Adding a tv show that is partially on The TVDB

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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I believe this might have a easy solution.

Basically, I’m trying to add a tv show that show as 108 episodes on TheTVDB but have actually way more than that.

Is it possible to add those 108 and have the rest, even without thumbnail or anything, but under the same tv show?

2

They will all show, in order, even under season folders if you have them labeled correctly. They just won’t have Metadata attached to them.

But they will be there and accessible.

3

Might I ask what show?

4

Okay. If thetvdb displays only the first 108 episodes (or 108 scattered/out of order) then you can add them to thetvdb yourself or you can add them in plex at a much higher episode number.
My example is the tv show “cops”

cops
cops786×636 576 KB

cops2
cops2819×610 568 KB

cops3
cops3786×636 644 KB

I started the episode count at 100 because I could not verify what episode correctly goes in what order so I didn’t what plex to match plot summary/synopsis incorrectly. I could started at episode 50 cause no season has 50 episodes(most is season 5 with 49 eps). But felt 100 would be good.

I forgot the good news from doing this.
You can actually have titles for your media using Local Media Assets in the agent list. Plex will scan the MP4 TITLE tag and add it as the title of your episode.

cops4
cops4793×630 604 KB

cops5
cops5664×484 47.5 KB

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Thank you for the answers, still I don’t know why I can’t make it work here.
The TV show is Chapolin Colorado, very popular in my country.

I tried to add all 191 episodes to my tv show folder, that plex scans,
TV Shows\Chapolin Colorado…mkv

Now the episodes are labeled as follow:
Chapolin - 010 - Arruaceiros - Jantar Executivo 2 - Os Prisioneiros (MAGA 1990 - Espanhol).mkv
Chapolin - 011 - Encontro às Escuras - Garçom Desastrado - Confusão no Celeiro (MAGA 1990 - Espanhol)
and so on…

Just an example. This series doesn’t have an actual and precise air dates, correct sequence, etc.

And I’m not sure the high episode number, count, trick worked here.
Or I might be doing it wrong.

Can you give me more details how to do it in this situation?

6

Your file names use the wrong format.
@NewPlaza has shown above how the correct name format looks like.

see also https://support.plex.tv/articles/200220687-naming-series-season-based-tv-shows/

7

Just to check if I got this:

I need to change:

Chapolin - 010 - Arruaceiros - Jantar Executivo 2 - Os Prisioneiros (MAGA 1990 - Espanhol).mkv
to
Chapolin - s01e310 - Arruaceiros - Jantar Executivo 2 - Os Prisioneiros (MAGA 1990 - Espanhol).mkv

Just an example, changing 010 to 310, starting numbering the episodes from 300, will force plex to still show the episodes but without any information?

Is that it?

8

Chapolin Colorado - s01e310 - Arruaceiros - Jantar Executivo 2 - Os Prisioneiros (MAGA 1990 - Espanhol).mkv

Everything behind s01e310 won’t show in Plex, btw.

Yes.

You could even go one step further and devise a fragmentation into different Seasons of your own making.

/ TV Shows
   / Chapolin Colorado
      / Season 01
         Chapolin Colorado - s01e001 - Um boneco muito vivo - A casa mal assombrada.avi
         ...
      / Season 03
         Chapolin Colorado - s03e010 - Jantar Executivo 2 - Os Prisioneiros (MAGA 1990 - Espanhol).mkv
         ...
...
9

Thank you! This actually made the episodes to show up.

I did
/ TV Shows
/ Chapolin Colorado
/ Season 01
Chapolin - s01e001 - Um.Boneco.Muito.Vivo-A.Casa.Mal.Assombrada(MAGA 1990 - Espanhol).mkv
Chapolin - s01e002 - O Quarto Errado - O Prêmio Da Loteria - Os Duendezinhos (Som de Vera Cruz - Espanhol)

So I won’t mess with the numbering some people are sticking now.

But when Plex shows the TV show it has wrong titles for the episodes. I guess it’s finding it online.

So my best bet is use a season that does not exist, like S03 and keep the numbering so it will show the name within the files, I mean, after the - Um.Boneco.Muito.Vivo-A.Casa.Mal.Assombrada(MAGA 1990 - Espanhol)?
Is this possible?

10

Unfortunately not.
With tv shows there are only 2 official ways to get episode titles:

  1. from TheTVDB or TheMoviedatabase (depending on to which the tv show was “matched”)
  2. from embedded meta tags (only possible with mp4/m4v files)

btw., The Movie Database has 232 episodes listed:

but under the full name ‘El Chapulín Colorado’
So perhaps you might wanna match this show to TheMovieDB instead and use their episode numbers?

[edit: oh, wait. They don’t have any episode titles on there. So equally useless.]

11

I want to thank you again for your support. I was able to force Plex to show up the episodes the only problem are the episode names.

The only thing I don’t get is:
If the TV show under TheTVDB has only 2 seasons and I change the episode list to Season 5, episode 600++, why is Plex still trying to match episode list if those numbers don’t match at all the database?

12

Plex cannot know that it has only one season, until it has actually tried to match it. Hence why it will try to match it again and again.

If you feel like it, you could create an account for yourself on TheTVDB or TMDB (or both) and add the proper episode titles. This’ll help all other fans of the series as well.

13

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