Dino Hunters S02E04 will not load Meta Data in Plex

[BrianKitt]

Server Version#:Windows Server 2016
Player Version# 4.106.2

There is a ‘control character’ in the Meta Data for Dino Hunters (2020), S02E04
So when you match Meta Data, plex will lose it’s mind.
When you refresh Meta Data, plex will never finish.

I’ve done the Plex Dance many times.

This should be super easy for anyone to create. Create a TV Series called Dino Hunters (2020)
Then add any random media for S02E04, you will see that when Plex grabs Meta Data, this episode gets garbled.

I’ve gone out to TVDB and re-worked the translation to no avail. (I am using English translation)

[JaysPlex]

English is ok. What language are you using?

Any changes made on TVDB usually take 24-48 hours for Plex to pick them up and make the changes inside your library after a metadata refresh

[BrianKitt]

Yea, English. I’ve been fighting this one for months, well, since S02E04 aired, so look at the aired date, it’s never worked. I keep doing the Plex Dance, I’ve even moved it to a different hard drive. Nothing works.
I do have S02E04 in my library, but it will not load it, it keeps barfing on the meta data match.

[JaysPlex]

No matter what I do I can’t get it to fail. It shows up every time even if I name it exactly the same way you do

That leads me to believe maybe it’s matching as a duplicate with something already in your library

Filter your TV library by episode instead of show

Then look for duplicates

For anything you find, click the 3 dots on the poster and choose “get info”

That will tell you what files are being combined

[pshanew]

Also, since it’s an M4V container, check its embedded tags to ensure that the title tag isn’t something unexpected (particularly if the library is configured to prefer local metadata). I can’t break it either:

test_tv/  <--- Library points here, name not important
└── Dino Hunters (2020)
    └── Season 02
        └── Dino Hunters (2020) - S02E04 - This Thing Is a Monster.m4v

[BrianKitt]

No duplicates.

Check this out:

But look at the episodes in S02

To ensure it’s nothing in the media container, I moved the original S02E04 to a backup location. (my intent was to copy E03 to E04 and see what happens, but wait…)
I moved the series out of the folder, plex danced, emptied trash, and then cycled plex to be sure.
When it came up, it wanted to do an update, I did that.
I then did a database compact, and cleaned bundles (in case it was some bad bundle)

But now, this is what I see??? I clearly have some kind of database corruption going on.

Nothing in it though, and I can’t delete it? And this is after a database repair, and recycle of Plex?

Also, this is the original S02E04, no meta data at all:

[BrianKitt]

Crap! I see this in the log after running my database compact:
May 25, 2023 23:11:26.021 [16336] ERROR - [Req#203] SQLITE3:0x7ff75d123340, 779, statement aborts at 70: [delete from metadata_items where id=?] database disk image is malformed
May 25, 2023 23:11:26.021 [16336] ERROR - [Req#203] Exception inside transaction (inside=1) (E:\jenkins\server\4157215162\Library\MetadataItem.cpp:870): sqlite3_statement_backend::loadOne: database disk image is malformed
May 25, 2023 23:11:26.021 [16336] ERROR - Got exception from request handler: sqlite3_statement_backend::loadOne: database disk image is malformed

[JaysPlex]

Yeah, you have a damaged database

You can restore from a backup but if you’ve been having this issue for a while they may not go back far enough
https://support.plex.tv/articles/202485658-restore-a-database-backed-up-via-scheduled-tasks/

If that’s not an option you need to look here
https://support.plex.tv/articles/repair-a-corrupted-database/

[BrianKitt]

@BrianKitt

database disk image is malformed

Yea, thanks. I’ve been fighting this for a year, so there will not be a backup point.
I’ll go through database repair. that will “hopefully” fix it.

Thanks for your help