I also have this problem with some TV seasons taking on new erroneous data, such as deleting my data and re-populating the General, Tags, Poster and Background pages with false data and pictures, e.g. one of my TV series became a Japanese (or South Korean) TV series called “19”.
This problem was particularly rough in the early days of my using PMS ver. 0.9x with my Netgear RNDuoV2 server (approx. 13 years ago). However, I solved this problem, back then, by using a free Video.Tag utility, which unfortunately does not (completely) work for PMS ver. 1.4x onward.
Anyway, I am now experimenting by using IMDB references, along with still using the Video.Tag utility, to see if I can curb PMS’s wayward behaviour.
My experiment is as follows:-
My main directory is called “TV Show” followed by a subsequent folder/directory with the series name, e.g. Series-Name - Season 1 (2021) {imdb-tt1xxxxxx9}. I then place each tagged episode (up to the full season) under this folder/directory, so everything looks like the following:-
So far so good, this iteration of my database entries seems to work but I will need to use this system for a month or two to insure that the auto erroneous data entry problem has been cured.
You said “Plex uses TMDB & TVDB IDs for matching TV shows, not IMDB.” However, I had read in another post in this forum that Plex uses all three databases, i.e. TMDB, TVDB and IMDB, and that this usage was undocumented.
Mind you, it was also this post where I found out how to retrieve and format the IMDB’s TV shows identification numbers and show how the Plex system could use them.
However, it will take time to see if my new database entry method stabilises and retains the TV shows data I enter or if I will continue to get my correct data overwritten by auto-erroneous (Japanese/South Korean) data.
I’ll report back in the next couple of weeks to let you know how I get on.
Do you have a link? Maybe Plex need to update their docs.
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) {tmdb-123456} or ShowName (2020) {tvdb-123456}, where 123456 is the show ID. An example can be found at the end of the article.
At the moment, I am using the show ID, in curly brackets, in the following manner:
ShowName - Season X (2025) {imdb-tt12345678}
where “X” is any number, (2025) is any year and 12345678 is any IMDB show ID.
And I can honestly say that so far, using my method, all my TV data seem to have stabilised and Plex has stopped overwriting my TV Shows with erroneous data and false posters. But I will admit, I have only been using “my method” for a short time, a matter of two weeks, and to insure everything is working as it should will take a few more weeks.
As for the post that led me to start using IMDB ID’s, I will post a link to it as soon as I can find it again.
As a tip it suggests searching “imdb-tt[insert id]” to match a specific title if keyword search does not bringing up the result (didn’t work in my case)
There are a couple of neat tricks you can use to help with matching.
When in a Movie library, you can enter the IMDB ID in the title and search for that. For instance, the IMDb entry for “Brave” is http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1217209/. If you enter imdb-tt1217209 as the search term, it will search for that exact movie to try to match.
You are indeed right, my data entry method does indeed use the IMDB ID as part of my top level Directory/Folder name, e.g. SeriesName - Season 1 (2021) {imdb-tt1xxxxxx9}.
And the individual episodes, in the Directory/Folder, are not identified by using IMDB IDs but by using a tagging utility, which I have been using for more than 12 or so years, called VideoTag (which may no longer be available).
Anyway, whether by accident or design, I now find that this Plex data entry method works very well for me (so far). My entries seem to be stabilised, i.e. no more auto-entry of false data, my individual shows data and pictures provided by my tagging utility most of the time go into the correct fields.
I can’t recommend my method for everyone but it does work for me and does, above all, solve the erroneous auto-data entry problem, which has always been around for the 12+ years I’ve been using Plex.
(Old Geezer) UK Bob
PS. I’ve been unable to find the post that led me to use IMDB show IDs but I’ll keep looking.
If you are using the “Plex TV Series” agent, you can optionally include the TMDB, TVDB, or IMDb show ID in the folder name to improve matching. If you choose to do that, it must be inside curly braces: ShowName (2020) {tmdb-123456}, ShowName (2020) {tmdb-123456}, or ShowName (2020) {imdb-123456}, where 123456 is the show ID. An example can be found at the end of the article.
