Help with using .plexmatch

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

So I see the warning saying “Library Upgrade Required” on a library that I have deliberately set to use TMDb because the Plex series agent messes up the episode match.1

What’s happening is that it’s a cartoon that has multiple segments per episode, and so each segment is considered to be a separate episode, at least via the Plex agent. Via TMDb, it matches properly. I have tried having the files named as multiple episodes (s01e01-03), but Plex shows 3 entries for the same file (unlike the desired old behavior of it all being inside of one listing/entry).

Fearing that I might eventually be forced to lose the option to use TMDb as the agent, I’m trying to use .plexmatch to handle the matter. So I’m wondering, just what can I do with it?

I’ve read the help page for it, though it doesn’t give enough examples to make everything clear. (One of the examples even has a mistake in it.)

From the looks of it, I should be able to have it match a filename using wildcards. So I’m wondering if this is possible:
Match Show Name (1920) - s01e01 - episode title.mkv by using this entry:

s01e01-03: {Show Name (1920) - s01e01}

Getting this to work for matching, I wouldn’t have to exactly list each file and could mostly do a copy/paste and know it will continue to match even if I add a new file in a different format (like .mp4 instead of .mkv).

But how do I get that to work? Do I need to add a * at the end of it? Or should that work as shown? Should it cause Plex to match all 3 episodes to that one file?

I see that I can also specify a match using (for example) tmdbid. Will that get Plex to treat TMDb as the agent for that series (which would be great), or only to match (which I assume is the case)? Is there a way to use the .plexmatch file to “override” the agent for the series (or season) it’s located in?

If not, is there a way to do it? I’ve tried setting the series to use TheTVDb (absolute and DVD) order options as an alternative, but that’s only showing the the title of the first segment of the episode, vs the titles of all segments. It’s an improvement over the default behavior, but not by much.

So… help?

2

Let’s start by looking at the metadata issue. Could you link me to the specific show and episode on TMDB that is giving you issues?

3

It’s not just one episode that it does this to, but this is the one I’ve been using as a guinea pig to try to find a method that works when using the Plex agent. TMDb agent works just fine but I’m told I’m required to upgrade the library, at least so long as I don’t try to change the order method of the episodes (which I think may be based on the data from the sites vs how Plex handles it). If I try to do DVD/absolute, then if it DOES work, it only shows the title of the first segment. Only with TMDb (default sorting) does it show properly.

For the sorting, I’m referring to editing the series and changing the “Episode ordering” option. When Plex is the agent, it treats the episodes as segments (via TheTVDb), but if I switch it to TMDb, it just shows as “Episode #” with nothing else added to it.

My hope was that using .plexmatch would somehow allow altering this behavior. If Plex were to make use of NFO files that can be generated, that would be great as it would allow users to match content that may be particularly difficult for Plex to match (properly at least), and also allow the user to correct information that may be correct despite efforts to correct it at the source. (ie, submitting corrections that get rejected despite proof.)

If not .plexmatch, is there another “special file” that could be used to alter Plex’s behavior that is considered to be for advanced users only?

4

A .plexmatch file won’t help you here. The issue happening here is because there are multiple shows created for some of the episodes, for instance TMDB and TVDB have a separate The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians show with the same episodes that Season 9 of Super Friends: The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985) — The Movie Database (TMDB) has.

At first glance it looks like that separate show should just be a different episode order/group on the main show but I don’t know the history here and would have to investigate.

Then IMDB only has the one show for this and as our data combines all the sources together it gets tricky when there is such a web of complexity which usually forces us to fix the source data (which should benefit everyone).

I’ll pass this one up to somebody who works with the metadata backend and get their input.

5

But shouldn’t it still be grabbing specifically from the series vs looking for all matching results? Since the series is matched (936), it should be a matter of searching within that series to find s05e01.

Still, allowing the use of NFO files (if present and if enabled) would solve the issue completely, especially for people who have very unique arrangements that the Plex agent would absolutely destroy. One such example is already mentioned on Reddit in a discussion I commented on.

If the TMDb agent isn’t going to be getting removed, then maybe add an option to check that disables the warning, where the option acknowledges the “concern” and that using an agent other than Plex is intentional?

6

Just as an outside observer who doesn’t use plexmatch or anything, here’s the exchange in this thread:

  1. User posts saying their library is working well but they’re concerned that upgrading the library will make it not work, but Plex is forcing them to upgrade their library
  2. Staff asks for example of something that won’t work, assuming the user is not correct
  3. User provides example of something that wont work
  4. Staff says “oh, well, because of the design decisions we made in the new library, that probably won’t work”

Okay, but … that’s not what the user was asking, right? Like, the user already knew it wouldn’t work with the new library/scraper, they weren’t trying to report a metadata issue, they’re trying to work around the deficiencies of the new library/scraper being forced on them. Being told “it’s not possible” is a weird response. It’s possible right now! The old library/scraper works right now!

To a user, it feels like this is what people in sports call an “own goal”. The user is perfectly happy and everything is working perfectly well for them right now, the only issue they’re having is that you’re asking them to break their own working system.

It seems pretty unlikely this is going to get to a solution by merely gathering a bunch of examples of edge cases and manually having a metadata person fix them. TMDB often has metadata issues and they’ve got literally tens of thousands of times more human-hours devoted to improving metadata than your team does.

7

Honestly, if Plex was able to (optionally) make use of NFO files (library and show level options), and then use the default agent except when NFO files are available (and the option is enabled to use them), then that would (should) solve the issue completely for everyone who has any sort of a similar issue.

8

The new agents don’t use TMDB (or any source) directly, it’s our own metadata that uses TMDB data along with multiple other data sources. On the Plex item we store the id for all these sources which is how you can use these ids to link to our items but the data won’t be identical, it just means we’re using data from that source.

This is something we want too.

All the old legacy agents will get removed at some point which is why we’ve been nagging folks to change over - you can see this reply: Please do not switch off legacy agents/scanners without a way of adding my own metadata - #5 by hsousa

9

So then the episode ordering options are more like references for the collected data vs using the data directly?

Then why isn’t it being added? Or is it being added but just isn’t ready yet? If not, then who do you mean by “we?”

10

The important information about episode ordering are the episodes in the season and the order, or index, they’re in. We retain both these from the source but things like the episode thumbnails, summaries, etc. might be a bit different (as we could source those things from different places).

Yes, by “we” I mean the team working here at Plex. I did an internal hackathon project last year which implemented NFO support for movies using the new agents but no real work to implement it has yet been scheduled, although I suspect it will probably happen sooner or later.

11

I recommend sooner rather than later. Like before forcefully phasing out other agents, otherwise you’ll have a very unhappy group of people that resemble this image…

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image1000×500 198 KB

So yeah, sooner. That way people can start creating NFO files to suit their needs, instead of having to literally fight with Plex to keep their data as-is.

1 Like
12

Just a note, the latest update (alt order list in 1.40.4) doesn’t address this issue. The update was made prior to my initial post and is related but different.

13

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