Failure to download metadata for long-running show (Jeopardy!)

[FolkSong]

I have been trying to figure out why Plex won't display any metadata for the show "Jeopardy!" (including the blurb about the show, banners, backgrounds, episode descriptions, etc). I experimented with the "Fix Incorrect Match" button and determined that it is recognizing it correctly as "Jeopardy! (1964)". If I manually set it to be something else (say "Jeopardy (2002)") it instantly loads the blurb, banner image, etc for that show, which turns out to be a Scottish children's drama. However when I set it back to the correct 1964 show everything goes blank. 

 

I believe this is caused by the sheer number of episode entried in the series. In SickBeard the show is recognized with no problems, but I noticed it took a good 5 minutes to load the complete episode list from TVDB. I think that Plex is timing out after a few seconds and failing to download the metadata. There is more evidence in the log file ("Plex Media Server.log"):

 

 

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:23:875 [9780] DEBUG - Queueing up com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://77075?lang=en for loading, there are 0 items in the queue.

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:23:876 [7452] DEBUG - Notification of new metadata for com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://77075?lang=en [id=9033] (success=1) for 1 items.

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:23:879 [7452] DEBUG - Loaded metadata for Jeopardy! (ID 9033) in 1.000000 ms

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:23:883 [7452] DEBUG - Done with metadata update for 9033

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:23:884 [7452] DEBUG - Queueing up Jeopardy! for refreshing children, there are 0 items in the queue.

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:24:190 [10156] DEBUG - Request: [127.0.0.1:58825] GET /library/metadata/9033?includeExtras=1 (7 live)

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:24:190 [10156] DEBUG -  * includeExtras => 1

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:24:190 [4444] DEBUG - Request: [127.0.0.1:58826] GET /library/metadata/9033/children (6 live)

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:24:199 [4444] DEBUG - It took 0.001000 sec to serialize a list with 1 elements.

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:24:214 [10156] DEBUG - There were 1 top-level paths for Jeopardy!.

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:24:214 [10156] DEBUG - It took 0.014000 sec to serialize a list with 1 elements.

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:24:440 [9780] DEBUG - Request: [127.0.0.1:58828] GET /library/metadata/9034/children (6 live)

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:24:450 [9780] DEBUG - It took 0.001000 sec to serialize a list with 3 elements.

Dec 14, 2014 20:48:44:513 [7824] WARN - We didn't receive any data from 127.0.0.1:58829 in time, dropping connection.

 

Is there a workaround or fix for this problem? In addition to the graphics, it keeps new episodes from showing up when I view by date aired. This is the biggest problem for me.

[Mediaconoclast]

I'm pretty sure Jeopardy! is a date-based TV series, and as such should work for you if named accordingly. 

p.s. Jeopardy (2002) is not what you want (as you found out!): If you name it that way, it matches the Children's drama ... Scottish school who travel to Australia in search of UFOs ( :D). You can always look on thetvdb.com to figure out what you should be naming things, and in the Media Preparation guide for how to best organize them.

[FolkSong]

Thanks for the reply. Before making this thread I did quite a bit of troubleshooting, including reading the Media Preparation guide and trying both date-based and season-based naming. From the evidence I have I don't think this is a naming issue.

edit: also Jeopardy! appears to use season-based naming on TVDB , with seasons numbered as years and episodes numbered consecutively (eg. "Season 2014 Episode 218").

I would like to re-iterate the significance of the experiment with the "Fix Incorrect Match" function, which I used to force Plex to recognize the series as something else. Note that I didn't rename any files to do this. With this function I can force it to be recognized as literally anything. For example I just forced it to recognize the series as Matlock.


As you can see, the graphics and series description are immediately downloaded and displayed. Of course the episodes themselves are not recognized.


But when I set the series back to the correct Jeopardy (1964), whether by forcing it or letting it auto-match, there is no series description or graphics. This is why I believe that Plex is failing to download the metadata.


[Mediaconoclast]

If you fix an incorrect match, you can make Plex think it is (almost) anything, so that experiment is producing expected results.

Can you provide a fullpath filename example? For example, "Episode 216" should look something like:

C:\TV Shows\Jeopardy!\Season 2014\Jeopardy! - 2014-12-10.mkv

It looks like it's named "E216"?

[FolkSong]

D:\Shows\Jeopardy!\Season 2014\Jeopardy.S2014E216.Peter.McGillicuddy.Mindy.Miner.Travis.Darling.mp4

I have tried it without the names as well (it's named automatically by SickBeard, which uses TVDB for the data).

If you fix an incorrect match, you can make Plex think it is (almost) anything, so that experiment is producing expected results.

The point of the experiment is that when I force it to be any show other than the correct one, Plex downloads metadata. When it's recognized correctly Plex does not download metadata. Even if the episodes are not recognized it should download the basic show metadata (series description and images like I showed in the screenshots).

[Mediaconoclast]

Note that it does not find the correct episode information when you tell it the show is Matlock...

All I can tell you is the example I provided should work. :) Sickbeard is using the episode number, whereas Plex is looking for the air-date. I don't use Sickbeard, but this might help with configuring it to do so...

[FolkSong]

No offense but I think this issue is beyond your expertise. If you check the TVDB link I posted (it was in an edit so I won't blame you if you missed it), you will see that Jeopardy is organized by season and episode number, not by date. That being said, I tried again to rename the episodes by date and it doesn't help. 

Here is an experiment you can try yourself: pick a random show in your collection and unmatch it. Force it to be recognized as Jeopardy (1964). Does it download metadata? Remember I don't mean episode metadata, just basic series info. Now as a control force it to be any other random show. This time does it download metadata? If the results are different, it suggests that there is something about Jeopardy's metadata that isn't working with Plex.

[Mediaconoclast]

Sigh.

I don't even have Jeopardy!, so you're right about me not being an "expert" on that show (or anything, for that matter! ;)). No offense taken...

But the Plex support doc is clear, so if you don't want to experiment using the recommended procedure, I'll bow out and let you await expert advice:

TV Shows that are date-based should be named as follows:

• TV Shows/Show_Name/Season XX/Show_Name - YYYY-MM-DD.ext
• TV Shows/Show_Name/Season XX/Show_Name - MM-DD-YYYY.ext

[FolkSong]

so if you don't want to experiment using the recommended procedure

As I have already said, I tried that exact naming pattern and it doesn't help.

Jeopardy! is ninth on the list of TV shows with the most episodes in history, with 9600. This lends credence to the possibility that there is something unusual about the metadata download process that is causing it to fail. However I tried some of the shows even higher on the list like "Days of Our Lives" and the basic series metadata does download, so it's not strictly episode count causing the issue.

If anyone else has any insight into this it would be greatly appreciated.

[Mediaconoclast]

:) I must have missed where you said you used the exact naming convention I pointed out.

Anyway, you got into my head, and I tried it here ... with similar results  :huh:

No offense intended by my replies. FWIW, there is this thread from way back indicating other issues with TVDB and that specific show ... and this one, too, from earlier this year (I tried Chris C's suggested naming convention, and that didn't produce art, either). I also checked out this possibility Chris mentioned later in the thread, with the same results.

I'll raise up the flag with other ninjas and devs ... 

Final Jeopardy Answer: A program likely to give the Plex scanners and agents fits when trying to load it into a TV show library. :lol:

[FolkSong]

I appreciate it! 

I'm not able to view the thread from earlier this year (permission error) but hopefully this gets solved soon. I imagine there are plenty of Jeopardy fans out there.

[anon18523487]

I tried creating Jeopardy in my TV shows and you are correct, it will not load. the metadata.  Looking into my logs I see that when the agent called thetvdb.plexapp.com for the show info, the data that was returned was too large so it could not be saved and used to populate the database.  I think this is definitely a bug.

[anon18523487]

Ok, the devs are aware of the problem.  Will let you know when a fix is made.

[FolkSong]

It's working now!


Plex hasn't updated so maybe something changed at the TVDB?

[anon18523487]

A fix was made in one of the bundles related to gathering metadata.  It got pushed to you during one of Plex's regular automatic updates.  I did not know it was ready, but I guess it is seeing that it is now fixed for you.

[FolkSong]

Oh wow! Well thank you MovieFan and Mediaconoclast for getting this taken care of so fast. I really appreciate it!

[anon18523487]

Thank the devs, we are just messengers.

[jsinjasonjsin]

I was having similar issues, where Plex would not find data for Jeopardy videos with filenames like Jeopardy.2018.12.28.720p.HDTV.x264[eztv].mkv. Plex would incorrectly categorize it as a movie, or just not register new files at all.
I resolved the issue by creating a folder named ‘Jeopardy!’, and moved the files to the new folder.
Now Jeopardy! shows up in the TV section, with appropriate season names “Season 2018”.

If your using an auto rss downloader, there should be an option to store certain shows in different folders. e.g. in qbittorrent go to qbittorent menu and select preferences, then select the RSS tab, and click on the Edit auto downloading rules… button. Select the show, and check Save to a Different Directory.