Synology New User - Plex Server and Folders

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
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Server Version#: 1.21.0-3744
Player Version#: Version 4.43.4

I just purchased a new Synology NAS (920+). I installed the Beta Plex Server. I have never used Plex Server or a NAS before. I have a couple of questions:

  • When I launch Plex Server into a web browser on my Mac it says there is an update to Plex Server - should I upgrade? I understand that PS is in Beta for DSM7.0 OS. By upgrading would I cause an issue - or is the update DSM 7 friendly?

I created a Shared Folder on my NAS called MOVIES. I added this folder to my Plex Player on my Mac and AppleTV. I copied a movie from my Mac to this folder location on my NAS. I can see movies in this folder with no issue. I decided to start ripping my new DVD - Chappelle - The Complete Series. There are multiple disks - two for Season One. On Disk 1 there is 8 episodes. I used MakeMKV and it saved 8 separate files to my Mac - one for each episode. So I thought the most logical thing to do was create a Folder under Movies entitled - “Chappelle - The Complete Series - Season 1”. I would then create another folder for Season 2. Under each folder would be individual files for each episode. Seem logical. So I went to my NAS login and checked to see if the folder was there (remember I used my Mac to create these folders), and the folder and one of the files was there. I launched Plex Player on Mac, and the Folder was not in my Movies list. There was a file at the root level that is working fine - but the Folder was not shown. So I decided to go back to NAS to make sure the newly added folders were shared - and Plex Server had rights to it. Everything seemed fine. I went back to Plex Player, and went through the “Add Library - Add Folder” I added “Movies/The Chapelle - The Complete Series - Season 1”. What happens is a second library is added entitled “Movies” - so I have two. There is no “Movies/The Chapelle - The Complete Series - Season 1” So my question here are:

  • How do you manage folders in Plex Server/Player? I would have assumed folder would show up in Plex Player r- I would click on it and it would then show all of the episodes for Season 1.
  • How do you manage a TV/Movie that has multiple episodes? So I have to copy all episodes to the root level “Movies”? I yes that seems unwieldy and cluttered.
  • Should I take all of the individual files and merge it into one large file entitled Season 1?

I like intuitive processes. I would think the easy most logical solution to this is to create Folders - assign the Movie Art in Plex to this Folder - like you do for movies - and then click down to each individual episode. Please tell me this is how lex works and that I’m not figuring out the correct way to represent Folders in Plex.

Thanks

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Hi just an update.

It seems like the file I added to the Folder does show up in Plex. But it doesn’t show up as a folder, but it shows just the one file under that Folder. Though the title is wrong - Plex assigns the Folder name to the file “Chappele’s Show - The Complete Series”, and not the actual file name “Dave Chappelle Show - Season 1 - Ep1”. If I copy the file up a level to Movies - the correct title is displayed “Dave Chappelle Show - Season 1 - Ep1”

Also the artwork is f’ed up. I didn’t know it was Chappelle at all - it shows some white dude wearing a parka - no title or text. bizarre.

My question still stands - how does everyone manage multiple TV Shows in a logical folder/hierarchal method? Why does Plex assign the Folder Name to the file inside the folder? How would Plex handle multiple files inside the folder - how would it name all of them since it seems to name the one files the Folder Name? I have not tested this since I only ripped one episode.

Also - how does Plex apply cover art to each Episode? Do I have to download my own cover art?

EDIT: Can you also help me understand multiple Audio channels in the same file? There are two Audio Channels - C1 is original show aud - C2 is the commentary. I went to Audio in Plex Player web and it shows both channels in the pull down. I select C2 and just hear the movie channel - go back to C1 and nothing changes. How do I select multiple Audio Channels in Plex Player?

Edit Edit: Okay trying stuff out and adding to this post. I copied over all of the mkv files I ripped. They show up with the original assigned titles: ie.e Title T01, T02
 Also, the thumbnail artwork seems to be an image captured within each episode. It’s extremely hard to see that it’s the Chappelle Show - or even which episode it is assigned to. I know I can download cover art - but I was hoping Plex would recognize that this the Chappelle Show DVD - and assign the original Cover Art from DVD. It would also be nice to see

Thanks

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Okay more strange stuff:

  • I copied a total of seven files (Title T00 thru T07) into the Folder to test how Plex Handles multiple files inside a Folder. Well it only added T00 thru T04. It doesn’t show the other files T05 thru T07!

  • Something strange occurred - when I went to Movies on Plex Player - it showed a portion of the movies I added to Plex Server (see above for missing files concern). When I went from Recommended to Library in Plex Player I saw the Folder!!! When I clicked on this folder it showed the files inside the folder! But again not all of the files on my Server. The strangest thing happened when I clicked on Recommended and went back to Library - the Folder disappeared.

  • Can anyone explain this weird behavior - missing files - weird cover art - inability to recognize folders - folder appearing and disappearing - missing files not showing up.

Is anyone confused?

Edit okay I’m back - when I hit rescan again the additional files did show up - T04 thru T07. Maybe this was an issue with NAS updating? Folder is still missing.

Thanks

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Okay - again laying with Plex - and I seem to be answering some of my questions above. Any comments on my discovery would still be helpful.

  • So I made a new Folder entitled TV Shows. I added the Folder to this directory. I went to Plex Player and added TV Shows (instead of Movies) - and it seemed to work. There is one folder at root showing 8 files inside. Click on this folder and all 8 episodes show up - they are actually entitled “Episode 0” “Episode 1” and so on. The cover art still is just a screenshot of something inside the files - hard to tell what I’m looking at regardless. The top level Folder is blank. The strange think that happened here was I also had an Mpeg4 file (ripper from mkv season 1 - episode 1) - well that files does not even show up. It did when I added this to Movies. It is hidden under TV Shows.

  • So it seems like I need to add TV Series to TV Shows going forward. I get this. I still would like better cover art assigned from Plex. I know I can download files from internet - but it would be nice for Plex to understand that this is a DVD with multiple Episodes - and assign accordingly.

  • It seems like the Folder does not have artwork assigned - it is blank. When I click on the three dots there is no “refresh metadata” or “Download File” to assign the top level DVD artwork to the Folder itself.

Does anyone else feel my pain? Am I doing things wrong here. I am playing and learning.

Thanks

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So not only doesn’t Plex recognize the Chappelle Show artwork - trying to search tools - only brings up the 2003 artwork. I managed to assign the actual cover art by downloading from internet. But Plex doesn’t seem to fill in all the meta data - like writer/director/cover art/title et


  • Does everyone else see this as an issue - all of the above issues I’m having?

I have to do this with Key & Peele next :slight_smile:

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How is it named and numbered?

From the top of Volume1.

Create a Shared folder for TV (any name you want)

/volume1/
  TV Shows/
    Chapelle's Show/
      Season 1/
        Chapelle's Show -  S01E01 -  Optional title for episode 1 here.ext

Create a TV section, have Plex look at ‘/volume1/TV Shows’.

Plex will do the rest.

Movies are similar

/volume1/
  Movie Name (year)/
    Movie Name (year).ext
    Interview with the director-interview.ext

You might want to read through

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I just got a 920+ myself.
I updated. And the transcoder kept crashing at the end of longer videos (something that never happened with the Windows version).
So I’ve down downgraded to the Beta version from Synology’s store. So far so good.

I would recommend not updating.

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@DJCBS

Are you using EAC3 audio and/or a Roku ?

( I have isolated & reproduced a problem with EAC3 on a Roku but it impacts the transcoder itself )

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On one of the videos, yes, it was AC3 5.1.
But on the other it was TRUEHD 7.1.

The weird thing is that it was always only at the end of the videos. The 1st one was a 50 minute episode of a series. The 2nd was the 4K HDR version of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

I was using the Xbox One app.

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@DJCBS

Thanks.

I converted TrueHD 7.1 → EAC3 using a Roku Ultra.

The transcoder crashed at exactly 2 minutes prior to the end of the video (during credits)

It is 100% reproducible on demand. I’ve provided the sample file and conditions to the transcoder team for when they return

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Yup. That’s approximately about the same time it was crashing to me, too.

Good to know it’s reproducible on demand and the devs have been notified.
It kinda sucks there’s no repository of older versions of Plex, though.
I’m using the official Beta Build on the Synology Store and that one is working fine, but it’s version 1.21.
And that one still had the old libraries which are far less extensive and that, therefore, are much worse to catalogue collections.

If there was a repository, we could easily just go download version 1.24.x and solve the issue until the devs fixed it. Alas


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I’ve always recommended folks just keep a couple copies of the SPK.

It’s 90 MB. Compared to a movie file size
 it’s kinda trivial.

1 Like
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Yeah, thing is, I just got the NAS last December, when I was forced to find an alternative to the WD My Cloud that WD decided to kill off with some BS reason.

So I just never had access to the previous versions of the software to be able to install on the device. I can only access the one on the website (which is the current version) or the one on the Synology Store ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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