Server Version#: 1.30.2.6563
Player Version#: 4.87.2
I assume this a problem in general, but has only come to my attention by adding the TV show Mad Men. TMDB and TVDB contain different information in the Specials section. TVDB contains far less. So, I need to force Plex to pull metadata from TMDB.
Advanced settings for the library have Plex TV Series listed for Scanner and Agent.
The name of the show folder is Mad Men (2007) {tmdb-1104}
Under that there are season folders and a Specials folder.
For files I’ve tried several different naming conventions.
Mad Men [2007] {tmdb-1104} S00E02.
Mad Men [2007] S00E02.
Mad Men (2007) {tmdb-1104} S00E02.
Mad Men (2007) S00E02.
Mad Men S00E02.
Updating library and scanning for new metadata after each name change.
Each and every time it pulls from TVDB. I know this because TVDB only has specials metadata for the first 6 episodes. TMDB has data for dozens of special.
In the web client and multple Roku devices only the first 6 specials have metadata, Specials 7 -40+ have no metadata. So, without a doubt it is not pulling from TMDB.
What am I missing? Help!
You cannot force Plex to pick metadata from a specific source if you’re using the Plex TV Series agent. You can however configure the library or individual shows to go with the episode ordering from that particular source (e.g. 
> Advanced > Episode ordering → The Movie Database).
As for the episode naming you should stick with the official naming schema (e.g. if you want Plex to consider the year of a show to match it, don’t put it in square brackets).
As a side note: while I haven’t checked/compared the specials of Mad Men on the 2 sources – while both platforms have policies what’s considered a special, The Movie Database is more… forgiving… if users place all kind of stuff in that specials section (while TheTVDb tends to enforce placing only actual special episodes as specials). Many of the “specials” listed on The Movie Database might actually be considered extras for the show, a season or individual episodes.
This article seems to say you can force Plex to pull from a specific source.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/
Specifically this blurb…
" If you are using the “Plex TV Series” agent, you can optionally include the TMDB or TVDB show ID in the folder name to improve matching. If you choose to do that, it must be inside curly braces: ShowName (2020) {tvdb-123456} or ShowName (2020) {tmdb-123456} where 123456 is the show ID. An example can be found at the end of the article."
The article is fairly recent. Is it wrong?
The article is correct but you might have misunderstood that part.
You can include a reference/ID of a show from one of those sources to help Plex match the show. This can be helpful if there’s multiple same-named shows or if different platforms use different titles for that show.
This “hint” won’t however effect the source of the metadata itself.
With the Plex TV Series agent, the source is always Plex’ own backend which is aggregating metadata from different sources. The only information handed down from the underlying sources as-is are the episode orderings (see above).
Episode ordering seems to have done the trick though just by the name alone it is less than intuitive as to what it controls. It also seems like a bit of a misnomer to to label the Plex TV Series agent as aggregating metadata from different sources. That would imply metadata from different sources are combined. At least as far as Mad Men is concerned it is categorically ignoring TMDB.
Thanks for pointing me to Episode Ordering. I’m not sure I ever would have tried it because on the surface the name doesn’t sound as though it would control metadata. Plex should consider changing the name. Metadata Source, perhaps…
It’s using metadata from different sources – although it’s not always transparent which particular information is sourced from what repository (or under what circumstances Plex will be using data from TMDb while it’ll use data from TVDb for the same info on a different show).
It’s not so much controlling the metadata but pointing out the order used when naming the files. Plex will the apply the correct metadata for that episode from its metadata repository (not necessarily the title/description from the order).
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