I understand that TVDB is making things a little tricky because they have “duplicate” metadata, in that one series (Detail) is also split up into several smaller series (Detail: From the Mind of …), as well as being consolidated into the proper series (Detail). But would it be possible to get the Plex Database to properly parse Detail (the aggregated and “correct” way of handling this series)?
Then TMDB has its entry for the Kobe Bryant one, which in turns links to the IMDB entry.
It depends what TVDB says, they may end up removing some of these separate shows or even maybe the the combined one. I can then update the IMDB link on the TMDB page.
Okay, wow that was quick, TVDB just replied to me:
Thanks for reaching out. We are working on fixing this so ultimately there will only be a single record (Detail - TheTVDB.com) and the others will be deleted. But it will take some time.
Once this has been resolved on their end I will update it on TMDB which will resolve the problem.
Thanks for the quick responses guys! I noticed that now Detail: From the Mind of Kobe Bryant - TheTVDB.com has been deleted. I’m a bit concerned now that TheMovieDB and TheTVDB will be out of sync, since they chose to handle these shows differently from the start…and they might have different rules about what constitutes a series, season, etc…
Maybe rather than updating TMDB’s entry for Detail: From the Mind of Kobe Bryant (which may break God knows what for who knows whom…), and/or renaming it to Detail to match TVDB, it would make more sense for me to create an entirely new entry for Detail (the consolidated show) with a proper reference to TVDB’s Detail (415087)?
My last question is, just to try to confirm, basically Plex TV Series agent still uses TheMovieDB’s database to match the show, even if tvdb-415087 is the one being provided? Does that that all metadata (episodes, artwork, etc.) should be dumped in from TVDB → TMDB? Or does it still get metadata from TVDB after matching it from TMDB?
I sort of assumed it would just use the database for which the ID is provided for all metadata. But I guess first the show has to match correctly (which it uses TMDB for? or does the Plex TV Series agent do its own consolidation of everything?), then it can get metadata from the specified source in the Advanced → TV Show Order selection?
So do you think we should just make a new one for just Detail, and add TVDB/IMDB’s consolidated Detail show to it? But the Kobe Bryant one will still have the main Detail’s IMDB entry. I feel like it’s all going to be a mess that is relatively hard to clean up.
Really glad TVDB got back to us quick and said they want it all to be one show, though!
Makes sense! Then it will need to be added to TheMovieDB as just Detail, right? Is there a way to get Detail properly matched now (with just TVDB abilities)? I still can’t seem to find Detail (2018), Detail, or Detail [tvdb-415087] using the Agent (which is probably more a function of me not understanding how it’s supposed to work, than it actually not working…
I renamed the folder to have the TVDB ID and tried doing the Plex Dance and things somehow got even messier. Now it only matches “Detail: From the Mind of Peyton Manning” . TVDB API does seem to return all the proper information for the TV show Detail so I’m even more confused than I was before.
Anything else to do? TVDB mods have gone and deleted the “bad” series – they are just placeholders to tell people to add to the proper Detail series. However I can’t get the Plex TV Series agent to match with Detail (Detail - TheTVDB.com)
@BigWheel@drzoidberg33 I hate to bother you guys, but is there anything that can be done about the Plex metadata here? It works perfectly with the TVDB agent, but I don’t want to switch over my entire library’s agent unless I absolutely have to… and unfortunately if I go back to Plex TV Series and add another episode, the whole show gets messed up again.
Every episode that is available on ESPN+ has been properly added to TheTVDB. I can try to update the other metadata sources as well if absolutely necessary…?
You’re right that Naming and Organizing Your TV Show Files | Plex Support suggests using curly brackets, but the folder names work just fine with square brackets and Plex has no issues picking it up from the TVDB ID inside the brackets for any of my other series. I’ve tried plexmatch, I’ve tried square brackets, I’ve tried curly brackets, I’ve tried it all…but I’m 100% sure that the issue is not with foldername, filenames, or anything else on the media server side (it matches the show just fine, it just has the wrong metadata).
It is an issue with the Plex TV Series agent not properly picking up the metadata from TVDB for this show. The reason behind this is that the metadata stored inside Plex has wrong information for this show.
If you go to watch.plex.tv you can search for Detail and find it yourself:
The show appears in search as “Detail: From the Mind of Kobe Bryant” but the metadata title is “Detail: From the Mind of Peyton Manning” – big red flag there, when the show should just be called “Detail” – and the seasons all have kind of strange information in them (some combination of Kobe and Peyton with no rhyme or reason, tons of episodes missing from both).
Along with TVDB staff, we have cleaned up all of the metadata for Detail (Detail - TheTVDB.com) and confirmed that this schema is what they want to use moving forward (each host – ie, Kobe, Peyton Manning, Daniel Cormier, etc. being a separate season – even if it means S02E40 can air after S28E01). This is similar to how it is presented on ESPN+.
Always the same problem with more and more shows.
I took me some months to understand what happens here and find a 90% solution for these cases.
What happens when you add a TV show with an TVDB-ID seems to me like this:
The Plex agent recognizes the TVDBID
The agent does NOT lookup the ID in TVDB, instead it searches for this ID in the “external sources” in TMDB
If it can find the ID in TMDB, it takes all Metadata from TMDB
Only if it can not find episode metadata there, it will get data from TVDB.
As there is a huge pile of rubbish in TMDB, the metadata you get is either a mix of good data from TVDB and bad data from TMDB or complete nonsens from TMDB alone, sometimes even with completely wrong show names.
There is no way to fix this at the moment in any Plex client. The new “plexmatch” files only help with matching (as the name hints) but not with metadata
If you want correct data without programming yourself, stay with the old TVDB agent.
For myself, I wrote a little C# program which takes the metadata from the TVDB API and writes Episode Title and Description directly in the MP4 tags. So if the TMDB data is at least correct for the show name, Plex shows correct data.
If the TMDB data is rubbish even for the showname, you either accept the wrong name or use the old agent.
I hope Plex will some day provide a better solution for this problem.
I wonder if Plex Meta Manager can help with this scenario, too. Very bizarre that Plex can’t come up with a better solution. I love the season names in the new Plex Series agent, but other than that, there’s just about nothing keeping me from just sticking with the old TVDB Agent
I just discovered this myself, it was such a pain point I moved back to the old tv agent. I got ignored by the plex team for asking why in the world I cant just have it look at tvdb and ignore the mess of tmdb
