Plex not displaying metadata that is available from agents?

[runswithascript]

Hi

Plex beautifully and automatically displays the metadata for most of my Movies and TV Shows but not all. The strange thing is that when I click on fix incorrect match it either finds the correct metadata instantly or it does so when I click on custom search and manually select TheMovieDB instead of Freebase. Further, I have all the default agents enabled as below, and it would make sense to me Plex should try TheMovieDB automatically if there are no hits on Freebase?

In Settings >> Agents >> Movies >> Personal media >> I have Personal Media and Local Media Assets (movies) enabled.

In Settings >> Agents >> Movies >> Freebase >> I have everything enabled with The Movie Database at the top of the list and Freebase second

In Settings >> Agents >> Movies >> The Movie Database >> I have everything enabled with The Movie Database at the top of the list

In Settings >> Agents >> TV Shows >> Personal Media Shows >> Personal Media shows and Local Media Assets (TV) are enabled

In Settings >> Agents >> TV Shows >> TheTVDB >> All agents are enabled with Local Media Assets (TV) at the top followed by TheTVDB.

Examples of videos in Movies not working for me are:

Adam Hills Stands Up Live (Not in Freebase but available from TheMovieDB)

The Gathering Storm (Two matches in Freebase, it is the 2002 version)

Jimmy Carr: Laughing and Joking (Three matches in Freebase, but only one exactly matching the name short of the year)

 

An example of a TV Show is Backchat with Jack Whitehall & His Dad (Found instantly when I clicked on fix incorrect match)

 

I have run multiple deep scans and manual refreshes on all problem media.

Please advise what I am doing wrong or how I can fix the problem?

[mmccurdy]

There are some slight differences in the matching logic for manual vs. automatic matching (mainly to reduce the likelihood of false positives with the automatic process).  Also, I just fixed a bug that may have been preventing automatic matching in some cases.  If you'd like to attempt automatic matching then attach the agent log (it's in the PMS Plug-ins directory and it's called "com.plexapp.agents.imdb.log") I can take a look and let you know for sure what's going on.

[runswithascript]

There are some slight differences in the matching logic for manual vs. automatic matching (mainly to reduce the likelihood of false positives with the automatic process).  Also, I just fixed a bug that may have been preventing automatic matching in some cases.  If you'd like to attempt automatic matching then attach the agent log (it's in the PMS Plug-ins directory and it's called "com.plexapp.agents.imdb.log") I can take a look and let you know for sure what's going on.

Hi Mike, thanks for the quick reply.

I just checked for PMS update and it told me I am up to date. I am not sure if Plex updates automatically or not but it seems there is more metadata in Movies than there was before, although some of it wrong which I guess cannot be helped when there are multiple entries with the same name. Does Plex use media duration to determine which metadata to use when there are multiple?

That file is not in the PMS Plug-ins directory, at least on Windows 8, although a search found it in ~\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Logs\PMS Plugin Logs. I ran a deep scan and then manually tried to refresh media with missing metadata. Please find attached:

com.plexapp.agents.imdb.log (239 KB)

[mmccurdy]

Duration is not considered directly when matching.  It looks like the things that aren't matching in that log file are mostly things that aren't quite movies (like TV documentaries and stand-up comedy shows?).  You might have better luck with some of those things if you move them to a TV section, or create a Home Movies section and stick them in there.  Unless they're things that Freebase or The TVDB know about, the agents won't be able to grab full metadata for them.

[runswithascript]

It looks like the things that aren't matching in that log file are mostly things that aren't quite movies (like TV documentaries and stand-up comedy shows?).  You might have better luck with some of those things if you move them to a TV section, or create a Home Movies section and stick them in there.

Thanks for having a look at the log. It may not be clear from that file, but the stand-up comedy is already in my Movies section, multi series documentaries are already in the TV Shows section, and as advised on IRC the only way to get correct metadata matches for single one off episode documentaries (or even to display them in Plex when there is no metadata) is to put them in the Movies section as they already are or a section that scans TheMovieDB. This means two separate folders for documentaries which seems counter intuitive, and I am hoping to learn I can have one somehow where the appropriate metadata is matched - it seems this would mean a section scanning both TheMovieDB and TheTVDB. Please see my quote from another thread at the end of this post.

I already intend to move stand-up its own TheMovieDB scanning section as it would seem neater than putting it in with Movies. Where stand-up is at the moment should still work though, because when I click on 'Fix incorrect match' Plex either immediately suggests the correct metadata, or when I then click 'Custom search' and tell it to use TheMovieDB it suggests it instead. Please see the examples I posted previously. 

Unless they're things that Freebase or The TVDB know about, the agents won't be able to grab full metadata for them.

That is just it, the majority of the media is in sections where I have confirmed through 'fix incorrect match' and/or 'custom search' the correct metadata is available but it is just not being matched automatically. There is a minority of what might be considered obscure video not matching because the metadata is simply not available and I list that media now so you can differentiate looking at the fresh log attached below log:

Movies:

Ahmadinejad The Populist and The Pariah

The Imagineers

North Korea a State of Mind

Peter Kay Live & back on Nights

Ross Noble Hammersmith

Wild, Lemurs of Madagascar

TV Shows:

Myra Hindley: The Untold Story

See No Evil: The Moors Murders

Anomalies:

Strangely, 'Adam Hills Live' - searching Freebase and TheMovieDB from fix incorrect match yields no results at all, but checking themoviedb.com shows one listing for Adam Hills Live in the Suburbs, are these names not close enough for Plex to at least suggest a match when I manually search? Alan Davies Live - same deal although the match Plex does not display even on manual search this time is exactly the same as the title.

Everything else not matching:

Has the metadata available immediately when I click on 'fix incorrect data' and then 'Match using TheMovieDB' where necessary. Basically Plex will find the metadata for this media with various degrees of prodding and I wondering why it does not do it automatically like with all the rest of the media, and if there is a way to fix the problem?

Quote from another thread on documentaries having to reside in two separate sections for Plex to metadata match them properly:

******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

TVDB has been an excellent tool for teaching me how to label my media so they show up correctly. My quibble is this: What about one-offs like "TITANIC: The Final Word with James Cameron?"

Firstly, I love Plex and I appreciate the hard work of developers, but I also agree with you completely.

For future reference, how should I treat single instance TV documentaries? I'm not too fond of the idea of creating folders named after the channels they aired on just to house a single instance documentary. I know some could be placed in the Movies folder like "The Rape of Europa" but still...

I am new to Plex but from what someone more experienced told me yesterday one off documentaries (or anything that is shown on TV but not part of a series) do not belong in the TV Shows directory. Instead, in order for Plex to properly find and display the metadata for this media it must be placed in the Movies section so Plex can check TheMovieDB for the metadata. Personally, movies to me refers only to video that has been released into a theatre or cinema, whether fiction or non-fiction, although I guess made for TV one off movies also count - strictly drama though, otherwise the one off is a documentary.

This all does not seem so bad when you consider we can leave our regular Movies section as is, and just create a separate Documentaries directory which would scrape TheMovieDB for our one off documentaries. What does make it seem wrong is that we are now stuck documentaries stuck in two different directories, one offs in one, series documentaries in another.

We could create the following directory structure although it seems complicated and sloppy: Movies, Documentaries, Documentary Series, TV Shows.

Can somebody please tell me I have been misinformed and that somehow there is a way to have Plex properly display the metadata for all TV documentaries, whether one offs or series, either in TV Shows or a single Documentaries directory? It seems this would involve a directory scanning TheMovieDB and TheTVDB.

In this lucky instance PLEX was able to glean enough information from the media file to correctly dump it inside a National Geographic Documentaries file but I for the life of me can't find the information at TVDB that made PLEX do that. I'm very ■■■■ about my documentaries and always want to know why something went where it did and this frustrates me.

When you say Plex was able to glean enough information to correctly dump it inside the National Geographic Documentaries file - do you mean the your National Geographic Documentaries directory/folder on your drive? If so, how do I enable this?

Also, do any of you know of a way to automatically appropriately rename and relocate documentaries so that Plex can pick them up? When I say automatically I mean something we can leave running that does this in our absence whenever media appears in a specified folder, rather than constantly having to manually do it with something like filebot.

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

[mmccurdy]

(That log is only for the Freebase agent, so I can't really speak to the details of TheTVDB or TMDB based on it, but the same stuff probably applies).  

A little more background on what's going on behind the scenes:  There are basically two relevant steps to the metadata acquisition process, matching (where Plex makes an attempt to figure out what the item is and map it to a unique ID) and updating (where it goes out to potentially several sources based on that ID down fetches the actual metadata -- artwork, descriptions, cast info, etc.).

It is not currently possible to use more than one source for automated matching -- it will always use the one set as the primary agent on the library.  Matches are given scores based on confidence.  We first make a few requests against our own database, which is very fast, fairly extensive, and "learns" over time from previous successful matches.  If we fail to find a match that we're confident in, we fall back to basically a fancy Google search for the item.  In the event that we need to fall back to Google, title and year matching a given result (after some cleanup) is the most important factor in determining score.

During automated matching, if none of the results score above a certain confidence threshold (~80%) then it's considered a non-match in order to avoid false positives.

During *manual* matching, as you've noted, you can use any available agent to search (so if something shows up in The Movie Database but not Freebase, you'll be able to match it that way), the Google "fallback" results are always included in the set of matches, and results are displayed in descending score order regardless of level of confidence.  Over time, as people manually choose correct matches from this set, we learn from that as well.

So, spot checking your list of non-matching movies, I didn't find any of them that Freebase knew about.  It's possible that TheTVDB or TMDB would know about some of them (testable by trying a manual match with TMDB or moving the item to your TV section), but those will never automatically match as long as the primary section agent is set to Freebase.  In at least one case ("North Korea A State of Mind"), the Google fallback does correctly identify the item, but because it's just called "A State of Mind" according to IMDB, it's gets a score of 77, just barely missing the confidence threshold for an automatic match, so it would not be surprising in that case to see it pop up immediately when bringing up the manual list using Freebase.

For the time being anyway, the implication of this is that you'll need separate sections organized by content type with appropriate primary agents, or you'll have to deal with the occasional manual match.

Pro Tip: if you know the IMDB or TVDB ID of the item, you can enter it in the custom search field and it'll use it straight away, no questions asked :)

EDIT: I'm going to move this thread to the Agents forum since it's not really Windows-specific and I think that explanation might be helpful to other folks.

[Raymond]

I'm having a similar issue with agents not pulling in metadata, namely the Freebase agent is not pulling in the movie description. The agent does a good job at matching movies OK and displays the correct posters with background images, however the description (synopsis) is totally blank. Plex should get the description from Freebase or Wikipedia. See the screen shot of my preferences and movie details. The test subject here is the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It may also be worth noting that descriptions from The Movie Database are pulled in correctly if checked, however I'm totally uninterested in descriptions from The Movie Database so I have unchecked this agent.

I hope this info is helpful and I look forward to movie descriptions in the future.

- Ray



[sander1]

I'm having a similar issue with agents not pulling in metadata, namely the Freebase agent is not pulling in the movie description.

The Freebase agent doesn't provide a description at all. That is why the default setting for Freebase has the Movie Database agent checked.

[Raymond]

I see, thank you for the information. Good to know. I had thought that Freebase used the descriptions from Wikipedia. Apparently not.

However, as you can see in my screen shot provided above, I do have Wikipedia checked and yet there is still no movie description being pulled in. In which case, it's the Wikipedia agent which isn't pulling the information in.

My point is that there should be some description for this movie, even if The Movie Database is unchecked. Or is The Movie Database the only game in town for obtaining movie descriptions?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

- Ray

[sander1]

However, as you can see in my screen shot provided above, I do have Wikipedia checked and yet there is still no movie description being pulled in. In which case, it's the Wikipedia agent which isn't pulling the information in.

I tried to replicate, but for me everything works as expected, with the summary coming in from Wikipedia as well:

Agent settings

Freebase as primary agent and Wikipedia checked as additional agent:

Result

With the language of the movie section set to English and Freebase as the primary agent.

As you can see the poster is missing. This is because neither Freebase nor Wikipedia handles posters. The summary from Wikipedia is present.

Since your screenshot shows a poster for this movie, I think your agent settings were different when you first created your movies section. With your current setup, what happens for 2001: A Space Odyssey if you do a "Fix Incorrect Match" for this movie (and then select the correct/same movie from the list, this will force a metadata update/refresh for this movie)?

[Raymond]

With the language of the movie section set to English and Freebase as the primary agent.

Other than Settings>>Languages which allows for English audio track and subtitle preferences, I see no Language settings for the entire Movie section. I can however select "Search using Freebase, Language English" and "Match using Freebase" when performing a "Fix Incorrect Match."


I assume by "primary" agent you mean that Freebase is listed first, over Wikipedia as depicted in your screen shot.

Since your screenshot shows a poster for this movie, I think your agent settings were different when you first created your movies section. With your current setup, what happens for 2001: A Space Odyssey if you do a “Fix Incorrect Match” for this movie (and then select the correct/same movie from the list, this will force a metadata update/refresh for this movie)?

Yes, my settings were different when I first created the movie section. I used the default settings which Plex uses during it's first run. When I wasn't getting the results I wanted, I unchecked The Movie Database agent and tried as you said with Fix Incorrect Match. The description from The Movie Database is now gone as should be expected, but no description from Wikipedia is being pulled in. Also as you noticed, the artwork posters are still there. Strange.

It may also be worth noting that the Freebase settings has a "Localized Titles" check box. This is accessible by clicking the gear next to Freeebase. I tried Refreshing and "Fixing Incorrect Match" with this option both checked and unchecked but still no description.


Also interesting to note is that in my first post my Freebase agent appears to the far right of both the Personal Media agent and The Movie database agents. At some point during all the experimentation of selecting, deselecting, and dragging the order of the various agents, my Freebase agent appears now as yours dose, in the middle of both Personal Media on the left and The Movie Database on the right. I don't know if that's significant but it seems a bit bizarre considering there doesn't appear to be anything special about the order, left to right.

I am located outside the US, so I'm wondering if there is some localisation going on and my query is not being directed to the English version of Wikipedia. This would still not account for why no images for you, but for me images remain even after rematching.

If nothing else a troubleshooting step I will take will be to remove Plex from my system entirely, reinstall, and during the first run process make sure that The Movie Database is deselected in the Freebase agent and that Wikipedia is checked and located just below the Freebase agent. If I could disable The Movie Database agent entirely, I would certainly give that a try.

I really appreciate your suggestions and help. I've been using Plex since about 2007 and not only do I enjoy watching movies and TV shows with Plex, I also enjoy watching Plex develop and trying out the new software.

- Ray

:)

[mmccurdy]

The section language setting is available when editing the section itself, under Show Advanced, here:

English is the default, however, so unless you changed it that's unlikely to be the problem.

If it's some kind of localization problem, it would probably be possible to see exactly what's going on in the wikipedia agent log (com.plexapp.agents.wikipedia.log in the PMS Plugins directory).

You might also try removing and re-creating a new section with the agent settings exactly how you want them.  I've seen some instances where things don't quite refresh properly after changing them.

Out of curiosity, why the strong distaste for Movie Database metadata?

[runswithascript]

It is not currently possible to use more than one source for automated matching -- it will always use the one set as the primary agent on the library.  Matches are given scores based on confidence.  We first make a few requests against our own database, which is very fast, fairly extensive, and "learns" over time from previous successful matches.  If we fail to find a match that we're confident in, we fall back to basically a fancy Google search for the item.  In the event that we need to fall back to Google, title and year matching a given result (after some cleanup) is the most important factor in determining score.

 

Some questions:

 

1. When you say it is not currently possible to use more than one source for automated matching do you mean it can use either Freebase and TheMovieDB OR TheTVDB or just one agent of the three? I ask as I mentioned earlier if it was a possibility to have one directory check bothTheMovieDB and TheTVDB. Surely Movies directories can check Freebase AND TheMovieDB as if we look in Settings >> Agents >> Movies there is a section for both with nothing to indicate one as primary, and further confusingly, under each section we can enable and disable the other agent? Please see my settings screenshots below and advise if something should be changed. I have TheMovieDB at the top of the Freebase list as metadata from TheMovieDB was what I first found being ignored
2. Is checking Plex's own database etc done before or after checking agents?
3. What you have said does not seem to account for metadata not being matched where I can see the correct match offered immediately after I click on 'fix incorrect match'? To be clear, in some instances this is without even pressing search after incorrect match. This is with Movies in the Movies directory, and TV Shows in TV Shows.

 

So, spot checking your list of non-matching movies, I didn't find any of them that Freebase knew about.

Please see my post above where I referenced all Movies and TV Shows missing metadata including those found immediately when I press Fix incorrect match, or right after pressing search and selecting either Freebase or TheMovieDB.

 

Take 'Sean Walsh Live', this has not been matched, but as soon as I press fix incorrect match the correct metadata is found - why was this not applied automatically? Stranger still, if I press search and select Freebase or TheMovieDB no match is found.

 

The Crux of this is that matching metadata is available for a lot of by media that is missing it. This metadata is available from within Plex but not being applied?

[runswithascript]

Also, when I click on edit selection for Movies Freebase is the selected agent, should I change this to TheMovieDB instead?

[mmccurdy]

• When you say it is not currently possible to use more than one source for automated matching do you mean it can use either Freebase and TheMovieDB OR TheTVDB or just one agent of the three?

When I say once source, I mean one source. It can use either Freebase, The Movie Database, or TheTVDB. This depends on the type of section, and what you have set for the "Primary Agent" in the section settings. It will use multiple sources to fill in various pieces of metadata once the match is made, but it will never use more than one source to do the actual automated matching.
 

• Is checking Plex's own database etc done before or after checking agents?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, but let's say "before."
 

• What you have said does not seem to account for metadata not being matched where I can see the correct match offered immediately after I click on 'fix incorrect match'? To be clear, in some instances this is without even pressing search after incorrect match. This is with Movies in the Movies directory, and TV Shows in TV Shows.

Please re-read the part where I explain the differences between automatic and manual matching.

The bottom line is that you have some content here that is "marginal" (stand-up comedy, TV/one-off documentaries) and as it stands, unfortunately, automated matching will not be perfect in these cases. Can you help me understand why it's so essential to have this? Why not fix these things once and be done with them?

[Raymond]

After updating PMS to (0.9.9.7.429-f80a8d6) I'm now getting more expected results. Namely the description info from Wikipedia info is displayed.

My movies section is set to use the Plex Movie Scanner, Freebase, and English. Under Settings>>Agents>>Movies>>Freebase I have Freebase and Wikipedia checked. All other agents are unchecked. Here is a screen shot after selecting Unmatch and then Fix Correct Match with Match Using Freebase.


On 04 March 2014 - 06:09 PM The Mike M wrote: Out of curiosity, why the strong distaste for Movie Database metadata?

I don't have a strong distaste for all metadata from The Movie Database. They have a good selection of posters and on occasion a well written, or at least helpful, description. However, I do find that a vast number of Movie Database overviews are poorly written, consisting of only one or two sentences and fail the objective to give an accurate plot description. I appreciate The Movie Data Base and have even contributed to the movie descriptions there myself. Wikipedia entries generally contain too much info to give a brief overview of a film and Movie Database often contains too few information to get a handle on what a film is about. I would love to see sections for overview, plot synopsis, background information and even a review from rogerebert.com or Rotten Tomatoes right within Plex.

[sahlvall]

TheMoviedb do not work even if i use their

title ( english or swedish )

Settings always jump back to freebase
Freebase always works but there is no overview
 

Could read there was a "number" to write in
exactly where an what number
Example "This is 40" (one of >1000 movies not find bye Plex on Themoviedb )
 
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1758830/?ref_=nv_sr_1

http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/89492-this-is-40?language=sv

I want my use Themoviedb and in swedish
I know that is works very well in Yadis
Manual does not work in plex using themoviedb Have not had any hits even if I use the exact title from themoviedb

 

[captdantman_hotmail.com]

I have been using Plex for a long time and think its great.  However, I have always had problems with it matching the correct movie and pulling down metadata.  But it was never a priority for me so didn't spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.  Now I have, and I have set up the agents/scanners in this order for movies:  Freebase, Local Media, and the movie database.  I used "Media Center Master" to rename all my movies and folders to "moviename (year)"" which pulls the info from imdb.com.

Each movie folder has backdrops and xml file that contains the metadata of the movie.

1. Can plex only use the name and backdrops of the local media assets, or can it also pull the movie description etc.?

2.  There are several movies that plex is not showing movie info on.  Such as attached 305.  What I see is that when Freebase is used, it is showing the year as 2008 and pulls no info, which is the year I have my folder named from IMDB for the movie 305. When I manually select "the movie database"  it finds a match and says its year 2008, but displays 2007 and shows the movie info (see attached info.jpg) 

Since I have all the information stored locally and have the folder named correctly, how can I configure the plex agents to use local info and still display the movie description and ratings etc.

[Santo-Asus1]

I find that periodically there are some items that will not automatically populate no matter what i do and i can find no logic to this problem, Example, Doc Martin was fully populated and now non of the seasons are populating. Supergirl is also no working.

[guaro2k]

OK, I hope people who have the same problem I did find this post. What sander1 said on his comment was helpful.

If you want the extras and trailer from freebase but the summary from The movie DB then:

1-Set your library to freebase
2-Go to Settings>Server>Agents>Movies>Freebase
3-Select only Freebase and the movie database
4-Move Movie database to the top
5-tick the "use collection info from the movie database

This fixed the issue i was having. If I chose The movie database I got the Sumary not the extras, If instead I chose freebase, I got extras but no poster or summary.

Now with this setup, plex somehow is now showing posters, sumary and info all accurate.

Hope this helps