Matching works bad when year added to tv show path name

[Wappelkopp]

Server Version#: 4.47.3

Hi,

I recently added the release year to all of my series path name, e.g. “Are you there, Chelsea (2012)”. The reason I did this is to be prepared if a series with the same name is released in the future to be able to clearly distinguish between them. Right now I have to do that anyway for some series to have correct auto-matches, e.g. “The Flash (2014)”.
I then deleted my library and created it anew to check if the matching still work properly.
Unfortunately it doesn’t.
Only about half of my series are matched (of course everything that is matched, is matched correctly). I cannot see any rule in that. Before adding the year for the series where it not necessary at this point in time, everything was detected properly.

The sad thing is, that when I use the manual amtching, always the correct suggestion is made.

Did I describe the problem understandable?
Is anybody able to reproduce that problem?
Is it really a problem or a “feature”?

Thanks for reading.

[ChuckPa]

1. Are you using FileBot or a similar tool for the naming?
   Doing so makes it really easy to get it 100%

2. Are any of the files MP4 where there is embedded metadata (name/title) ?
   mediainfo filename.mp4 will show you if there is.
   Removing embedded metadata from MP4 files allows PMS to use the name.
   (It will use the embedded info first if found over the name)

3. The new TV scanner (in preview now), like the new movie scanner, allows setting the tt number for exact matching. As example: {tvdb: xxxxxx}

[Volts]

The problem is that TVDB only expects the year to be present for SOME shows - those that need it, based on when they were added to the database, and if a conflict was generated at that time. It basically treats the year as part of the show name. You’ll sometimes get bad matching if years are included when they aren’t needed.

Today, shows should only include the year if TVDB displays a year: North and South (1975)

North & South (1975) - TheTVDB.com

But not if it doesn’t: North and South

North & South - TheTVDB.com

The nice thing about @ChuckPa’s recommendation for FileBot is that it can use the year only when necessary. Some other tools that are TVDB-aware can do this too.

Like you, I would really like to include the year consistently. I’m hoping that the new TV scanner will support this. Test the preview and give feedback!

New Plex Media Server TV show/series scanner and agent preview