I’ve been going through and checking my library so that, theoretically, I will be able to search for a certain actor or presenter and find everything in my library that they’re in. This has involved a lot of going in to tvdb and adding actors, then waiting and updating the metadata. Most of the time this works - the show updates, and a cast list propagates.
Trouble is, there are certain shows where the cast list only partially propagates, or refuses to propagate at all.
Things I have tried :
Restarting Plex Media Server
Clearing my tvdb cache
Changing some minor detail of the cast listing on tvdb to see if that triggers anything
Fixing the match of the shows
Unmatching and rematching the shows
Updating the library
Checking the database for corruption (there wasn’t any)
Repairing it anyway
Swearing
Sometimes clearing the cache will help, but I’ve got a couple shows at this point that are just stuck. For example, “Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure” lists the titular Dara Ó Briain, but will not for love or money load Ed Byrne. They’re both there on tvdb, but Plex only sees Dara, ever. (There’s also a problem with Dara and Ed’s Road To Mandalay, but this one is that it won’t update Dara’s name, and there’s no way to tell Plex that Dara Ó Briain and Dara O’Briain are the same person. Again, it’s correct in tvdb, but won’t propagate properly to Plex.)
This is driving me a bit 'round the bend. I can’t manually fix anything, because Plex won’t let you add/edit/alter cast metadata. There’s nothing to fix on tvdb, because it’s all correct there. Is there something else I should be trying? Another cache to clear? Some other, better database I should have it look at to make the lists? Is this just hopeless until/unless Plex gives us granular control over library metadata?
I haven’t. The number of affected shows is large enough that Plex Dancing all of them would be impractical. I thought about it yesterday when I was at peak frustration, but realistically if that’s the only solution then it’s not really worth the effort.
As an external reference point, Would you provide me with some of the file names & directory structure you are using?
I will create test files and see what PMS finds. This will give a reference as to whether a full redownload of metadata is the next step or we need take a bigger step.
Sure, I can do that. A sampling of affected files :
/10 O’Clock Live/Series 1/10 O’Clock Live - S01E01.avi
/10 O’Clock Live/Series 2/10 O’Clock Live - S02E01.avi
(I’m sure you get the idea. All three series are named in the same manner.)
/Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure/Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure S01E01.mp4
/Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure/Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure S01E02.mp4
/Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure/Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure S01E03.mp4
/Dara O Briain’s Go 8 Bit/Series 01/Dara O Briain’s Go 8 Bit - S01E01.avi
/Dara O Briain’s Go 8 Bit/Series 02/Dara O Briain’s Go 8 Bit - S02E01.mp4
(Etc.)
/Dara O Briain’s Go 8 Bit DLC/Go 8 Bit DLC - S01E01 (15 May 2017).mp4
/The Fake News Show/The Fake News Show 2017 - S01E01.mp4
/Full Steam Ahead/Full.Steam.Ahead.S01E01.HDTV.720p.x264.mkv
(Should tidy that one up. Another task for the pile.)
So, roughly, it’s /Show then either /Series/Episodes or just /Episodes, if there was only one series. (Before the first / is just the name of the hard drive.) Is that the information you needed?
Thank you for your assistance. I hope anyone else with this problem can make use of that potential solution. Given the amount of work involved in attempting this fix, I will be unable to try it myself. Manually renaming and creating thousands of folders in hopes of getting a full cast list would be disproportionately labor intensive to the benefit of correcting the incomplete metadata. My family can just search for cast lists online to cross-reference shows.
FileBot will perform renaming enmasse and this will be a few minutes tasks
As example; My TV library is on /nas/tv
My template for filebot is: /nas/tv/{n}/Season {s}/{n} - {s00e00} - {t}
n = series name s = season number s00e00 = the standard counting template t = original title for the episode.
As you Drag & Drop a series into FileBot, click “Lookup”, it will go out to TheTVDB (just like PMS), get the names, return them to you and then show, in the right hand pane, what the new, fully renamed path will be. Part of the renaming task also cleans up after itself (removes empty directories ) while it creates what’s needed to be and moves into proper structure
I don’t see how renaming the folders from “Series” to “Season” will change anything?
First off, afaik Plex at least used to accept “Series” in place of “Season” for folder names.
Second of all, Plex is ALREADY matching the files to the episodes on TheTVDB. Metadata is already downloading. So it shouldn’t matter WHAT the folders are named at this point. The problem is that certain metadata fields are not populating, or at least not fully. Specifically, the cast fields. One of the fields that Plex does not allow you to manually edit, despite it being widely requested for years, as you can see in other threads.
There’s something else going on, that changing a folder name isn’t going to help.
@Meithas said:
Sure, I can do that. A sampling of affected files :
/10 O’Clock Live/Series 1/10 O’Clock Live - S01E01.avi
/10 O’Clock Live/Series 2/10 O’Clock Live - S02E01.avi
(I’m sure you get the idea. All three series are named in the same manner.)
/Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure/Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure S01E01.mp4
/Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure/Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure S01E02.mp4
/Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure/Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure S01E03.mp4
/Dara O Briain’s Go 8 Bit/Series 01/Dara O Briain’s Go 8 Bit - S01E01.avi
/Dara O Briain’s Go 8 Bit/Series 02/Dara O Briain’s Go 8 Bit - S02E01.mp4
(Etc.)
/Dara O Briain’s Go 8 Bit DLC/Go 8 Bit DLC - S01E01 (15 May 2017).mp4
/The Fake News Show/The Fake News Show 2017 - S01E01.mp4
/Full Steam Ahead/Full.Steam.Ahead.S01E01.HDTV.720p.x264.mkv
(Should tidy that one up. Another task for the pile.)
So, roughly, it’s /Show then either /Series/Episodes or just /Episodes, if there was only one series. (Before the first / is just the name of the hard drive.) Is that the information you needed?
Looking into the problem and will refer to the development team
I have replicated the issue with Dara and Ed's Great Big Adventure where only 1 actor shows up
