hi i was wondering if you guys recommend for your tv shows to run the Plex scanner using TVDB over the Plex TV Series scanner… as it says its faster more accurate etc… but i find plex tv series has so many errors in it cant find a show even though its like 1… cheers (1982) its the only 1 in the Fix match and it cant add it… or if you have the show “Columbo” the year is wrong in the “plex tv series” so then plex says its called “Columbus 64” tv show…
i found many errors… but i do not know how i can help fix years… i know with TV DB i can log in and add or fix etc…
but is it best to stick with the TheTVDB or scan it with it all… then “Upgrade” the database to faster…
and or does the “Plex TV Series” does it offer us to login and fix mistakes like years or add image art that isnt added to a show etc…
No, this doesn’t make any sense.
Use the Plex TV Series agent right from the start.
Know that this agent can use 4 different episode orderings, which you can switch for every tv show separately.
The best approach is to look up your show on TheTVDB.com and TheMovieDB.org beforehand and then decide which of the episode oderings do fit your files best.
If you have difficulty to achieve a correct match, you can always use the internal ID numbers of either TMDB or TheTVDB to force a match.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/
There are sometimes issues. For instance if someone saw fit to link each episode on TMDB individually to incorrect episode numbers on TheTVDB. But these are usually solvable by either editing the show on both websites or asking their moderators for help.
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ah ok… like
i use “Plex TV Series” that default
for Columbo the Match says 1971 but really Columbo is 1968 and plex just put the tv show “Columbus 64” which says 1966 instead of leaving it unmatched
but you set it to “the TVDB” using “Plex Series Scanner” then it finds it perfectly fine. but the “Plex TV Series” scanner cant
i have like 20+ TV Shows that the “Plex TV Series” scanner has the wrong years, cant find the show like “Cheers (1982)” even if you refresh meta tag and its the only one in the “Plex TV Series” it cant add it without phyiscally clicking it… But using the Legacy TVDB it finds and puts the art for Columbo and Cheers and the majority of the 20+ that plex tv series scanner got wrong
and is there a a seperate forum? to ask for help with tv shows that cant solved… like columbo being the wrong year. its 1968 not 1971 cuz i was going to make a list and give a list of all the mis matchs but wasnt sure where you ask help for that
or would i just make a new topic here in general with all the mis matchs… and ask for help to see about getting fixed?
and when you say it uses 4 different episode orderings is that for the tv show the ordering of like episode 1 2 3 4 like that… if so ya thats not what i mean more of it cant find the proper show name or it thinks the show “columbo (1968)” is “columbs 64 (1966)”
so i wasnt 100% sure which route to take… i re did 2 folders
1… TV Shows (TVDB)
2… TV Shows (Plex TV Series)
and all my shows renamed properly
oh and i have looked in the logs some red errors have said “meta folder” or something i forget i not at the computer… but it was like saying that folder was invalid… but i not home so i cant even copy and paste what i saw…
so i figured id ask… thanks for the help so far… as i wasnt sure about the database upgrade thing
As I said above: You can make Plex “force” a match by supplying the ID number of the show. If you want Plex to match your folder to the Peter Falk “Columbo”, name the top folder
Columbo (1968) {tvdb-70369}.
https://thetvdb.com/series/columbo
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ah ok ya that works still reports the wrong year though… ill test with my other shows that the plex tv series cant seem to find… i guess ill make a list of all the wrong years plex tv series has well.
i appreciatre the help so far
Plex Dance the show. It will remove incorrect matching information from the Plex database.
so i tried it a few times… does not work
the {tvdb-70369} only downloads the artwork info for the columbo
but when you click on it… it actually downloads the year from the “plex tv series” searcher
so still downloads 1971 yet downloads the images from the tvdb for 1968
i even tried optimizing database clean bundles clean trash… multiple times multiple ways
seems it still downloads the info from “plex tv series” and then just grabs the artwork from tvdb thats my guess…
anything else i could try? a different way to do things?
i tried another that is showing wrong
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (1983) plex tv series reports it as 1990
i did
G.I. Joe A Real American Hero (1983) {tvdb-77780}
yet the artwork is downloaded but reports its a 1990 show not a 1983 show
i even started fresh made a new tab on the left side made a test folder and put the columbo and gi joe in… and left the defaults… added the folder to point to the test folder… and it downloads artwork ok… just still reports wrong years
Go into the properties of the library.
On the Advanced tab, make sure that “Prefer local metadata” is OFF.
Its wrong here also → G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (1990) - Watch TV Series Online - Plex.
This one looks somewhat complicated as there are multiple version of the show and upon a quick look on tmdb I suspect at least one of these might be linking to the wrong place on imdb via its external id. I’m not familiar with the show but let me see if I can figure out whats what!!!
its defaulted as unchecked
this is the one i have
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero - TheTVDB.com
and columbo still shows wrong year. for the most part the “plex tv series” finds most but found least 20 it couldnt find right info
robot chicken (2005) plex tv series says (2001) but came out in 2005
i got others i still sorting through
Right and over on tmdb I see this entry G.I. Joe (TV Series 1983-1992) — The Movie Database (TMDB) but there appears to be three on imdb …
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0231626
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086719
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337762
… and the one on tmdb is linked to the third one of this imdb list which is dated from 1990. I suspect three on imdb is messing things up. The plex metadata team will need to take a look at this one. Its possible the external id on the tmdb may need updating but as I’m not that familiar with the show I cannot be sure.
BTW… in case you did not know the new plex agent consolidates data for shows and movies from multiple sources so if things between imdb, tmdb and tvdb don’t link right or go to the wrong places it can mess things up. I suspect that is what is happening for this show.
To me it looks like TMDB tries to encompass all of those different IMDb entries in one show.
Which of course will lead to the season numbers clashing when you have your files numbered like separate shows.
ah ok ya i didnt know how the plex agent works… all i read is its faster more accurate
and like it cant find the show “cheers (1982)” yet its the only one in the search for it
it did work when i added the {tvmd-xxxx} but i find if i do the legacy ones just choose tvdb and it used the tv plex scanner then it finds it no problem
thats why i asked organlly is it better to search everything with the legacy tvdb get all the shows working and then upgrade the database to the faster version…
i never done the {tvdb-xxx} as all i been doing before was tvshow name (year)
the movie section i still have issues with like when you have 2 version of a movie
either extended or Alternate ending… or one is Color and one is the orginal black and white
and i know themovie db doesnt offer such things… nothing is perfect lol
ya i dunno about the epsiode numbering so far i only noticed the year of the show beside the main artwork thumbnail… never checked episode number…
nothing is perfect… but its better then 20 yrs ago ripping all my dvds vhs to computer and using media player to watch them lol no artwork etc back then
like my sisters strawberry short cake vhs tapes i converted to computer
so i have folder
Strawberry Shortcake (1980) plex tv series sees it but cant download no artwork…
but ill start to add those {tvdb-xxxx} i just wasnt doing that before
so i currently going to redo the happy dance on my entire collection and see if it works out with some {tvdb-xxxx} and see what all the new plex agent cant see as i only did it for some of my show folders not start from scratch… so we shall see
I don’t think you redoing anyone on your side will fix it fully. As I say, if you check G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (1990) - Watch TV Series Online - Plex which is plex online you see the episodes match the ordering that is on tmdb but the year is still 1990. You could rename your files to match they way tmdb have named the files and then set the episode ordering for tmdb, this may help in getting some better metadata for the show than you have now but ultimately the year will still be wrong.
Someone from the plex metadata team will likely need to look into it. Maybe @drzoidberg33 could redirect it when he gets some time.
ah ok… ya i rename all my shows to the tvdb episode ordering… i use a rename tv show… i set it to tvdb and then rename the episodes according… and thats where it saves it say 1983
currently doing happy dance…
but i know doing legacy mode it can find the shows (majority) fine but when i went to the new plex agent and did a folder testing purposes … it couldnt find or like columbo
columbo is 1969 plex agent says 1971 but if you dont add the {tvmb-xxxx} on the end of the folder it will download the artwork for “columbus 64 (1966)” so that ones goes right off the rails… as i was wondering i never heard of this show when going through my collection…
so right now what i doing is the happy dance… i figure maybe something in my files is conflicting… then ill re scan… and let it download artwork etc… my internet slow less the 5mbs so probably be more then a day… and ill match each show… incase another show gets renamed wrong… like “The A Team” could be called “Airwolf”
its something to try right… least i can say i narrowed things down…
i really appreciate the help so far… least i not going crazy and thinking its just me seeing things… no one ever believes you without pictures or videos
so great feed back… nothing is perfect…but really love plex so i appreciate it to the programmers (:
I had similar issue where the amalgamation of metadata was all wrong. They fixed some of it but the thumbnails are all wrong. I’ll stick with the old tv agent because I can actually control the data that comes in with it.
