Plex TV Agent Pulling Data From Wrong Season (Super Friends)

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

I’m having an issue with Plex’s TV agent matching the correct series, but pulling metadata from the wrong season.

Correct Series / Season:
Super Friends — Season 1 (1973)
(Reference: https://thetvdb.com/series/super-friends/seasons/official/1)

Incorrect Metadata Being Pulled:
Season 9 — The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians
(Reference: https://thetvdb.com/series/super-friends/seasons/official/9)

For example, the poster for “The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985)” is being assigned to what should be “Super Friends (1973)”. Additional metadata such as episode ordering appears mismatched as well.

Notes:

  • The show matches correctly in Plex (title/series match is fine)

  • Only the season-level metadata is incorrect (data for season 1 episodes is mismatched with season 9)

    Server Version#:Version 1.27.1.5916
    Player Version#: Version 1.108.1.307-dd5b87aa

2

Have you selected TVDB aired order? Based on the test files I just made, I am guessing no. Using the default TMDB matching, I agree, its quite messed up.

3

For me this show’s just broken on Plex. When I add it to the library it looks like this:

image
image936×1047 50.7 KB

It does match the show but doesn’t get the metadata for it for some reason until I manually hit “refresh metadata.” Season 1 gets incorrectly matched to season 9 and the rest of them are just “Episode 1” etc.

My directory tree 
Super Friends {tvdb-254222}/
├── Season 01
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E01 - The Power Pirate.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E02 - The Baffles Puzzle.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E03 - Professor Goodfellow's G.E.E.C..mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E04 - The Weather Maker.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E05 - Dr. Pelagian's War.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E06 - The Shamon 'U'.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E07 - Too Hot To Handle.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E08 - The Androids.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E09 - The Balloon People.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E10 - The Fantastic Frerps.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E11 - The Ultra Beam.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E12 - The Menace of the White Dwarf.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E13 - The Mysterious Moles.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E14 - Gulliver's Gigantic Goof.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S01E15 - The Planet-Splitter.mkv
│   └── Super Friends - S01E16 - The Watermen.mkv
├── Season 02
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E01 - The Brain Machine The Joy Ride The Invasion of the Earthors The Whirlpool.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E02 - The Secret Four Tiger on the Loose The Mysterious Time Creatures The Antidote.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E03 - Invasion of the Hydronoids Hitchhike City in a Bottle Space Emergency.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E04 - Doctor Fright Drag Race Plant Creatures Fire.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E05 - The Monster of Dr. Droid Vandals Super Friends vs. Super Friends Energy Mass.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E06 - The Enforcer The Shark Planet of the Neanderthals Flood of Diamonds.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E07 - The Invisible Menace Initiation Coming of the Arthropods River of Doom.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E08 - Attack of the Giant Squid Game of Chicken The Water Beast Volcano.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E09 - The Collector Handicap The Mind Maidens Alaska Peril.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E10 - The Fifty Foot Woman Cheating Exploration Earth Attack of the Killer Bees.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E11 - Forbidden Power Pressure Point The Lionmen The Day of the Rats.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E12 - The Man Beasts of Xra Prejudice Tiny World of Terror Tibetan Raiders.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E13 - Frozen Peril Dangerous Prank The Mummy of Nazca Cable Car Rescue.mkv
│   ├── Super Friends - S02E14 - The Marsh Monster The Runaways Will the World Collide Time Rescue.mkv
│   └── Super Friends - S02E15 - The Protector Stowaways The Ghost Rampage.mkv
└── Season 03
    ├── Super Friends - S03E01 - Rokan Enemy from Space.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E02 - Wanted The Superfriends.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E03 - The Demons of Exxor.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E05 - Battle at the Earth's Core.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E06 - The World's Deadliest Game.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E07 - Sinbad and the Space Pirates.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E08 - The Time Trap.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E09 - The Pied Piper from Space.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E10 - Trial of the Super Friends.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E11 - Attack of the Vampire.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E12 - Monolith of Evil.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E13 - The Beasts Are Coming.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E15 - Terror from the Phantom Zone.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E16 - Secret Origins of the Super Friends.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E17 - The Anti-Matter Monster.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E18 - Revenge on Gorilla City.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E19 - World Beneath the Ice.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E21 - Invasion of the Brain Creatures.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E22 - Conquerors of the Future.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E23 - The Incredible Space Circus.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E24 - The Final Challenge.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E25 - Batman Dead or Alive.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E26 - Fairy Tale of Doom.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E29 - Journey Through Inner Space.mkv
    ├── Super Friends - S03E30 - Super Friends Rest in Peace.mkv
    └── Super Friends - S03E32 - History of Doom.mkv
4

Yup, that is the same issue I’m having! But what can be done to resolve this?

5

Just the way this is happening, this sounds a lot like some of the other problems people are having with some shows and the episodes are completely out of whack. Seems like its missing TVDB episode IDs in TMDB. I think Plex uses those to keep the episodes straight between the two DB systems. Its pretty late at night here, so I’m not going to dig into it too much but that is my guess. There has been a few threads recently talking about this - referring to SpongeBob Squarepants How It’s Made, SuperFriends. Those will probably give a better explanation than I just did.

6

This doesn’t seem like the same problem. From what I gather, those other threads are about setting TVDB episode ordering, for which it apparently needs the TMDB → TVDB external links.

Here I have files correctly named and structured after the default TMDB order, yet Plex fails to match it. And whether it’s “{tvdb-254222}” or “{tmdb-936}” in the series folder name doesn’t make a difference.

For what it’s worth, I filled in the gaps in TMDB for the episode IDs for the first two seasons, just to see what happens, but I highly doubt it will have any effect here.

7

Both of these worked for me. Could you attach server logs after doing a plex dance on the show (all steps) and I’ll take a look to see if there is anything obvious failing ?

8

Plex Media Server Logs_2025-12-07_12-49-38.zip (3.5 MB)

Appreciate the help.

9

I’m still looking but I’m fairly certain you have not done a full plex dance …

Dec 07, 2025 12:48:56.457 [125415314099000] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity cf97ebb1-b188-4690-b5bf-5aba21aa0d6a - completed 2.5% - Scanning TV Shows
Dec 07, 2025 12:48:56.457 [125415314099000] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory /mnt/library/Animated Shows/Super Friends {tmdb-936}/Season 01 (parent: yes)
Dec 07, 2025 12:48:56.458 [125415314099000] DEBUG - Directory had 16 files, database had 0 files, can't skip.
Dec 07, 2025 12:48:56.659 [125415301073720] ERROR - [MetadataAgent/tv.plex.metadata.agents] Match request for 'Super Friends {Tmdb 936}' returned no metadata

Notice the Super Friends {Tmdb 936} reference. I suspect this is old bad data in your db and the dance will clean that up.

EDIT: Unrelated but you also have these errors:

Dec 07, 2025 12:49:08.442 [125415314099000] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory /mnt/library/Movies/Inception (2010) (parent: yes)
Dec 07, 2025 12:49:08.442 [125415314099000] ERROR - Couldn't get size of file "/mnt/library/Movies/Inception (2010)/Inception (2010).mkv": boost::filesystem::file_size: No such file or directory [system:2]: "/mnt/library/Movies/Inception (2010)/Inception (2010).mkv"
Dec 07, 2025 12:49:08.442 [125415314099000] DEBUG - Skipping over directory 'Inception (2010)', as nothing has changed; removing 0 media items from map.

...

Dec 07, 2025 12:49:09.337 [125415314099000] DEBUG - Scanner: Processing directory /mnt/library/TV Shows/Mad Men/Season 02 (parent: yes)
Dec 07, 2025 12:49:09.338 [125415314099000] ERROR - Couldn't get size of file "/mnt/library/TV Shows/Mad Men/Season 02/Mad Men - S02E06 - Maidenform.mkv": boost::filesystem::file_size: No such file or directory [system:2]: "/mnt/library/TV Shows/Mad Men/Season 02/Mad Men - S02E06 - Maidenform.mkv"
Dec 07, 2025 12:49:09.339 [125415314099000] DEBUG - Skipping over directory 'Mad Men/Season 02', as nothing has changed; removing 12 media items from map.
Dec 07, 2025 12:49:09.340 [125415314099000] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity f6ff2623-2a50-469d-9ac6-2f16130f7500 - completed 60.9% - Scanning TV Shows

The boost::filesystem::file_size: typically means plex cannot access the files.

10

@evictivy okay, regarding Super Friends, I tried adding /Super Friends {tmdb-936}/Season 02/Super Friends - S02E01 - The Brain Machine - The Joy Ride - The Invasion of the Earthors - The Whirlpool.mp4 and while the show itself matched the episode did not.

@OttoKerner @BigWheel upon an additional look the show itself is a mess in plex with multiple ids associated with it which will likely need some cleanup on your end. Here are the ids which are all reported at the show level.

Super Friends (1973)
  plex://show/5d9c082508fddd001f293786
  imdb://tt0069641
  tmdb://10156
  tmdb://10157
  tmdb://10158
  tmdb://10159
  tmdb://10610
  tmdb://936
  tvdb://254222
  tvdb://70913
  tvdb://70914
  tvdb://71668
  tvdb://71671
  tvdb://76837

I’ve checked the show itself on tmdb and tvdb and the ids appear correct so this looks like it needs a cleanup on the plex side itself.

Also… these listings over at tmdb …

… all linked back to Super Friends (TV Series 1973–1985) - IMDb (tt0069641) which in itself might be part of the problem so I have removed those links as only https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/936-super-friends should link to the imdb listing for the combined show.

I’ve also removed tmdb links from each of these tvdb listings …

… but I’ve left the imdb links. These may also need to be removed but will let you review before its decided that is needed.

11

thanks. I’ll let the metadata team know.

12

If they recommend the imdb links to be removed from the tvdb then let me know, happy to do it. Trouble with that however is that is someone in the future might add them again which would break the things so it’s not a good fix.

Anyhow, thanks for the acknowledgment.

14

@arthur7319 I’m experiencing the same problem. Adding “Challenge of the Super Friends (1978)” Season 1 (tmdb 10610) seems to reconcile to “Super Friends (1973)” Season 9 titles. It seems there were several approaches below to explore metadata / database relationship issues among Plex, TVDB, and TMDB. Was this ever resolved for you?

15

i made a test folder and it seems like a mess. I will have to look at it tomorrow because it is hella late here and I need to sleep

16

This looks like it needs to get cleaned up on the Plex back end. There are so many GUIDs listed for Challenge of the Super Friends. I’ve tried to map them to shows as listed in the various DBs.

Guid id=“imdb://tt0069641” Super Friends (1973)
Guid id=“tmdb://10156”
Guid id=“tmdb://10157” Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984)
Guid id=“tmdb://10158” The World’s Greatest Super Friends (1979)
Guid id=“tmdb://10159” The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977)
Guid id=“tmdb://10610” Challenge of the Super Friends (1978)
Guid id=“tmdb://936” Super Friends (1973)
Guid id=“tvdb://254222” Super Friends (1973)
Guid id=“tvdb://70913” Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984)
Guid id=“tvdb://70914”
Guid id=“tvdb://71668” The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977)
Guid id=“tvdb://71671” The World’s Greatest Super Friends (1979)
Guid id=“tvdb://76837” Challenge of the Super Friends (1978)

17

Looked at this a little more. Both TVDB & TMDB are doing things kind of weird. They both have a show called “Super Friends (1973)” This show seems to be set up as a collection of all the friends shows. “Challenge of the Super Friends (1978) is listed as Season 3 in this “show”

But each also has each of the “seasons” listed as separate shows.

TMDB Super Friends (1973)

TVDB Super Friends (1973)

The easiest fix for this is create a “Super Friends (1973)” folder if you don’t already have one, then move your “Challenge of the Super Friends” folder under “Super Friends”, You’ll need to rename your file to reflect that it is Season 03, i.e. S01E01 → S03E01, S01E02 → S03E02 and so on. If you keep the named “Challenge of the Super Friends (1978)” vs “Season 03” it evens picks up the correct poster. I’ve got it set up like this in my testing library and it is working.