Trouble retrieving new metadata after updating online source

[danielg1976]

Server Version#: 1.25.7.5604
Player Version#: 4.69.1 (Plex Web on Chrome)

I have been wondering if I’m doing something wrong.

Occasionally, I have more esoteric items in my library, for movies or TV. I’ll go to themoviedb.org or thetvdb.com and make edits to add actors, update artwork, or add new shows altogether that aren’t in the databases.

But then I can’t get the metadata to update without doing some weird stuff I don’t think I should have to do. I’ll speak about my movies library as an example.

For my movies library, I am using “Plex Movie” Scanner, and “Plex Movie” Agent. I have “Use Local Assets” and “Prefer local metadata” checked. But I don’t usually tag my files or have local artwork.

I update something on themoviedb.org. In the latest case, I added actors to ‘themoviedb’, because there weren’t any listed at all for the movie, and I wanted to create a “smart collection” by actor that wasn’t catching this item.

After updating themoviedb, and waiting 5 or 10 minutes, I went to the show and did “refresh metadata”. Note, none of the fields were locked for this item. But I knew this wouldn’t work - it never does. And as usual, nothing updated at all.

I tried “fix match” but there were no other matches. I selected the correct one, but nothing happened.

I moved it out of the library, scanned the library, and it was deleted. I then emptied the trash for the library. I moved the movie file back in, scanned the library, and got the old metadata back. No actors listed for the movie still. Sigh. I WANT the new agent to work, I really do!

So I did what I always do to finally get the latest metadata from “The Movie Database”. I changed the library agent to “The Movie Database” agent. I removed the file again, scanned and watched it get deleted, then emptied trash, added it back, scanned files, and watched it find the movie again. This time, it got the new metadata! The actors show up, and now the movie shows up in my smart collection like I wanted.

I always change back to “Plex Movie” agent after this rigmarole so I won’t get nagged about upgrading.

So “The Movie Database” agent might be old (as soon as I switch to it the “Upgrade” option pops up on my library and all that)- but it works, even though it is slower, but I’m not adding movies all day so speed isn’t my concern. The “Plex Movie” agent doesn’t seem to work for this case.

I’ve checked to see if it is getting metadata from somewhere else, but no other source (IMDB and The TVDB) has metadata on this item, so I know it originally got it from TheMovieDB, it just isn’t updating it when it changes.

Any thoughts or advice? I have a workaround but obviously this isn’t how it should work. Plus I’m scared one day that a server update will take away “The Movie Database” agent then I’ll be screwed

[dbirch]

When updating sources for the new Plex scanners you need to wait a minimum of 48-72 hours for the data to catch up. With the new scanners Plex uses their own in-house database that pulls from both the TVBD and the movie DB. Changes from either site propagate to the users (Us) within 2-3 days normally. Im fairy certain they did that to take the load off these websites servers, before complaints for excessive use started.

[danielg1976]

Really? Well that would explain it perfectly. I’ve always been too impatient to wait so I’m always trying to update with my changes within the hour.

I’ll have to try out waiting a few days. Thanks!

I was also expecting someone to say I had to uncheck boxes about local assets/metadata … that seems a common answer to metadata problems too. But nothing will fix the data just not being available yet to the agent.