TV episodes get merged together but can't split?

General Discussions
1

I have a TV serie’s episodes which are getting bundled together as if part of a collection (I guess?) but I can’t split them!
Any suggestions?
And second step after that would be to get them to be identified correctly. It’s odd because I used exactly the same naming convention as for some 40+ other episodes of Louis Theroux and all were identified correctly except these 2 and 2 others (and they are on thetvdb as well).

Plex - Merged episodes
Plex - Merged episodes1069×468 155 KB

2

Where is your TV library pointing? Given your current structure, it should be at TV Documentaries, not DOCUMENTARY.

Check Server Settings -> Agents -> Shows. Make sure Local Media Assets (TV) is at the bottom of the list of selected agents in both TheTVDB and The Movie Database sections.

Also, clean up your naming & organization a bit, to better conform to Plex guidelines.

Example:

/TV Documentaries
  /Louis Theroux Extreme Love
    /Season 01  <-- Add a season folder
      /Louis Theroux Extreme Love - s01e01 - Autisim.mp4  <-- Use entire show name

https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/your-media/naming-and-organizing-tv-shows/

3

What FordGuy61 said.
It appears you’re not consistent with the naming of your episodes (e.g. show name in the show’s main folder does not match the show name part in the episode name.

  • Louis Theroux - Extreme Love vs. `Extreme Love´
  • Louis Theroux - Miami Mega Jail vs. Miami Mega Jail

To get the matching right, best name them according to how they are listed in TheTVDb.com:

  • Louis Theroux -> Louis Theroux > Season XX > Louis Theroux - sXXeYY - optional episode title.ext
  • Louis Theroux: Extreme Love -> Louis Theroux Extreme Love > Season XX > Louis Theroux Extreme Love - sXXeYY - optional episode title.ext
  • Louis Theroux: Miami Mega Jail -> Louis Theroux Miami Mega Jail > Season XX > Louis Theroux Miami Mega Jail - sXXeYY - optional episode title.ext

Where XX is the season number, YY is the episode number and .ext is your file extension. most OS don’t support : in a file name, so I dropped it.

If you look for a more short term solution… you can split tv-show content on the show level!

4

Thanks, but the problem persists!

  • I changed all my Agents so that Local Media Assets is always at the bottom for all libraries and agents.
  • I renamed according to your instructions despite the fact that my entire Louis Theroux collection uses the more simple Louis Theroux/Series Name/Series Name - SXXEYY - Title.ext and gets recognized fine as you’ll see from the gif below (except for those 4 episodes from ‘Miami Mega Jail’ & ‘Extreme Love’).

Plex - Louis Theroux problem 2

5

Plex Dance any show that you renamed/restructured.

Move all the shows to where they are not scanned by Plex, perform steps 2 - 4, then put the shows back one at a time. Verify each show is recognized correctly, has correct metadata, etc., before adding the next.

6

If you haven’t noticed, some of these are on TVDB in multiple places. There’s a “Louis Theroux” series that appears to contain many/most/all of the episodes. You’re using that series for some of your files - the ones in the “Louis Theroux” directory.

https://thetvdb.com/series/louis-theroux/seasons/official/1

I would sorta expect anything with “Louis Theroux” in the name, where it doesn’t get a stronger match to a series name, to get matched against that show.

And there are also smaller mini-series entries on TVDB for many of the episodes.

https://thetvdb.com/series/louis-theroux-miami-mega-jail
https://thetvdb.com/series/louis-theroux-extreme-love

I notice you’re using - in the filenames where there was a : before. I’m honestly not sure if that’s a good idea, or if you’re better off just removing it. Can anybody speak to how Plex parses the ‘-’?

Both FordGuy61 and tom80H suggested removing the colon instead of substituting a dash.

‘Louis Theroux Extreme Love - s01e01 - Autisim.mp4’

Especially since “Louis Theroux - akjsldflaksdjf - s01e01 - aklsjfdlaskjdf.mp4” happily matches against that first series, I’m worried that your dashes, while making it prettier for a human to read, make it no longer “unique”.

7

Also, wow. His stuff is amazing and pretty hard to watch. I didn’t know how much he had done.

8

I’ve always left out special / illegal file name characters such as the colon, slash, etc. instead of substituting another character.

Using a dash in the show name might work, but I left it out of my example for two reasons: a) it is not part of the show name; and b) Plex uses the dash as a separator between show name, episode number, etc.

I do not know how Plex matches TV shows. If it is similar to how movie matching works, then having extra characters in the show name reduces the quality/score of the match and could lead to shows being mismatched.

Also, the dash after Louis Theroux might cause Plex to ignore or discount the rest of the show name. This could also lead to merging the different shows.

If Plex is still merging the shows, try removing the dash from the show name, then Plex Dance the show.

1 Like
9

Thanks so much to everyone who chimed in to help…it worked! (amazing community here at Plex!) :smiley:

I didn’t have to change the naming of the files because I knew that couldn’t be the issue since EVERY single one of my other working Louis Theroux episodes use the same naming convention as these problem files (SeriesName - SxxExx - EpisodeName.ext)

However, a big congrats to Volts for spotting the fact that those problem episodes were in fact, at theTVDB, placed in two different places!
So I did the Plex Dance as suggested by FordGuy61 (thanks!) AND moved the files under ‘Louis Theroux’ with the new SxxExx to match and now all is well! :+1:

And yes Volts, Louis Theroux is awesome! :wink:
(not sure which ones you found hard to watch though?)

1 Like
10

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