Two TV shows with same name (different years) - one not showing

General Discussions
1

The 2017 show Taken isn’t showing in our media library. We also have the 2002 original season Taken which does show and is a mini-series with 10 episodes.

The seven current episodes of Taken (2017) are being indexed under Taken (2002) as duplicate files of that season’s first seven episodes.

Our folder structure is like this:

TV Shows
----Taken (2002)
--------Season 1
------------Taken s01e01.avi
------------Taken s01e02.avi
------------etc.
----Taken (2017)
--------Season 1
------------Taken (2017) s01e01.mkv
------------Taken (2017) s01e02.mkv
------------etc.

In TheTVDB.com, both seasons are listed and the 2017 season is differentiated by year (the 2002 season is not). I’ve tried removing the year from Taken 2002, I’ve tried that series with and without a season folder.

I hope what I’ve said is clear. It’s difficult when referring to duplicate names.

To summarise, what I’m seeing in Plex, is only one series called “Taken” in my TV Shows library. This is showing the episodes and metadata for the 2002 season. When I go in there, it shows 10 episodes, but the first seven episodes show duplicate files because there are currently seven episodes of Taken (2017) which it’s showing in here incorrectly.

I cannot - for the life of me - get Plex to show Taken (2017) as its own series.

Any suggestions please?

2

Plex has gone ‘round the bend’ with this TV Show naming thing and it’s causing no shortage of pain and suffering all around.

Try this - experience (and testing) dictates it will work:

TV Shows
----Taken (2002)
--------Season 1
------------Taken (2002) s01e01.avi
------------Taken (2002) s01e02.avi
------------etc.
----Taken (2017)
--------Season 1
------------Taken (2017) s01e01.mkv
------------Taken (2017) s01e02.mkv
------------etc.

A Plex Dance® is required:

The Plex Dance®:

  1. remove shows from library - Yep, the whole things - both of them. It’s a ‘do-over’.
  2. update library
  3. empty trash
  4. clean bundles
    https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200392106-Library-Actions <— update library, empty trash, clean bundles
  5. bring names and structures into compliance - at this point compliance is an adventure.
  6. replace corrected show into library
  7. update library

All Steps. In Order. No Shortcuts.

The above naming will work. I had the ‘old’ Taken aboard, matched before Plex lost it’s mind, but just now re-matched my old version and the new version with a ‘test show’ just for you:

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3

Please use the hyphens as separators
Use 2-digit season numbers for the season folder name

Taken (2017)
   Season 01
      Taken (2017) - s01e01.mkv
      Taken (2017) - s01e02.mkv
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4

I, of course, did in my test file and my old original ‘Taken’. I’m a 100% compliant kind of guy.

If we find out those dashes are important there’s a couple of employees that are going to have to be taken to school, but yes, by all means go 100% compliant as Otto suggests:

TV Shows
----Taken (2002)
--------Season 01
------------Taken (2002) - s01e01.avi
------------Taken (2002) - s01e02.avi
------------etc.
----Taken (2017)
--------Season 01
------------Taken (2017) - s01e01.mkv
------------Taken (2017) - s01e02.mkv
------------etc.

Then Plex Dance®

The Plex Dance®:

  1. remove shows from library - Yep, the whole things - both of them. It’s a ‘do-over’.
  2. update library
  3. empty trash
  4. clean bundles
    https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200392106-Library-Actions <— update library, empty trash, clean bundles
  5. bring names and structures into compliance - at this point compliance is an adventure.
  6. replace corrected show into library
  7. update library

All Steps. In Order. No Shortcuts.

5

Guys, thank you both for your help and suggestions.

I’m afraid I’ve not got an opportunity to test these on this occasion, as my wife has implemented her own workaround, which went something like this:

  1. Go into Taken in Plex
  2. Select ‘Unmatch’
  3. Then use ‘Fix match’

At this point, she could separate the episodes into Taken and Taken (2017).

So we have a manual workaround at the moment, and that’s worked - but I don’t know what’ll happen when we add more episodes. I’ll give your ideas a try though at the first opportunity, as it would be best for us to have this matching work automatically, and best for Plex to know what does/doesn’t work.

Thanks again for offering your assistance. I’ll report back if/when things change!

6

Well, that will work.

I prefer to fiddle around with the names and then ■■■■■ about it.

LOL

7

So far so good with the new episode of Taken. If this happens again, I’ll try the Plex Dance®. :wink:

8

Just found this thread as I was looking for a solution to the same problem with The Twilight Zone. I have one library with the folders:

  • The Twilight Zone
  • The Twilight Zone (1985)
  • The Twilight Zone (2002)

The Twilight Zone (2002) was not showing up, though the other two folders show up and match perfectly. After some messing around with the file names to ensuring they were all set up with hyphens as suggested by Otto (Ex: The Twilight Zone (2002) - S01E01 - Evergreen.avi), among other variation, it still would not show up.

Then I removed parenthesis from the root folder (Ex: The Twilight Zone 2002) and Plex magically matched everything.

Granted, this thread is two years old, but others running into the problem of missing folders may want to give this solution a shot.

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