The Office (US) combined episodes

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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Server Version#: 1.25.9.5673
Player Version#: Doesn’t matter

I’m trying to put The Office (US) onto my Plex server. The Blu-ray media for Season 3 has two different kinds of “unusual” files.

The first type are double episodes which have the same episode title. For example, episodes 10 and 11 are both titled “A Benihana Christmas,” and on the blu-ray are combined into one file. This type of combined episode works alright if I set my Scanner and Agent settings correctly.

The second type are double episodes which have different episode titles. In this case, episodes 13 and 14 are combined into a single file on the blu-ray, but have the titles “Traveling Salesmen” and “The Return.”

No matter what I do, I can’t make the Season 3 episodes “work” properly, because of that combined file. No matter what combination of Scanner and Agent setting I use, the episode name/title for episode 14 is incorrect, and the thumbnail graphics are wrong for that episode and all subsequent episodes.

Specifically, episodes 13 and 14 are both shown as having the title “Traveling Salesmen;” none of the episodes have the title “The Return;” and starting with episode 14, the thumbnail graphics for the episodes are all wrong, showing the thumbnail for the next episode rather than the current episode.

For example, episode 14 should be titled “The Return” and have a thumbnail graphic for that episode. Instead, it’s titled “Traveling Salesman” and has the thumbnail for episode 15, “Ben Franklin.” All the subsequent episodes exhibit the same thumbnail error, though their titles are correct. So for example, episode 16 is correctly titled “Phyllis’ Wedding” but has the thumbnail for episode 17, “Business School.”

I’ve named the files according to the guidelines I’ve found here. But nothing I do will make it all work properly.

Any advice would be appreciated.

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Best use either The Movie Database or TheTVDb as reference for your file naming/organization. If need be, TheTVDb also has a “DVD order” which can usually also be applied to Blu-Ray releases.

According to those 2 repositories,

  • “A Benihana Christmas” is a single episode (s03e10) – if the episode is split in 2 videos on your disc, you have 2 options:

    1. add a suffix to each file name to ensure Plex treats both files as parts of the same item, e.g. The Office (US) - s03e10 - A Benihana Christmas - part1.ext and The Office (US) - s03e10 - A Benihana Christmas - part2.ext.
      See “Episodes Split Across Multiple Files” in Naming and Organizing Your TV Show Files | Plex Support
    2. Use an app like MKVToolNix to actually merge/append both videos to a single file (this can be useful as not all Plex apps support so called “stacked” files (#1)

  • “Traveling Salesmen”/“The Return” – you can name the files so Plex knows the video represents 2 episodes. This will show 2 items in Plex (though clicking each of them will play the complete file) – as the repositories consider both videos of “A Benihana Christmas” to be episode 10, “Traveling Salesmen”/“The Return” are actually considered episodes 12+13.
    e.g. The Office (US) - s03e12-e13 - Traveling Salesmen + The Return.ext
    See "Multiple Episodes in a Single File in Naming and Organizing Your TV Show Files | Plex Support

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Thanks for your reply, Tom.

To clarify, A Benihana Christmas is a single file on the media, but was two episodes when it originally aired – episodes 10 and 11. That one is working alright, showing the correct titles and thumbnail graphics.

Traveling Salesmen and The Return were also two episodes when they aired – episodes 13 and 14. But for some reason they are a single file on the media, and Plex isn’t displaying 14 properly. It’s showing episode 13’s title (Traveling Salesmen), and the thumbnail graphic for episode 15 (Ben Franklin). All of the subsequent episodes are also showing the wrong thumbnail graphic.

Something about the combined Traveling Salesmen/The Return episode is screwing up the thumbnails for “The Return” and everything that comes after.

Oh, one other thing – No matter what settings I’ve tried, there is no option to use “DVD order” for that library. Is it hidden somewhere obscure?

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Id use something like AVIDemux and just split the files.

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Okay, so after a lot of additional experimentation – renaming files, deleting and re-creating the library, locating and changing the setting to use DVD Order, etc., I was able to get it to work properly with one exception: It still would not name episode 14 “The Return” as it should have. So I just manually edited that episode title in Plex, and it’s all correct. Even the thumbnails are correct now.

But as I have found many times in the past, a manual change to metadata doesn’t always “stick.” Some random trigger will cause certain metadata fields to update, replacing whatever manual changes I made with the default entry from the database.

So I’m just going to split “Traveling Salesmen” and “The Return” apart. It won’t really work properly when watching, because the opening titles will be missing from “The Return,” but it seems like this will be the option with the fewest downsides. Unfortunately there are probably other combined episodes to deal with in seasons 4 through 9, so this isn’t the only one I’ll have to split.

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You do that for just that show. Edit the show itself and it’s in the advanced settings under ‘episode ordering.’

I remember having the same problem and playing with this setting, but I couldn’t get everything to look right and gave up. Thanks for working on this more than I did. I’ll give another try.

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Here’s what I’ve found and where I ended up.

E10, entitled ‘A Benihana Christmas,’ was a double-length episode per IMDB and TVDB (42 minutes). TVDB aired order and DVD order both show it the same way. Oddly, TMDB shows it as a single episode, too, but with a length of 22 minutes (which is incorrect). Plex shows it correctly as E10 and 42 min.

E12 and E13 are shown separately on IMDB and TMDB. TVDB shows them separately as well, but for both aired and DVD order, which is incorrect.

I named the E12/E13 combo as ‘The Office (US) S03E12E13’ which Plex shows as separate episodes to match the three metadata sources (and keeps all the following episodes matching as well).

In Plex, both are then shown as 42 minutes in length (when in fact they are individually shorter), and playing either episode plays both episodes’ content (which seems odd). Regardless, the transition from E12 to E13 is seamless, as if they had aired on the same day as a double episode.

If you have ‘play next’ set to automatic in a Plex client, I don’t know what happens when E12 (with E13 at the end) finishes. Does Plex know to go to E14, or does it start playing E13 (which actually starts with E12)? I might give this a try.

All episodes beyond E13 are named correctly by Plex and with the proper thumbnails (starting with E14, ‘Ben Franklin’) through E23 (which, like E10, is a double episode).

I know there are other similar situations in later seasons, but I haven’t gone back to see what I ended up with. This all may be easier if someone corrects the DVD order on TVDB, but then again it might make it worse for those of us who have already worked around the problem.

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This made me check to see what I did. I’m using thetvdb(DVD) order, and just skipped e13, as it’s a double episode on the DVDs as well. It looks like thetvdb has it correct on the BluRay order, but that’s not an option in Plex.

1 Like
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Very interesting! I hadn’t noticed the BluRay option on TVDB. And now I see there are even more ordering options available for that show.

Plex folks – it’s not obvious to me how you could allow for such a selection in a show’s settings, when not every show will have this particular ordering, but it would be nice to have!

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Our metadata folks are looking into it.

2 Likes
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Thanks!

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I’m not sure why – maybe some updates were made last night in the TVDB? – but this morning everything is working properly, even though I hadn’t yet gotten around to splitting Traveling Salesmen and The Return apart. As of this morning, those combined episodes show up in Plex with the title “Traveling Salesmen + The Return,” with a properly-matched thumbnail graphic. The combined file is listed as episode 12, and the next episode – Ben Franklin – is properly listed as episode 14.

I am using TVDB and have set The Office to use DVD Order.

Assuming somebody made some kind of change to fix this – Thank you!

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Strange, as that’s not what is shown at all here. How do you have the file named?

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I have the file named:

The Office - s03e12-e13.m4v

Though when I was troubleshooting yesterday, I tried various options for the file name. Even when I tried embedding the episode titles in the file name, it didn’t display properly. This morning, even without the episode titles included in the file name, it all displays properly for me.

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Interesting. I just named mine same as yours, but now getting 2 separate episodes (12+13), both of course starting from the beginning. I’d prefer it to match as a combined like yours now is.

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TVDB DVD order still shows E12 & E13 separately. Only BluRay order shows them combined as E12, but as noted earlier you can’t select that ordering in Plex.

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I just thought of another possible explanation.

Yesterday, while troubleshooting, one of the changes I made was to the embedded metadata of the file itself. I set the video title to “Traveling Salesmen + The Return” to see if it would make any difference. Yesterday, it didn’t. As one in a series of failed troubleshooting steps, I moved on to something else. But I didn’t strip that title out of the metadata.

Maybe that has something to do with it?

When I want to change the embedded title of a video within the metadata, I use mkvpropedit for MKV files and MetaDoctor for m4v/mp4 files.

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So you have “Prefer local metadata” set for the library that contains this show?

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That setting (Prefer local metadata) is not available when using TVDB. It only shows up if you change the agent to “Plex TV Series.” And I’m set to use TVDB.

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I had forgotten about the legacy agents. So you must have ‘Local media assets (TV)’ checked in the TVDB agent settings (and at the top of the list), which will pull the episode title from the embedded metadata.

Even so, I don’t understand how that agent decides to match against the TVDB BluRay ordering. Or do your file names & embedded titles already reflect that order (i.e., you named E14 ‘Benjamin Franklin’, etc., and the last S03 episode is E22)?