Completely Disable TVDB for metadata with TV Shows

General Discussions
1

Does anybody know how to completely disable using TVDB for metadata with TV Shows? I’m one of those people that add the Tags on every MP4 of every TV show I keep with tools like MetaZ/Subler, but when those episodes are added to Plex, it always has to try TVDB first. This process has been failing most of the time these days as TVDB isn’t responding correctly to the API calls, and it’s definitely NOT a networking problem in my setup! The strange this is even when it works, and Plex can communicate with TVDB the metadata that ends up being stored in my database is from the tags on the MP4 files, so is there anyway to just NOT use the TVDB Search.

I’ve been researching this issue for days, and have tried pretty much everything that folks have recommended, but again even this morning Plex can’t talk to whatever entity on TVDB as well as its own version of that for the metadata extraction, as seen in these errors (I was trying to fix metadata on a show I’ve had for years where every MP4 has fully populated tags included):

2018-06-04 07:46:37,000 (7f90a0394700) : ERROR (networking:219) - Error opening URL ‘https://meta.plex.tv/tv_e/81189/breaking+bad/2008’ (** this generates a 404 if you open this URL with a browser)
2018-06-04 07:46:40,681 (7f907ac17700) : ERROR (networking:219) - Error opening URL ‘https://thetvdb.com/banners/’
2018-06-04 07:46:40,681 (7f907ac17700) : INFO (init:1076) - HTTP Error 403: Forbidden
2018-06-04 07:46:40,764 (7f907b1f3700) : ERROR (networking:219) - Error opening URL ‘https://thetvdb.com/banners/’
2018-06-04 07:46:40,764 (7f907b1f3700) : INFO (init:1076) - HTTP Error 403: Forbidden
2018-06-04 07:46:40,846 (7f907af05700) : ERROR (networking:219) - Error opening URL ‘https://thetvdb.com/banners/’
2018-06-04 07:46:40,846 (7f907af05700) : INFO (init:1076) - HTTP Error 403: Forbidden
2018-06-04 07:46:40,851 (7f907bfff700) : ERROR (networking:219) - Error opening URL ‘https://thetvdb.com/banners/’
2018-06-04 07:46:40,851 (7f907bfff700) : INFO (init:1076) - HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

Any help is tremendously appreciated as this is becoming a major pain!!

2

@“viktur69@comcast.net” said:
The strange this is even when it works, and Plex can communicate with TVDB the metadata that ends up being stored in my database is from the tags on the MP4 files, so is there anyway to just NOT use the TVDB Search.

Edit your library
go to the ‘Advanced’ tab
select as ‘Agent’ → Personal Media Shows

This will affect only freshly added series.
If you want to switch over all existing series, you are better off with deleting the library first and then recreating it with the above tweak applied.
You will get no external metadata that way.

Check out the .nfo importer agents if you have .nfo files.
Plex will usually only read data for the episodes directly from mp4, but not poster or descriptions for the overall series. This is where .nfo files come in.