TV shows not showing up correctly

[bsrngeorge]

Server Version#: 4.141.0
Player Version#:

First let me say I have been using PLEX since it was first released and i have never had an issue with it, until now, and i cannot figure out what is going on,
Just setting up a newer more powerful server for myself and I have copied my library off my old server onto the new server.
the vast majority, if not all, of my movies are working perfectly.
The problem is in my television library.
I have 18 different television series in my library but in my library i only have two television shows listed now Stargate Atlantis and “The Movies.” Furthermore, Stargate Atlantis is showing 15 seasons. When I go to season 1 episode 1 of Stargate Atlantis it plays the first episode of Battlestar Galactica. If I go to say season 15 of Atlantis it plays an episode of ER.
I have not added anything new to my plex server in a long time, i just copied it to a new computer and RAID disk so i wouldn’t lose all the hard work I did ripping from my DVDs.

[FordGuy61]

Plex Documentation → Your Media
→ Naming & Organizing Your Movie Files
→ Naming & Organizing Your TV Show Files

Naming and organization are key. Make sure you follow Plex naming and organization requirements. Mixing TV Shows and Movies in the same library is not supported.

Verify you have the correct folders added to the Plex Media Server libraries. This is especially important for TV shows.

Examples:

Correct

F:\media\tv\  <-- folder added to TV show library
....\Doctor Who (2005)

Correct

F:\media\tv\  <-- folder cannot be added to any Plex library
..\SciFi<-- folder added to TV show library
....\Doctor Who (2005)

Incorrect

F:\media <-- folder added to TV show library
..\tv
....\SciFi
......\Doctor Who (2005)

Incorrect

F:\media\tv\  <-- folder added to TV show library
..\SciFi
....\Doctor Who (2005)

[FordGuy61]

@bsrngeorge

When I go to season 1 episode 1 of Stargate Atlantis it plays the first episode of Battlestar Galactica.

Using Plex Web, navigate to Stargate Atlantis season 1, episode 1.

Edit the show (pencil icon)

Select Info. This shows the path to the file. Given the behavior you describe, it may list multiple files.

Take a screenshot and attach to the thread.

Example:

[bsrngeorge]

Definitely pointing to a whole bunch of different files.
I do have my movies and TV shows in separate directories and separate libraries.

[FordGuy61]

Thanks for the screenshot.

You must correctly name and organize your shows. See the documentation linked in my earlier reply.

You may need to Plex Dance each show after renaming/reorganizing, to remove incorrect matching information from the Plex Database.

Given the file structure in the screenshot, Television is the folder to add to the TV show library.

/Television <-- folder added to TV Show library.
  /Show Name (year)
    /Show Name (year) s01e01 optional_episode_name.ext <-- ext = mkv/mp4/etc.

If you want to keep the “extra info” in the name, place it at the end of the file name in square brackets. Ex: Show Name (year) s01e01 [720p.hevc.etc.].ext

There are tools that can help. Here’s a shortlist. The free version of Tiny Media Manager works for most people.

• Filebot
• Tiny Media Manager
• Microsoft PowerTools PowerRenamer

Many people use Filebot. It is quite powerful and can rename an entire library in minutes.

Tiny Media Manager is also very useful, and free.

Example TMM Renamer Patterns:

• Show Name: ${showTitle} (${showYear})
• Season: Season ${seasonNr2}
• Episode Name: ${showTitle} (${showYear}) s${seasonNr2}e${episodeNr2} ${episode.title}
• Movie Name: ${title} (${year}) {imdb-${imdb}}

PowerRenamer in Microsoft Power Tools is helpful for simple renaming with pattern matches or regular expressions. It makes quick work of tasks such as adding a year to file names, removing undesirable text from multiple files, etc

[FordGuy61]

Example:

/Television
../Stargate Atlantis (2004)
..../Season 01
....../Stargate Atlantis (2004) s01e01-e02.mp4
../Eureka (2006)
..../Season 01
....../Eureka (2006) s01e01 Pilot.mkv
..../Season 02
....../Eureka (2006) s02e01 Phoenix Rising.mkv

Note that Plex can read embedded metadata from MP4 files. If the metadata is incorrect, Plex may not correctly recognize or display the files.

You can configure Plex to NOT look for the embedded metadata:

1. Edit the library
2. Advanced
3. Deselect Prefer local metadata
4. Save Changes

[bsrngeorge]

thanks for trying but as stated in the original post I have been using plex for so many years now I must have been one of the first people using it. I name all of my shows per the above scheme and have never had an issues until now.
I think I may have found out where I went wrong. At first I thought copying 1 TB of TV shows into the plex server at one time may have been too much, but I am sure this has been done in the past. I Was in the process of just deleting everything off the new server and I was going to copy one show at a time from my old server when I noticed I had set my movies and television database folder to the root directory of my new external RAID drive. Hopefully this is where I went wrong. I am now pointing to the correct folders for Movies and Television where both libraries were pointing to root of that drive.
Hopefully this is going to sort it out for me so if anyone in the future has an issue like this it may be that simple.

[bsrngeorge]

ok update, it was that i had pointed my libraries to the root directory of the new drive and not to the individual folders containing the movie for the movie files and television for the television files. I possibly setup plex before copying those files to the new drive and didn’t have the folders created yet. I don’t know who it would mess up and point to all of those extra files when doing that.
side note, i did delete everything from my television folder and basically started over the copy process so it is possible that throwing 1 tb of stuff at one time in there confused it but i don’t understand why that would be a problem. When it scans the folder it should be able to tell…
I think it all came down to me pointing at the root directory and plex seeing all of my movies and television files together since both libraries were pointed to the root.

[dbirch]

@bsrngeorge

that throwing 1 tb of stuff at one time in there confused it

Not at all, I threw quite a but more at it when I setup a dev server.

Pointing to a directory above the TV Shows folder will cause issues as Plex’s naming/folder schema is fairly strict.

[FordGuy61]

@bsrngeorge

I think it all came down to me pointing at the root directory and plex seeing all of my movies and television files together since both libraries were pointed to the root.

This will cause the problems you describe.

You should also straighten out folder and file names. It will pay dividends in the future.