best of all possible worlds.
I agree with ranger here. I use the S01E01-02 format to keep it like that in my filesystem, while Plex ignores the second “-02” part and displays it as one episode in Plex. Yeah, I appear to be “missing” episode 2 in Plex, but I don’t care. If I do, I would go into Plex and edit the metadata to indicate it is a two-parter episode by changing the title and description.
One show I have, uses a strange episode ordering number for the files. Episode 1 is tied with episode 7, episode 4 is followed by episode 2, episode 6 is followed by episode 5, etc. I gave up all hope on organizing that show, and simply went for using the S01E01-07 format on my filesystem. I really REALLY do not want to have to do the work of cutting every single episode at their midpoints. That’d be several hours of work for me for this one show alone.
Thank you Divideby0. I hope others chime in on this as well. BTW, what show has such an odd episode order? I have many tv shows I have collected into my plex setup and haven’t run across that.
It is the TV Show Phineas and Ferb. I think the copy probably uses “DVD sort order”, but I never got around to checking up on that, and use the default “aired order”. This was one of the first shows I had trouble adapting to Plex’s format back when I first worked on getting it to work. I didn’t know about alternate sort orders, so I just tried to mangle the show into “aired order”, got frustrated, and now I just have a bit of a mind-block when it comes to working on it.
Another show that seems all over the place is a copy I got for Animaniacs. Some files have 3 episodes in them, some have 2, some have 1. I think it might be how shows back then were a sequence of skits, and TVDB chopped each skit up to be a separate episode rather than one collection. Most likely this happened because the production company was able to (and did) cut these skits up and re-air them in different orders. So TVDB probably thought rather than keep track of how many different airings had a particular skit, they just gave it its own episode number and left it to the file owners to figure out which “episodes” are in each file.
This “new” way of recognizing Sxx-Exx-yy as a multi-episode file breaks any episode whose name begins with a number, such as “The Good Doctor-S06E12-365 Degrees.mkv” or “The Good Doctor-S06E13-39 Differences.mkv”. Adding a space after the second dash fixed things for me, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the best solution.
I have noticed the exact same problem and now my server is spending many cycles trying to detect intros and credits for hundreds of episodes that don’t exist. As a developer myself I wish I could just specify the file format I would like plex to follow (I know regex isn’t that simple, but at least I could fix this kind of problem myself).
