Why are TV-series sometimes recognised as Films or Other

General Discussions
1

most of the time, when a list of files that are belonging to a complete season of TV-series are recognised correctly.
but sometimes PMS reports: “this library does not contain any files”
if I than choose Films or Others, instead of TV-series, than the video files are found and can also be played.
so, what is the criteria used here ??

2

How are you setting it up? If you are using a separate library for each series then you are doing it wrong. Also what naming are you using. Plex is very particular about how TV shows are named.

So 1st and foremost the library type MUST be a TV library and the naming and structure should come quite close to Plex’s requirements:

TV Shows <— The library points here

---------TV Show Name (Year first aired if needed) <— This folder holds the season folders
------------------Season 01 <— This folder holds all the episodes for season 01
-------------------------ShowName - s01e01 - Episode Name.ext
-------------------------ShowName - s01e02 - Episode Name.ext
-------------------------And so on for the rest of season 01
------------------Season 02 <— This folder holds all the episodes for season 02
-------------------------ShowName - s02e01 - Episode Name.ext
-------------------------ShowName - s02e02 - Episode Name.ext
-------------------------And so on for the rest of season 02
------------------Season 03 <— This folder holds all the episodes for season 03
-------------------------ShowName - s03e01 - Episode Name.ext
-------------------------ShowName - s03e02 - Episode Name.ext
-------------------------And so on for the rest of season 03
---------2nd TV Show Name (Year first aired if needed) <— This folder holds the season folders
------------------Season 01 <— This folder holds all the episodes for season 01
-------------------------2nd ShowName - s01e01 - Episode Name.ext
-------------------------2nd ShowName - s01e02 - Episode Name.ext
-------------------------And so on for the rest of season 01
------------------Season 02 <— This folder holds all the episodes for season 02
-------------------------2nd ShowName - s02e01 - Episode Name.ext
-------------------------2nd ShowName - s02e02 - Episode Name.ext
-------------------------And so on for the rest of season 02
------------------Season 03 <— This folder holds all the episodes for season 03
-------------------------2nd ShowName - s03e01 - Episode Name.ext
-------------------------2nd ShowName - s03e02 - Episode Name.ext
-------------------------And so on for the rest of season 03

Note: The year after the show name is only normally needed or desired if there is more that one show with exactly the same name. Check http://thetvdb.com/ if you are not sure and match exactly the name used there. There are some exceptions to this where the year is needed even if there is no other show of that name.

There are naming methods other than the above that work but this does work 99.9% of the time.
If you are going to use Plex it is best to use the proper naming conventions so Plex makes the best match possible. Trying to force Plex to use other naming methods is just asking for frustration.
https://plexapp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/200220687-Naming-Series-Based-TV-Shows

It should be noted that the naming of the folder containing the season folder is more important than the naming of each episode.

3

thank you very much :slight_smile: