Plex Movie Agent inadequate in finding movie artwork

Plex Media Server
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Server Version#:1.41.0…8994
Linux OS: Ubuntu 24.04.1

Currently, I had to rebuild my plex server (due to a complete OS corruption failure).

I have historically used The Movie DB as the agent of choice. I have tried the “new” Plex Movie Agent in the past, but with less than stellar results. I decided to give the new agent another try, and found that the same issue occurs: While it finds every movie in my library, it did NOT find the artwork for all movies. When I go back and switch back to The Movie DB, it not only finds all movies but finds all the Artwork for all the movies.

Why is the Plex software pushing this new agent (still) when it is clearly inadequate? The movies that it doesn’t find artwork for aren’t one-off artsy films, but things like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Hustler, Death Wish, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Some Like It Hot, and more.

The issue isn’t the naming convention, as the Plex Movie Agent does find the movies…just no artwork at all for them.

Until the Plex Movie Agent is as thorough as The Movie DB Agent, the Plex software should not “push” users to “upgrade” to the Plex Movie Agent…as it isn’t an upgrade but a downgrade.

How do I, as a user of the Plex Software (and a Plex Pass subscriber), warrant moving away from an agent that has provided 100% success to one that is less than that?

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See the response in this thread, it does as good a job explaining it as I’ve seen:

I know that the immediate question then becomes “Well, how does TMDB still have it?” It doesn’t really matter though. When Plex receives a DMCA takedown request, they are obliged to comply.

It’s been suggested that Plex should potentially source fan art in these cases, just to have something. But the best solution is likely for the user to source their own poster(s) in these cases and place them beside the movie in its folder. That way the artwork you want will always be available (it solves another problem where the Plex Movie agent will sometimes replace posters with different ones).

But the new agent/scanner combo is generally faster, and enables some newer features not available in the legacy agents (Discover Credits, for example). The tradeoffs are generally worth it, in my opinion.

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What’s the title please (name and year).

I will see if I can grab it using default settings.

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For what it’s worth Chuck, I checked a few of the titles they listed to confirm they don’t have posters on https://watch.plex.tv. So it’s unlikely the agent would have anything to pull through.

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I’m asking for names please because if this is a simple case of missing posters,
we do have folks to will go figure out what the problem is and get those posters into the DBs ASAP

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Here are a few…

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
The Bishops Wife (1947)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Death Wish 1 (1974)
Death Wish 3 (1985)
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Rio Bravo (1959)

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I think the bigger issue for me is that The Movie DB is an option, yet Plex is forcing me to migrate to their solution, which is less than complete from an artistic perspective or have a big red “light” on my system. The Server software shouldn’t be flagging me as “Library Needs Updating” if I want to continue to use The Movie DB agent instead. I have to check each time I connect to my server to verify that something else isn’t causing the Big Red Exclamation point when it seems to be just the Library Agent issue.

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Thanks for the additional titles.

  1. I know “The Dirty Dozen” was a takedown order a few years ago.
    I had the poster and then, one day, it was removed.

  2. While not conclusive, I’m seeing a theme with certain Actors’ films having posters removed.

I am putting my list, with this list, together and submitting to our poster group to ask what they see and whether takedowns or DB errors.

EDIT: My list + This list compiled and sent to our metadata team.

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ALL:

I got an answer from the metadata team and its not the best.

  1. Plex received a large takedown order (a lot of titles)
  2. As required, those posters were removed.
  3. At this point, one-by-one, the legal dept is selecting new posters which don’t violate any of the T’s & C’s.
  4. As followup, I have requested a process change.
    – When a takedown order is received
    – Initially replace that poster with a “Poster removed at owner request”
    – Queue that movie to get a new poster.

Now we see what will come of it.

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