Frustrated with borked listings that do not match TVDB (SpongeBob SquarePants)

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 1.40.0.7998

I am mystified why PMS borks the data for most of my correctly named episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants. I’ve done the Plex Dance several times:

  1. Move SpongeBob SquarePants folder from my TV Shows folder to a non-Plex location using Synology File Station.
  2. Scan Library (SpongeBob displays the red trash can).
  3. Empty Trash (SpongeBob disappears).
  4. Clean bundles.
  5. Optimize Database.
  6. Move SpongeBob back to the TV Shows folder.
  7. Scan Library (PMS reports detecting episodes and credits for seasons).
  8. Examine listings and again discover that titles do not match season and episode numbers.

For example: Season 04 titles match through episode 12, then break down. File Media/TV-Shows/SpongeBob SquarePants/Season 04/SpongeBob SquarePants - s04e13 - Krusty Towers.m4v
is listed as E13, but title is “Have You Seen This Snail?” when it should be “Krusty Towers” as in TVDB, and date is November 11, 2005, while TVDB shows April 1, 2006 at https://thetvdb.com/series/spongebob-squarepants/seasons/official/4 .

Plex, however, lists file Media/TV-Shows/SpongeBob SquarePants/Season 04/SpongeBob SquarePants - s04e15 - Ghost Host.m4v as “Krusty Towers”, with correct date, but as E15. There are many similar examples.

At first I thought it might be a bug with adding episodes to an incomplete season, but after finally ripping all seasons 1-5 including a few specials (also correctly named in Season 00) from my First 100 episodes set, and copying them to my server, I did the Plex Dance again and I still end up with borked listings. At this point I have to conclude that Plex is not correctly handling SpongeBob SquarePants.

I should add that I tried changing my Agent for TV Shows from Plex Series to TheTVDB. That really broke titles, to such things as “Spngebob D9 - 20” for our pal s04e13, and similarly for other seasons: not for ALL titles, but most.

After this Agent change, Plex prompts to Upgrade Library: “This library is currently using a legacy agent to match items and fetch artwork and other metadata. There is a newer, faster, and more accurate agent available for this type of media. Would you like to upgrade the library now?”

Which, when I do, reverts Agent to Plex Series. (The message should list the “newer, faster, and more accurate agent”.)

I then tried Plex Dance again, but quit the server between steps 5 and 6, above. Titles still borked after restart and scan.

Why is this broken? How can I fix it? Thank you for any insight!

2

If you are basing your file names off TVDB, edit the show or the library to use TVDB episode ordering. ( to be clear I am not taking about the scanner/agent which you should leave on Plex Series)

3

Thanks for the quick suggestion, BigWheel. I changed Episode Ordering to TheTVDB for my TV Shows library, saved, then refreshed all metadata, and at last s4e13 displays the correct title. I spot-checked others and all seems to be well.

Followup questions: why does The Movie DB differ? Any reason to rename my files to match that instead? Also, I can’t find an option to set Episode Ordering just for the series, only for the library. Where is that?

4

You’ll have to ask the contributors to TMDB. This is a user-driven database.

You are probably not in the preplay page of the show, but either on that o the episode or the season. Makes sure that you are on the preplay page of the overall show (by clicking on the show’s title), then “Edit” and go to the Advanced tab.

5

From Episodes - TV Bible — The Movie Database (TMDB) and one of tmdb core rules is the following…

Episodes should be added exactly as they first aired on the original network (title, date, order, season).

This is why they can differ to many other online sources like tvdb or imdb. They have a different goal on episode ordering and are VERY strict on this rule.

6

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