I’ve been wanting to refresh the metadata for my library of thousands of movies, in order to pull in new extras, get newer poster art, etc. but in the tests I’ve done with smaller numbers of them, the ones with multiple versions (theatrical/director’s cuts, etc.) end up being re-merged and I lose any of the individual metadata I entered for the version that is merged into the other.
Is there any way around this, short of going through manually and only refreshing titles that aren’t split?
I’ve had mixed results with splitting versions myself and sometimes they re-merge and sometimes they don’t but I haven’t found a reliable way to identify any official rules around it for the agent matching. Particularly as the agent matching kinda gets mixed results as it gets tweaked here and there.
How are your movies stored? Are the different versions in separate folders or together in the same folder? That might help if in separate folders. I haven’t really noticed a difference between same or separate folders myself but maybe one of the more experienced Plex folks has a definitive word on it in this situation beyond linking the “file naming rules” article.
Do you have a couple example movies?
Sometimes you can find dedicated references to some cuts\versions like Superman II Richard Donner Cut has a unique reference on TMDB so adding a TMDB reference to the file name helped with that one (like {TMDB-624479}).
My Star Wars fan edits always want to re-merge into the originals while my different versions of NeverEnding Story seem to be okay staying split apart even after a refresh.
Just some thoughts as I have experienced the “full refresh” situation you’ve mentioned. I usually use the Duplicates filter to catch any unexpected merges after the fact.
I keep mine in separate folders, with a tag at the end. For example: “Thief (1981) [Director’s Cut]”, “Thief (1981) [Theatrical Cut]”
The Duplicates filter is definitely helpful, however I would still need to then split them apart, rename them, and assign different poster art (I usually use a modern poster for the ‘new’ cut and a more vintage one for the original.) The worst are the ones where I’ve added little notes describing what is different, or recommending which version to watch first, to the synopsis field, and that gets totally blown away.
I believe anything in square brackets gets ignored by Plex so it might be useful to put the extra detail in parentheses instead so it can “see” a different file name as reference. I only put stuff In [detail] if I want to be sure Plex doesn’t try to reference at all so having your unique info about the version in the brackets might throw off the references. That’s completely anecdotal advice.
I do the same with the summary details for things - particularly those Star Wars fan edits. Definitely annoying when a remerge wipes them out but I also am not doing my file org exactly right at the moment either so I kinda accept some hiccups like that too until I get it sorted (which I’m lazy about).
I usually try to find “cut” labelled posters to differentiate but sometimes have to make my own (Waterworld Ulysses Cut did not have appealing options though so I made my own basic version and threw it up on TMDB just in case I lose it) or do like you suggested and use classic and modern versions to differentiate. Luckily most of the popular alternate cuts have posters.
I believe anything in square brackets gets ignored by Plex so it might be useful to put the extra detail in parentheses instead so it can “see” a different file name as reference.
I had no idea, thank you! I’ll give that a try and report back.
