The vast majority of my TV Show collection is matching fine. But there are some shows that the agent (TheTVDB) doesn’t seem to be able to identify by itself.
Some examples of this are the TV shows “Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich” or “Hernán”.
In the case of the former, I don’t know if it has to do with the absence of a colon in the folder name (which I don’t want to use, as I might migrate my files to a Windows machine later). In the case of Hernán, I imagine it is caused by the accent mark, which I don’t want to remove as it is a Spanish TV Show and that is its original title).
There are some other examples of this.
I know I could just match them manually and call it a day, but I’d like to know if there’s a way to automate the process in case I rebuild the library later.
Is there any way to include the TVDB or IMDB id number in the folder (maybe as a NFO file) to force Plex to match them with their correct metadata so I don’t have to manually do it in the future?
Put the TVDB ID# in the Title Field Search Options during Fix Match for TV Show.
IMDB “tt#” would go in the same place for a Movie.
The new matching agent - in development - may be able to have you load up your media with identifiers. Fix Match still works as intended.
Note: That’s not an advertisement to leap into the Beta… not something I would recommend. I would recommend watching that thread, as I am… from afar. <—Filebot and I are hitting 99.8% Success Rates - we don’t need any help with matching - or a new agent.
Just tested - Jeffery failed - “Hernan” scored a natural match - for English.
(the only place that ‘accent’ mark shows is on the Poster - the show name doesn’t have one - and that’s what you should always use)
I use Filebot and mismatches are so infrequent - it hardly matters.
“Jeffery” was the first no/mismatch I’ve had in weeks.
Thanks for the fast answer.
I’m aware fix match works, as I’m able to manually match my files with the correct metadata.
Indeed, in the case of Hernán, I can either remove the accent mark in the title field when searching, or change the language option to Spanish and the correct match does appear.
I’d just like a solution that allows me for not repeating this process for every one of the difficult-to-match shows if I happen to have to rebuild my library in the future. I’d love it if I could, for example, create a .nfo file in the show’s folder with the TVDB ID#, and force Plex to download the metadata from that particular TVDB page, in case the title poses a problem for the agent.
For example, I have another show, L’Inde fantôme, that I’d rather not change its original name to Phantom India just for the sake of Plex finding it. The same applies to Hernán and some other international TV Shows; I prefer the folders to be named by their original titles.
Mythic quest: Raven’s Banquet also seems to cause a problem, maybe because of the colon in the title.
I’m glad to hear they’re improving the matching agent, I hope it works with TV Shows as well and that it solves my issues with the current one.
I have recently added over 2000 items.
I Fixed Match - 1 or 2 times. Maybe.
I think your ‘solution’ is right here:
(and it comes in Mac Flavor too)
This part is out of my wheelhouse - and I’ve heard stories about issues with other languages.
I don’t have that one - I’ll test if I get a minute.
Filebot always leaves out any punctuation - and for English - it just works. <—except for Mythic Quest, that failed miserably. Had to employ the TVDB ID# for that one.
Here’s hoping the New Agent Thingy works wonders for you. Eventually. You’ll likely see more fails than I will, so something different may be just what you need.
Not that many in fact. Less than 10 in my 200+ TV Shows library. It’s just me being a little lazy and sort of protective of the original names of the shows.
I’ll take a look at FileBot, thanks for the suggestion. Though I’m not fond of altering much the names of the files if I can avoid it, in a way because I like to keep the titles of the TV shows in their original language (as in, having the folder containing “Money Heist” called by its original title “La casa de papel”), and also because I’m not a native English speaker and maintaining the original name of a file usually makes it easier to find the right subtitles. Also I’d rather keep the info that’s in the name of the file and/or folder, like the source of my media.
This said, I’m aware Plex is pretty picky in its naming convention, but I’ve generally managed to strike a balance between editing my file names as little as possible and Plex being able to identify my media.
That’s why just being able to add an identifier (like a TVDB ID) into an external file (or even at the end of the folder name itself) would be a non-destructive and pretty much ideal solution for these cases.
In the case of titles with a colon, usually I just replace it with a hyphen. In the case of Mythic Quest, the folder’s called “Mythic Quest - Raven’s Banquet”. But Plex still seems to have a problem with it.
Thanks, fingers crossed! I know my situation is pretty niche (probably most people don’t mind having their international tv shows with their english titles, being english-speakers themselves), but it would be awesome if I’d find a definitive solution for these few cases.
I’ll guess Filebot speaks your language… but have no first hand experience. I did just run into a few hundred threads over there dealing with all sorts of fun stuff in that regard. The thing is magical, so it’s probably magical in most any language.
… and every Ninja/Employee/Veteran will tell you that’s wrong.
Just leave it out.
A Hypen is part of a file name. TV Shows have two of them. They set the boundries. I don’t recommend you add 3 or more - to see what happens… I wouldn’t.
Plex is barfing more lately with semi-colons. Not sure what’s going on there, but if you have to Fix Match come prepared with that ID# and things will move along briskly…lol
Nice to know. It does makes it more legible for a human, so that it’s clear there’s a separation between a title and a sub-title, but I’m ok with removing it if it makes it possible for Plex to identify my media.
I see you have had a few matching issue with Plex, I can vouch that JuiceWSA is correct with FileBot. If your not going to very diligent in Naming and file Structure, that your best bet. the New Preview for Movie Scanner works well but does not support TV shows at present, biggest advantage I found was speed of scan.
For Naming In MacOS, Tv shows are very simple with its built in feature. Select the Files to be Named and Right click.
