Can't get Plex to give episode names to Spongebob Squarepants Season 1 - decimal numbers to blame?

General Discussions
1

Hi all,

I’ve recently started ripping my Spongebob DVDs to add them to Plex. I don’t have any problems getting Season 2 to get the proper episode names, but Season 1 refuses to generate the correct episode names. However, it does generate the correct posters for each episode.

I’m using DVD ordering because it’s easier for me to use a little Python script to automatically rename them to their episode number based on what order they were ripped from the DVD.

I notice that TheTVDB has Season 2’s DVD order episodes listed as whole numbers (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc, see http://thetvdb.com/index.php?lid=7&seasonid=9405&seriesid=75886&tab=season&order=dvd ) , and it has Season 1’s DVD order episodes listed as decimal numbers (e.g. 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, etc, see http://thetvdb.com/index.php?lid=7&seasonid=9404&seriesid=75886&tab=season&order=dvd ).

For Season one, I’ve tried naming my files
SpongeBob SquarePants - s01e01 - pt 2.mkv // This one is “Reef Blower”
SpongeBob SquarePants - s01e01 - pt 3.mkv // This one is “Tea at the Treedome”
SpongeBob SquarePants - s01e02 - pt 1.mkv
SpongeBob SquarePants - s01e02 - pt 2.mkv

but this doesn’t seem to work. When I do this I get episode names “Spongebob Squarepants S01e01” and “Spongebob Squarepants S01e02”.

So, instead, I tried naming my files

SpongeBob SquarePants - s01e02.mkv // This one is Reef blower
SpongeBob SquarePants - s01e03.mkv // This one is Tea at the Treedome

And now Plex names the episodes “Episode 2”, “Episode 3”, etc. Still no good. The suspect log entries look like this:

2017-08-23 00:10:13,111 (3a14) : INFO (logkit:16) - No media for season 1 episode 1.2 - skipping population of episode data
2017-08-23 00:10:13,112 (3a14) : INFO (logkit:16) - No media for season 1 episode 1.3 - skipping population of episode data

And like I said, Season 2 pulls the names and posters correctly, and I have those files named
SpongeBob SquarePants - s02e01.mkv
SpongeBob SquarePants - s02e02.mkv
and the entries in TheTVDB are 1.0, 2.0, etc.

Any ideas on why Season 1 doesn’t work? How can I name things correctly so Plex will recognize the file is associated with the decimal number?

2

never knew they did shows like that on tvdb. Plex can’t do episode numbers with decimals. I can only suggest doing a fix incorrect match and using themoviedb instead since it looks like it uses numbering 1-42 https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/387-spongebob-squarepants/season/1?sort_by=episode_number.asc

I have no idea how different dvd order is different than aired for that show so dunno if it would work

3

Glancing at TVDB; it looks like the aired order and the DVD order are exactly the same; so just use the aired order on a few and see if Plex reads them properly.
The main reason to use “DVD order” is when the aired order is different than the DVD release; If they’re the same you shouldn’t have any problem.

4

Looks like Season 2’a airing order is a lot different than its DVD order and I’ve already got those in DVD order. If only it were possible to have different agents per season instead of per show per library.

5

The solution, since it can’t find any names for Season 1, and the airing order and DVD order are the same for Season 1, was…

  • Name season 1 with whole episode numbers
  • Change the library to Airing order
  • Scan for metadata, messing up all seasons except season 1
  • Change the library to DVD order
  • Scan for metadata. Season 1 won’t change since it can’t find any matches, but the rest of the seasons will be OK.
  • Go to each episode in season 1, edit it, and then lock all the data fields for good measure
6

@BigWheel said:
never knew they did shows like that on tvdb. Plex can’t do episode numbers with decimals. I can only suggest doing a fix incorrect match and using themoviedb instead since it looks like it uses numbering 1-42 SpongeBob SquarePants: Season 1 (1999) — The Movie Database (TMDB)

I have no idea how different dvd order is different than aired for that show so dunno if it would work

Any chance of adding support for decimal numbered episodes? I’ve seen many shows that have multi-part episodes use this convention in TVDB when viewing in DVD order, for example, Voyager, Battlestar Galactica

7

Its not only just for that bonus episodes, sometime comes in like this 1, 1.5, 2 and would be great if we could do it ourselves or have plex detect the decimal for the season. Only way around it is to put it in specials an rename the title season 1 1.5 so you’ll know which season the bonus episode is from.

8

I’d also like to request that Plex DVD scraper be able to read decimal notated episodes from TVDB. It seems this is a TVDB convention which TVDB won’t change. It makes sense that Plex TVDB DVD scraper respect the TVDB convention.

I am having trouble getting dvd order to work for a number of series, including Adventure Time, Powerpuff Girls, Invader ZIM, Garfield & Friends, and Seinfeld because TVDB uses decimal notation for all of these series

9

For some more context, others are having this issue and have addressed it with TVDB. TVDB claims the decimal notation has long been a published part of their API and that this is a PLEX issue: https://forums.thetvdb.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=47107

I see a number of forum posts where people run into this issue, but no solution or indication it will be fixed. It seem people hit the same issue on Kodi and using EMM as well, so it may be an issue with scrapers in general. Surely there must be a simple workaround I’m just not seeing, aside from the complex one mentioned in this thread? So many dvd series are annotated in TVDB with decimal places, and airdate order is never the appropriate order to view the content, as it is decided on the whim of executives who don’t care about continuity