Bug in Plex TV Series Agent?

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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Server Version#: 1.25.6.5577
Player Version#: N/A (issue is across all players Web, ios, tv, etc.)

Plex TV series agent doesn’t seem to recognize “The Berenstain Bears (2003)” tv show properly.
Using tvdb agent recognizes it and matches it correctly to The Berenstain Bears (2003) - TheTVDB.com . That’s what I want, but I don’t want to use that agent.

Using Plex TV series matches it to the 1985 version of the show, although the title says 2003. The episode and all other metadata is for the 1985 version. See the image below showing the title data/airing date mismatch.

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Attempted solutions:

  • I tried to “fix match” in different ways including with the tvdb series id (72502), I see the correct title in the search results but selecting it doesn’t change the metadata being pulled for the 1985 version.
  • Tried few different naming schemes including putting in the TVDB id in there but none worked. Examples:
    • F:\TV Shows\The Berenstain Bears\Season 01\S01E01 - Trouble At School.mkv
    • F:\TV Shows\The Berenstain Bears (2003)\Season 01\S01E01 - Trouble At School.mkv
    • F:\TV Shows\The Berenstain Bears (2003) {tvdb-72502}\Season 01\S01E01 - Trouble At School.mkv
  • Verified that the metadata on TVDB is correct
  • Searched forums for solutions, but there aren’t any working solutions (except for switching over to the TVDB agent) for the exact flavor of this issue

Let me know if the server logs would help, didn’t include it upfront as the issue is consistently and easily reproducible.

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Always the same.
The new Plex agents use rubbish data from TMDB instead of correct data from TVDB.
Unless the Plex-developers will fix that bug the only way for the user is to mp4-tag every single episode to show at least correct titles and descriptions and accept wrong show and season titles and descriptions as there is no way for that kind of data to store locally as there is for artwork…
Annoying but it is the current status. And it is no sign that they will fix that now or in the future.

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First, to address @helmut_h’s post, with the new agent/scanner, you can change where the episode info comes from. You can change it either at the library level or the series level. This is from a post I wrote in another thread explaining how to do that.

To change the setting at the library level, in the left menu bar hover over the library name then click on the 3 vertical dots, hover over Manage Library then click on the “Edit…” option.

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In the modal that opens, click on Advanced then near the bottom of the main section you’ll see Episode ordering. Click the drop down and then change it to the opposite of what is currently selected (TheMovieDB is the default so you would change it to TheTVDB).

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To do it from the TV show level, it’s pretty much the same thing, except you would click on the pencil icon (either on the series level poster or on the series page). The same steps are then followed from the edit modal that opens to go to Advanced then change the Episode ordering in the drop down.

After you do that, you should refresh the metadata for that series (or for all series in the case of changing it at the library level).

Now to address the OP.
First thing to understand with the new agent is that Plex combines data from both TheTVDB and TheMovieDB. As such, they also use/rely on the ID’s from each of those databases (plus they may also have references to the other IDs from websites that are listed on each of those sites, though I’m not sure about that). The relevance to that is if the information is incorrect on one of those sites, i.e., TheTVDB is referencing the wrong TheMovieDB ID or TheMovieDB is referencing the wrong TheTVDB ID, you will get the wrong information.

That said, I think there might be an issue somewhere in the metadata as using the TVDB ID to do a fix match, I saw the year 1985, which doesn’t make sense. However, I’m not familiar enough with the fields from TheMovieDB (same with TheTVDB but those are little more out in the open).

I did add dummy files for this show and I didn’t get info until I switched to TheTVDB (Aired Order) from my directions above, but I did a fix match to the TVDB ID (which again shows 1985). Going back to the option for The Berenstain Bears (2002), I do not get any information.

I might add more to this post as I look at some stuff or I’ll add another post if there are additional posts after mine.

Edit: Was just about to post something related to what @SwiftPanda16 just posted.

-Shark2k

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The TVDB ID on TMDB was incorrect. The 2003 version on TMDB was linked to the 1985 version on TVDB. I updated the link on TMDB. Wait 48 hours and refresh the metadata. Make sure you select “TVDB” as the episode order in the show’s advanced settings. The episode orders are different on the two sites.

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I just went to the change page and noticed you made that change today, so thanks for mentioning that.

Is that a field that you are only able to see if you are logged in at TMDB? The only way I noticed it was from the change page, which was the first time I went to it out of curiosity.

-Shark2k

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You can only see the TVDB ID after logging in and going to the edit page or retrieving it through the API.

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Cool. Thanks for confirming that for me!

-Shark2k

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Looks like the two shows got mixed up because TMDb’s listing of the 1985 version contains all episodes of the 1985 and 2003 airings.
I’ve forwarded this for clarification.

Have you already checked if you can get this fixed for you by setting the Episode ordering for this particular show to TheTVDb (Aired) (and subsequently refreshing the metadata)?

Edit: too slow… should have checked the thread for updates before posting this :wink:

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Thank you for the great replies and SwiftPanda16 for updating the metdata on TMDB! Still have some questions though…

I changed the episode ordering to TVDB and see the show description and episode titles and order correctly now. But the airing date on Plex is still showing 1985 and I don’t understand why.

Does the “episode ordering” setting impact not just the episode order (i.e. titles), but also the series description and episode metadata? If so, why not the airing date? Are all these things pulled in from the TVDB id that TMDB has? If so, did this work because of SwiftPanda’s TVDB id update in TMDB despite it not being 48 hours?

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No you can not, as I stated in my bug report.
The setting on the library level is ignored and TMDB is always used.
Correcting the setting on the series level gets TVDB-Data in many cases for the Episodes - not always, e.g. Captain Future - but never on the series level. So “Augsburger Puppenkiste” always has the wrong title “Lilalu im Schepperland”. No way out until there are local assets for show and series titles and descriptions. Same goes for artist and album description in the audio libraries.

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That’s simply not correct.
You might need to do a metadata refresh after changing the episode ordering but Plex will respect that option.
That being said… this option is about the episode ordering. It won’t set TheTVDb as the sole source of all the metadata for your shows.

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I am afraid it IS correct and easy to reproduce.
Just put any episode of “Augsburger Puppenkiste” in your library. You will always get the wrong show title “Lilalu im Schepperland” whatever you set anywhere.
Or put 52 files of Captain Future in your library. If your library is set to german language, the first 40 episodes are always wrong from TMDB whatever you set anywhere. From 41 to 52 the correct data from TVDB shows up, so a lot of episodes appear twice.
Only way to fix wrong data at episode level is tagging every episode with TVDB data locally.
For show title and description there is no way at the moment to avoid TMDB rubbish.
Unless ofc you use no agent at all. But then you have no season titles, extras etc.

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Tested it and I see what you mean.
This is however not so much because Plex opts to give you bad data – it’s simply that The Movie Database has a reference that indicates TMDb s01e04 (“Die Zeitmaschine Teil 1”) is TVDb episode s01e04 (" Der Herrscher von Megara (4) - Entscheidungsschlacht des Mittagsmondes") – while TheTVDb is actually listing the episode “Die Zeitmaschine (1)” as s01e05.

That being said… I didn’t claim, setting the episode ordering to TheTVDb will use metadata from TheTVDb exclusively… it’s just using their order. I guess given the bad episode links, such mismatches can happen.

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Don’t want to muddy the waters here but if we are still talking about the Berenstain Bears (2003) episode list I might have somewhat of a explanation as to what might happening between TVDB and TMDB list.

It appears TVDB has built their list off something called the Treehouse Direct edition. You can see the TVDB list matches this list List of Berenstain Bears (2003 TV series) Episodes/Treehouse Direct | Berenstain Bears Wiki | Fandom from the berenstainbears fandom site. This list on TVDB is somewhat populated with data which is why I guess folks believe it to be accurate.

Now, over at TMDB someone in the past started to create this show and then stopped but they used this list List of Berenstain Bears (2003 TV series) Episodes | Berenstain Bears Wiki | Fandom which from what I can tell is the original aired dates and order of the show on PBS (however, I’m open to correction on that).

I have updated a problem report on TMDB at Reported Problem for The Birthday Boy (1x1) - Discuss The Berenstain Bears — The Movie Database (TMDB) and asked a moderator for advice on what they believe should be done. But if I was a betting man I’d say they’ll not use the same list that TVDB used and will go with the PBS aired order. Similar to what happens with Firefly.

As plex now uses a consolidated list from multiple online sources and until the episodes on TMDB can be matched with the ones on TVDB (via episode level external ids) I suspect this problem will not get resolved quickly, but lets see.

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