Server Version#: Latest, running on Synology NAS
Player Version#: Web
Hi all, I have been trying to fix my TV show library. I understand that I need to name the folders and files in certain way. As per the Plex convention, the following should work (copied from the official Plex help article):
/TV Shows
/Doctor Who (1963) {tvdb-76107}
/Season 01
S01e01 - An Unearthly Child (1).mp4
S01e02 - The Cave of Skulls (2).mp4
My folder and file structure is slightly different, using the example from the above, it would be:
/TV Shows
/SCIENCE FICTION
/Doctor Who {tvdb-76107}
/01. season (EN, 1080p, 1963)
S01E01. An Unearthly Child.mp4
S01E02. The Cave of Skulls.mp4
So, I do have the TVDB number in the correct format, but I have the season subfolder named slightly differently (with additional information), although the word “season” is in there and I understand that this is the most important thing. I also have the files named without the numbers at the end in brackets (1), (2), whose purpose I really did not understand from the example on the official website. Yet, Plex is not able to recognize the TV shows properly. It only recognizes few, and then adds crazy number of seasons to those few TV shows to include all the files in the library, although obviously, wrongly, as it takes these fake seasons from other folders of different TV shows.
I suppose, my question is, do I need to religiously follow the prescribed naming, including the format of the season folder names and the file names (including the silly numbers at the end), or what should I do to make this work, please?
make sure your library is pointing at the SCIENCE FICTION folder, so there’s no additional layers of folders
the season folder should always be Season XX, where XX is the actual season number. IIRC Plex will ignore text after that pattern, so you could keep some extra information along
the episode name/title in the file name is not used by Plex, so it doesn’t matter if you keep or drop the numbers in brackets. Make sure the episodes have a sXXeYY pattern, with XX being the season and YY being the episode number.
General rule of thumb:
Going with the official schema might take some effort to prepare your files but it’ll save you a ton of trouble down the road.
They have no purpose, and you don’t need those. I think it’s confusing that they’re in the first example. Plex isn’t using the (1) and (2).
The three bullets @tom80H mentioned are the important parts. No extra nesting, name season folders exactlySeason XX, and episodes should include sXXeYY.
It’s unfortunate those numbers show up in the only two episodes in their example but when I saw it the first time I assumed that it was for 2 part episodes. What I mean is that for some episodic shows the matter reaches its conclusion at the end of the episode; in some cases however, one episode ends in a cliff hanger and you’ll have to wait for the conclusion for a week. Those tend to have 1 & 2 at the end. In some cases they have the same episode name and a different number, but in others the names are different but the number is present to let you know that the two are connected.
In this example from Castle, Pandora and Linchpin are two parts of the same story. The name is different but the number indicates they are connected. Episode 14 is there to show the number isn't always present
