I’ve had a TV Show season that sometime ago I ripped with Handbrake (macOS video conversion) app from DVD. Today I’ve ripped one of the episodes (with same Handbrake) from Blu-ray and replaced the file in the library, after which Plex no longer finds / recognizes that file as an episode.
At first, I thought that maybe I’ve made the rip with some incompatible settings, but when I put that episode in a Movie folder (instead of TV Show), it shows up and plays just fine. I’ve experimented with creating brand new folders in the library and putting those two episodes there, but no matter what I do, only Episode 2 (from DVD) gets recognized and added to the library and Episode 1 is ignored. Many attempts at renaming didn’t help either, and I couldn’t find anything the logs to help me identify the issue.
I’ve attached logs, and would appreciate if someone could tell me why that particular file “Собака Баскервилей. 1 серия.m4v” (Episode 1) is not recognized/processed and “Собака Баскервилей. 2 серия.m4v” (Episode 2) is fine. At this point, this seems most likely a Plex issue, as once again — the file gets recognized and plays just fine when it’s indexed separately in a Movie folder, it’s only ignored as part of a TV show. Previous DVD rip of the episode was previously recognized without any issues, while named the same and within the same hierarchy.
If it shows in a movie library but not in a tv library, you probably have a naming issue.
Both names seem very wrong and Plex is pretty strict when it comes to file names for tv shows. The reason one of the files is properly recognized might be because of some embedded metadata Plex can interpret.
TV Shows ← the folder you have added to that library .. > Show Name ← the name of the show as listed in TheTVDb.com .. .. > Season 01 ← use the English term! .. .. .. > Show Name - s01e01 - optional episode name.ext ← where ext is the file extension .. .. .. > Show Name - s01e02.ext .. .. .. > Show Name - s01e03.ext .. .. .. > ...
Fix your file naming and folder structures.
After that you might need to perform a “plex dance” to ensure Plex doesn’t confuse the files with previously wrong additions:
move the files /folders of that show outside the library folder
re-scan the library and wait for it to complete
empty the trash within Plex (context menu of that library)
Thank you! Following ‘sXXeXX’ format in episode names fixed it. What threw me off initially, is that previous naming worked fine until I replaced one of the seasons with higher quality media than the rest (while preserving all filenames).
