Metadata mismatch from TheTVDB for RiffTrax

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

Server Version#: 1.42.10156

Have a library on my server for just RiffTrax, setup as a TV library and using TheTVDB ordering. 2-3 days ago there were some “new” unwatched episodes, which is odd since I had everything watched until I added two shorts, but now found myself with four unwatched episodes, and the two “new” ones were live shows (season 6), which I hadn’t added anything to since October.

Here’s what TheTVDB has for Season 6:

Episode Title
S06E01 RiffTrax Live: Plan 9 From Outer Space
S06E02 RiffTrax Live: Christmas Shorts-stravaganza!
S06E03 RiffTrax Live: Reefer Madness
S06E04 RiffTrax Live: House on Haunted Hill
S06E05 RiffTrax Live: Jack the Giant Killer
S06E06 RiffTrax Live: Manos the Hands of Fate
S06E07 RiffTrax Live: Birdemic: Shock and Terror
S06E08 RiffTrax Live: Starship Troopers
S06E09 RiffTrax Live: Night of the Living Dead
S06E10 RiffTrax Live: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
S06E11 RiffTrax Live: Sharknado
S06E12 RiffTrax Live: Godzilla
S06E13 RiffTrax Live: Anaconda
S06E14 RiffTrax Live: Santa Claus
S06E15 RiffTrax Live: The Room
S06E16 RiffTrax Live: Sharknado 2: The Second One
S06E17 RiffTrax Live: Miami Connection
S06E18 RiffTrax Live: Santa and The Ice Cream Bunny
S06E19 RiffTrax Live: Time Chasers
S06E20 RiffTrax Live: MST3K Reunion Show
S06E21 RiffTrax Live: Mothra
S06E22 RiffTrax Live: Carnival of Souls
S06E23 RiffTrax Live: Samurai Cop
S06E24 RiffTrax Live: Summer Shorts Beach Party
S06E25 RiffTrax Live: Doctor Who - The Five Doctors
S06E26 RiffTrax Live: Space Mutiny
S06E27 RiffTrax Live: Krull
S06E28 RiffTrax Live: Octaman
S06E29 RiffTrax Live: Star Raiders
S06E30 RiffTrax Live: The Giant Spider Invasion
S06E31 RiffTrax Live: Hobgoblins
S06E32 RiffTrax Live: Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes
S06E33 Rifftrax Live: The Return of Swamp Thing
S06E34 Rifftrax Live: RAD
S06E35 Rifftrax Live: Point Break
S06E36 Rifftrax Live: Timecop

And here is my library:

Filename
RiffTrax Live - S06E0001 - RiffTrax Live - Plan 9 From Outer Space (1080p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0001 - RiffTrax Live - Plan 9 From Outer Space (720p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0003 - RiffTrax Live - Reefer Madness.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0004 - RiffTrax Live - House on Haunted Hill (1080p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0004 - RiffTrax Live - House on Haunted Hill (720p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0005 - RiffTrax Live - Jack the Giant Killer.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0006 - RiffTrax Live - Manos the Hands of Fate.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0007 - RiffTrax Live - Birdemic - Shock and Terror.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0009 - RiffTrax Live - Night of the Living Dead.webm
RiffTrax Live - S06E0011 - RiffTrax Live - Sharknado (1080p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0011 - RiffTrax Live - Sharknado (720p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0014 - RiffTrax Live - Santa Claus (1080p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0014 - RiffTrax Live - Santa Claus (720p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0016 - RiffTrax Live - Sharknado 2 - The Second One (1080p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0016 - RiffTrax Live - Sharknado 2 - The Second One (480p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0017 - RiffTrax Live - Miami Connection (1080p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0017 - RiffTrax Live - Miami Connection (720p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0018 - RiffTrax Live - Santa and The Ice Cream Bunny (1080p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0018 - RiffTrax Live - Santa and The Ice Cream Bunny (720p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0019 - RiffTrax Live - Time Chasers (1080p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0019 - RiffTrax Live - Time Chasers (720p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0020 - RiffTrax Live - MST3K Reunion Show (1080p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0020 - RiffTrax Live - MST3K Reunion Show (720p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0022 - RiffTrax Live - Carnival of Souls.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0023 - RiffTrax Live - Samurai Cop (1080p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0023 - RiffTrax Live - Samurai Cop (720p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0024 - RiffTrax Live - Summer Shorts Beach Party (1080p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0024 - RiffTrax Live - Summer Shorts Beach Party (720p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0026 - RiffTrax Live - Space Mutiny (1080p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0026 - RiffTrax Live - Space Mutiny (720p).mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0028 - RiffTrax Live - Octaman.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0029 - RiffTrax Live - Star Raiders.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0030 - RiffTrax Live - The Giant Spider Invasion.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0031 - RiffTrax Live - Hobgoblins.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0032 - RiffTrax Live - Amityville 4 - The Evil Escapes.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0033 - RiffTrax Live - Return of Swamp Thing.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0033 - RiffTrax Live - Return of Swamp Thing.vtt
RiffTrax Live - S06E0034 - Rifftrax Live - RAD.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0035 - Rifftrax Live - Point Break.mp4
RiffTrax Live - S06E0036 - Rifftrax Live - Timecop.mp4

However, Plex seems to have inserted an episode between Santa Claus (E14) and The Room (E15), as everything up to Santa Claus is correctly matched, but everything after that has the metadata for the previous entry (i.e. file E16 → metadata E15). And it’s definitely not something I’ve done with the files themselves as I’ve grabbed the poster for each episode and manually added it to the metadata for each of these entries well before all this happened. The poster matches the file name, but not the rest of the metadata (so file E16 → poster E16 → metadata E15). I did inadvertently trigger Plex to refresh all metadata for this library, but that did not do anything (and thankfully didn’t nuke the posters).

Here’s the XMLs for 2 episodes: file name S06E0014 (correctly matches to Santa Claus) and file name S06E0016 (which should match to Sharknado 2 but matches to The Room).

rifftrax_live_xml.zip (4.4 KB)

2

I set up a test folder and files on my TV Show Library. I’m seeing the same thing as you regarding episodes 15 & 16. TMDB & TVDB sure treat these differently. I looked at TMDB and found the entry for the SF Sketchfest 2015. It has an external ID that points to IMDB but that is it. Similar for other TMDB entries.
The only thing I really notice is the “air dates” for these episodes.

S06E14 - Santa Claus - December 12, 2014

S06E15 - The Room - May 6, 2015

The show that Plex is inserting SF Sketchfest 2015 has an air date Mar 6, 2015. My guess is that is why it is getting inserted. I’m still learning the nuance of the Plex Agent. Someone smarter than me will need to advise on this.

3

I’m not familiar with this show however, upon a quick check I found this forum poster at tmdb https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/673aecbb6067cb94676a50d5 which indicates its not allowed on their site.

As the plex agent/scanner consolidates metadata typically starting with tmdb and extending to tvdb, imdb and some other private providers I cannot see this ever fully working in plex. But I’m certainly open to correction on this …

4

That makes sense. I guess Plex is just doing what it can with what it has.

5

Indeed, in the past you would just tell plex to use tvdb metadata but the newer agent/scanner does not allow that as it uses this consolidated approach which makes entries like this complicated.

Maybe when nfo support arrives and the new custom metadata providers which plex recently announced may eventually help, but alas not today.

6

So if I’m understanding this correctly:

  • Plex’s new-ish scanner will consolidate metadata from TheMovieDB and TheTVDB, even if the library is setup as a TV series and specifies to use TheTVDB’s episode ordering, because ???
  • TheMovieDB only has RiffTrax Live events because they have a policy of only including things that were actually shown in movie theaters or on television…but the SketchFest live shows which weren’t shown in theaters are included because ???
  • And the long-term fix for this would be to have Plex add back the option to only grab metadata from a single source, which will be coming ???

Just want to make sure this situation is as stupid as I think it is.

7

Correct. Plex gathers/consolidates metadata from multliple sources, tmdb, tvdb, imdb etc… ranks its on their back-end and then that becomes the metadata for a item be it a movie, show or episode.

You can then reorder the episodes in the case of shows to match how tmdb or tvdb order the episodes providing tmdb has external id links to the corresponding episode on tvdb but the metadata is the same, its only the ordering you control. This is why shows like Firefly work when reordering between tmdb, tvdb (aired) and tvdb (dvd).

Most folks don’t understand this and think when they set plex to use tvdb ordering, its using tvdb metadata. It may or may not depending on how plex ranked the metadata beforehand but more often than not some of the data actually comes from imdb (see this thread as an example Stop scrapping IMDB Storyline Summaries for Plex Metadata).

8

Plex uses the aggregation method because its a LOT cheaper for them licensing-wise. They directly control how often the APIs are accessed, as opposed to umpty-million calls from individual users.

What they really should do is a take a page from Jellyfin… Allow a user to enter their own TVDB account info and allow us to scrape directly from TVDB that way.

9

Well looks like TMDB got itself sorted as now everything has the proper metadata (although it annoyingly wiped the Watched flags from everything after Santa Claus, but easily rectified).