Server Version#:1.19.4.2935…
Player Version#:n/a
Hi all,
I use Plex only for music and I maintain my metadata religiously for correctness, as I see it. This sometimes means that the genre, album title, track title, album art etc. are different to what MusicBrainz or somebody else might think they should be. Many of my “albums” are collections of music not available commercially, e.g. air shots recorded from the radio, or just very obscure albums I wouldn’t expect to be found online. Out of 900 albums, 200 are “unmatched”, even though every one contains consistently maintained genre, album/track name, album art and more. The library is maintained by iTunes which keeps the folder structure in line with Plex recommendations. All my Plex settings prefer local metadata/Personal Media, and no amount of refreshing metadata or re-scanning my library seems to get Plex Server to recognise this embedded data.
Is there no way in which I can tell Plex to ignore all online sources and ONLY use my metadata, even if it is “wrong”? I don’t really want to add all these unmatched albums to MusicBrainz, and I don’t think they want me to either. Seems such a shame, since I spend so much time getting that metadata right.
Sorry if this is already answered somewhere, I didn’t find it.
Marmite
Edit: OK, by displaying only unmatched albums and repeatedly selecting “Scan library files” and “Refresh All Metadata” alternately, I managed to get the unmatched albums to zero. However, most albums are still not showing album art, and the genres are missing albums - for example, the genre “Jazz.” should have 463 albums, but Plex is only showing 203. There is no genre in the drop down list called “Unknown” or any equivalent, so I can’t determine which albums have not been allocated to a genre. So it is still a mystery to know how to force Plex to accept the embedded metadata. All other servers I have used, despite their other faults, have managed to scan and understand my library in at the most, 15 minutes. Plex has been trying all day, and failed so far to show albums by genre successfully. Surely I am doing something wrong?
You can configure Plex to prefer local metadata (incl. genre information and covers) using the default agents. This way you can also decide if you want Plex to provide additional online based information (such as related content, artist bios, concert information, critic ratings, popular tracks…).
See ... > Manage Library > Edit... -> Advanced.
Alternatively you can also configure the library to use the Personal Media Artist agent. I’m not 100% sure but from what I remember that one should use only your embedded metadata and local assets (unless you configured it differently in Settings > [Server Name] > Agents)
I already made this setting. I am now trying the “Plex dance”.
Marmite
EDIT: Currently, after 2 hours of the Plex dance (with content removed, trash emptied, content replaced, and Update Libraries, Scan Files, Refresh Metadata), Plex web player recognises that there are 9371 items (correct), 1093 albums (there should be 1055), and it has not recognised one genre, nor displayed one album art image. Gonna leave it overnight to have a good rummage in the files.
Problem solved. As @tom80H said above, you need to set Manage Library>Edit>Advanced>Prefer Local Metadata, and also …>Genres>Embedded Tags, which is what I did from the beginning, and which did not cause Plex to use genres or album art embedded in the metadata. What made all the difference was when I set the agent “Personal Media…” to the top of the list for ALL categories of media. Albums did not have such a choice - Personal Media was the only option. Now I notice (after refreshing metadata) that “Local Media Assets” has appeared in the agents for Albums, and it is above Personal Media. Go figure. Anyway, the album art has appeared and the genres are (mainly) correct. If I find that I get more issues associated with incorrect metadata, I will first try changing the agent order for Albums.
I do think that Plex could make all of this a bit more user-friendly, but maybe this post will help other users, and Plex themselves to understand the issues.
Marmite
