Thanks ChuckPA for looking into it.
I can remove the year from the title if that’s going to be the only fix - but I’ve ran this naming convention for years, and never had a single issue auto matching in the library scan - and the current issue is completely isolated to 2020 shows.
What I find strange is when I select “Match” on Duncanville (2020), Plex shows a 100 match with TVDB. But it won’t match it during the library scan.
That’s exactly where I’m at too.
Now that I have this down, with your help, to two specific perfect cases, I’m going to ask the lead metadata guy tomorrow. (He’ll see it when he logs in over the weekend).
I suspect something is off with the token count (number of words) in a query. Year might be counted in one where it’s not in the other which is not how it should be.
Great thanks again for looking into the issue. Let me know if theres anything else I can do
I got a reply from the engineer.
It’s currently as I wrote
a. Try without
b. Use only when needed
The year is used in two ways and that’s why it’s failing.
a. It’s taken as absolute first time
b. It’s then used as a hint in the fallback when you match manually.
They are changing all that. This situation is right on the edge of older method versus new method.
Addendum (just learned about the backend servers)
The reason we’re seeing it is because year 2020 series are new. The backend server doesn’t have a lot of history to guide the match. (it is adaptive based on feedback from users). As more and more “Fix” , it will gain enough reliability points to not ask TheTVDB at all. That’s why 2018 works and 2020 doesn’t
Ok thanks I’ll remove the year from the title then.
Thanks for looking into it.
Is there something “Plex” can do to fix this, or even options to provide better matching in general. Many people use other applications to name the files first and most likely they have the TVDB/IMDB. If the issue with the year format happens all the time why not just in the agent if the year thats parsed out = current year dont pass it to the API?
Ideally what is the best optimal way to name a file so people dont need to do all this dancing, There will be times where you need to change the scanner to a diff one match them, then change back scan again and they get picked it, its just wonky at time.
So is there a way for those people that want to provide IMDB/TVDB that can do it I know on some movies I have the (tt123213213) in the folder and its ignored. Maybe you can better help us. Also if we provide the ID dont use anything else.
Thats not automated. I know how to manually use the tvdbid in the lookup also.
What Im saying is PLEX should be doing this for us automatically, or allowing us a bypass.
EX:
https://thetvdb.com/series/black-af
Folder Name would be: #blackAF (2020) {tvdb=378773}
The agent would see {tvdb=378773} and it would just pass this ID to the API and boom no issues.
Id rather have a foolproof way to name things, the majority of people would be using other apps to get the files and they already know the imdb/tvdb. Clearly the UI allows me to type it in, but the auto scan seems to ignore.
I’m not sure what Plex is going to do about it, but I know what I’m doing:
A TV Show Library\
......#blackAF\
..........Season 01\
..............#blackAF - S01E01.mp4
Filebot got the name - I had no illusions it was going to work - with a name like that, but hey… Call Ripley or the Vatican or both 'cause it seems we got an instant miracle without any need to Fix Anything…
Note: when your show name, shows up in the list ABOVE “.grab” - you know if it’s matching it’s a Miracle…lol
Im not saying blackAF had an issue, It was just an example for reference to how I think we should be able to pass the ID in to the folder name.
We should be able to make any naming conventions we want if we know the IDs
Good Luck to ya on that one.
You can continue to battle.
I’m gonna name my stuff in accordance with the instruction manual - and watch TV, instead of playing around with the media.
I mean you can name it whatever you want now, but tvdb changes ■■■■ every other day maybe today its #blackAF, tomorrow its #backAF (2020) because there now blackAF in 2021. So now if if I make a new plex instance I have to “hope” it can figure it out, where as if I can tell Plex - Hey I know the ID for this already its xxxx, please dont waste time figuring it out. This now fixes lots of things as titles change (Money Hesit, The New Pope are a couple examples).
The majority of things work fine with sonarr normal naming But it also tells me the ID that I could put on the folder. Hence why I was the plex developer not yourself since you cant do anything for me lol.
If Sonarr can go get the ID# - you might want to tell it to get the Show Name while it’s there.
We’ve been right where you want to go.
Plex once tried to be all things to everybody. They thought they could develop some magic potion that would work with any old name you wanted, but all they ended up doing was making is ALL Fix Match 50% of the time.
Personally I like this new tact - name your files right and forget about it. That’s the way it should be.
Make that Feature Request.
I’m sure as soon as Plex sees that one, they’ll be all over it.
my tv shows will always have the (year) because I want no ambiguity and by god if I have to manually match then so be it, but I am in the camp to have this ‘fixed’.
the thread @ Match Failures documents a bunch of other examples.
My sentiments exactly.
You two can keep fixing match… here comes Phil - You three can keep fixing match. When ‘the machine’ gets smart enough to make me Fix Match for a correctly named item, we’ll be right where you guys want to be.
I’ll hate it, but I’m in the Filebot Camp. In the FileBot Camp we name things they way the database names them and then watch 'em.
What’s ironic is that the Plex DVR always places the release year in the folder and file names. It’s moot since the metadata isn’t scraped from TVDB or TMDB during assimilation any longer, but I still find it interesting. It’s almost as if someone realized that that is the objectively more correct way to handle naming.
And something else which is interesting is with proper naming, and including the year, the parsing logic the agent uses breaks it down to show name, season, episode, and release year correctly; at least according to the logging produced. This is even in the cases of a failed match. So the agent is already breaking the naming down into its constituent parts before attempting the match.
I’m not complaining however. I’m perfectly happy with fixing incorrect matches if and when they arise.
It’s also interesting to note that not that long ago (pre-TVDB-Mushroom Cloud/New TVDB) we all had to Fix Match at an uncomfortable frequency and when you went to TVDB to complain about it they said:
“Plex knows how to work the API. When they work it that way it’ll work as expected” - and that’s the SAME THING we tell people when they can’t name their files properly.
So long as we ALL don’t go back to a 40% (+/-) match failure rate among perfectly named files - I don’t care much what happens. When/If Plex begins vomiting on correct file names - I’m gonna be pissed.
another
Mrs. America (2020)
