Series episode recognition seems inconsisent. Setup issues?

Plex Media Server
,
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Server Version#: 1.40.0
Platform: windows
Plex pass: yes

Hi, have a question about TV series/episode naming and recognition after reading the appropriate support docs and observing the library scanning behavior.

I have a library with the following config:
Scanner: Plex TV Series
Agent: Plex Series
Episode ordering: The Movie Database

In this library, episodes like these are recognized:
One Piece\Season 03[Anime Time] One Piece - 0078 - Nami’s Sick Beyond the Snow Falling on the Sea!.mkv
One Piece\Season 20\One Piece - 1085.mkv
One Piece\Season 20\One Piece - 1090.mkv

These ones don’t show:
Solo Leveling\Season 1\Solo Leveling E1 Im Used to It.mkv
Solo Leveling\Season 1\Solo Leveling E2 If I Had One More Chance.mkv

Renaming them to this doesn’t work:
Solo Leveling\Season 1\Solo Leveling 1 Im Used to It.mkv
Solo Leveling\Season 1\Solo Leveling 2 If I Had One More Chance.mkv

Renaming them to this doesn’t work:
Solo Leveling\Season 1\Solo Leveling - 1 Im Used to It.mkv
Solo Leveling\Season 1\Solo Leveling - 2 If I Had One More Chance.mkv

Renaming them to this doesn’t work:
Solo Leveling\Season 1\Solo Leveling - 1 - Im Used to It.mkv
Solo Leveling\Season 1\Solo Leveling - 2 - If I Had One More Chance.mkv

Finally, renaming them to this works:
Solo Leveling\Season 1\Solo Leveling S1E1 Im Used to It.mkv
Solo Leveling\Season 1\Solo Leveling S1E2 If I Had One More Chance.mkv

I don’t get why just an episode number works for One Piece but not for Solo Leveling, considering both are in a dedicated Series and Season folder? I can’t make heads or tails of it and find it too picky, which could be a setup issue on my part. I can understand having to consider false positives when it comes to episode recognition but “Series/Season X/Episode 1 Some title name.mkv” doesn’t seem particularly difficult to interpret.

Considering I have about 6000 episodes of various series using various naming conventions I want to exhaust all other possibilities before I commit to renaming everything, any help or insight is greatly appreciated :slight_smile:

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Plex Documentation → Your Media
→ Naming & Organizing Your TV Show Files
→ Naming & Organizing Your Movie Files

Follow Plex naming requirements for TV shows, which uses sXXeYY notation for the season and episode numbers. There are other requirements, such as using season folders. Suggest you read the Plex documentation and follow it as closely as possible.

Other naming and organization methods might work, until they don’t, and then you end up renaming the files anyway (basically, you got lucky with your other naming structure).

/TV Shows <-- folder added to tv show library
../Solo Leveling (2024) {tvdb-389597} <-- ShowName (year), TVDB/TMDB ID optional
..../Season 01 <-- "Season" in English
....../Solo Leveling (2024) s01e01 I'm Used to It.mkv <-- sXXeYY important

If you’ve many movies/shows to name, there are tools that can help. Filebot is popular. The free version of Tiny Media Manager works quite well. There are many others as well.

TMM Renamer Patterns:

  • Show Folder Name: ${showTitle} (${showYear}) {tmdb-${showTmdb}}
  • Season: Season ${seasonNr2}
  • Episode Name: ${showTitle} (${showYear}) s${seasonNr2}e${episodeNr2} ${episode.title}
  • Movie Folder Name and Movie Name: ${movie.originalTitle} (${year}) {tmdb-${movie.tmdbId}}

PowerRenamer in Microsoft Power Tools is helpful for simple renaming with pattern matches or regular expressions. It makes quick work of tasks such as adding a year to file names, removing undesirable text from multiple files, etc

1 Like
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Some additional information…

Plex uses episode ordering as listed on TMDB and TVDB.

You can choose between:

  • TMDB Aired
  • TVDB Aired
  • TVDB DVD
  • TVDB Absolute

Pick the ordering that best fits how you want things and organize your files accordingly. Other episode orders are not supported.

Plex defaults to TMDB ordering. You can change it at the library and show levels.

To change default ordering for the entire library: Edit the Library → Advanced → Episode ordering

To change the ordering for a specific show: Edit the show (pencil icon) → Advanced → Episode ordering.

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Appreciate the very thorough explanation and possible solutions @FordGuy61 !

I was using a custom post-download renaming and library scanning script prior to your feedback, but after trying Filebot and TMM I’ve settled on using Filebot since the command line automation does exactly what I want it to and it blows my renaming solution out of the water:

[TEST] from [-\Anime\Mushoku Tensei\S2 Uncensored\[DiabloTripleA] Mushoku Tensei - S02E01 [2F765455].mkv] to [-\Anime\Mushoku Tensei\S2 Uncensored\Mushoku Tensei Jobless Reincarnation - S02E01 - The Brokenhearted Mage.mkv]

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One recommendation: Instead of S2 Uncensored, use Season 02 or Season 02 Uncensored.

Per the Plex documentation, “Be sure to use the English word “Season” when creating season directories, even if your content is in another language.”

FYI, Plex does not pick up the season name from the folder name, but it does not hurt to include it.

If the season name is available from online sources such as TMDB/TVDB, Plex can be configured to display it:

  1. Edit the library
  2. Advanced
  3. Enable Use season titles.
  4. Save Changes

Example:

TVDB Listing: Slow Horses - TheTVDB.com

sh

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