I had assumed that metadata would be pulled from the source I chose for this setting, but that is not the case. That setting seems to control only the episode Title, but it does not control other properties like the episode Summary (that clearly comes from The Movie Database).
So the question is, where does Plex TV Series Agent pull metadata from? I found an older post that suggested (at least with legacy agents) the metadata is actually pulled from Plex hosted servers that sync the metadata from other sources (tvdb, tmdb, imdb, etc). But is it documented anywhere? I want to know 2 things:
Where is the metadata pulled from for individual fields (Title, Originally Available, Content Rating, Summary, Writers, Directors) and media (posters)?
Can this be controlled at all (without reverting to one of the legacy Scanner/Agents)? For instance, if I insert ids from tvdb/tmdb in my file/folder names, will it grab that metadata over the default? (I realize I can try this, but I’m hoping Plex folks know exactly how the new Agent works after developing and testing it.)
I am also using the new agent with thetvdb ordering selected. I have refreshed metadata, and my media files are named and organized per Plex standards.
Observation 1: Episode descriptions for early seasons of Nova don’t align to episode titles. This is simply bad data, and it only appears in tmdb; the same episodes in thetvdb have descriptions that match their titles. Given that both sources have complete episode titles and descriptions, the new Plex TV agent is displaying a clear preference for tmdb data over thetvdb data.
Observation 2: Very recent (like 1-2 days old) episodes of BBC Documentaries are misidentified relative to thetvdb. This series does not exist on tmdb, so perhaps this is a Plex-side caching issue.
Like most other longtime Plex users, all my TV libraries are numbered and managed per thetvdb. Despite my many frustrations with thetvdb, I’m in no rush to switch to tmdb if its data is as bad as what I’m seeing for Nova.
So, is there a way to tell the new Plex TV agent to prefer thetvdb data over tmdb?
When I change a library to TVDB from the new default agent I get the “upgrade” library notification on that library that I changed agent. Then EVERY LIBRARY gets run through the “upgrade” process (again), if I “upgrade”.
I’m also noticing issues recently where TV series that were being matched using the Plex TV Series Agent are no longer being matched. If I revert the TV library back to using the TVDB agent the shows metadata reappears correctly.
I also noticed, like the other user, that when I revert the library back to using TVDB as the agent I get the “Upgrade” notice and there doesn’t seem to be a way to disable this notification as far as I can see.
I’d prefer that the shows I add have the appropriate metadata applied as opposed to TV shows just being listed as Episode 1, Episode 2, etc.
Where is Plex TV Series Agent sourcing its metadata from and why would it stop matching on a TV series that was being matched correctly?
The “workaround” works temporarily. After I added another season to the same TV series the metadata would not refresh for the new season. Flipping the library back to using TVDB agent and it picked it up immediately.
Whatever metadata service Plex is using for their Plex TV series agent doesn’t appear to be very robust or there’s a bug with the Plex TV series agent itself.
Just for reference, the Plex Agent uses a mix of data from TMDB, TVDB and IMDB (and as you’ve seen there’s a preference to TMDB - a number of folks are a bit perturbed with TVDB and have swapped over including Trakt.tv). They are still getting some of their data sorted out.
The Plex Agent has a cache that can take a few days to update depending on the series so brand new episodes that are up to date at TMDB might not update in Plex for a day. What If… for example doesn’t have new episode titles available until it airs so will show TBD for a day or so.
You can sometimes force a match\pull by using the {tvdb-####} naming trick to force it to match to TVDB instead of TMDB but I don’t know how that impacts the specific metadata it pulls.
TMDB allows regular user edits compared to TVDB which had admin controlled info. The new Ducktales and Bravest Warriors for example had a bunch of missing info or artwork and I was able to update it myself. They have a pretty good guide\reference for the work so if something isn’t quite right at TMDB you can fix it. TMDB Contributions Info: Welcome to the Contribution Bible — The Movie Database (TMDB)
I haven’t had much trouble with TV Show matching but I mostly have newer or common shows. I’ve had some hiccups with shows that weren’t up to date at TMDB but comparing between IMDB and TMDB to get right names\shows\seasons (and trakt.tv can help there too) can help get it sorted sometimes.
No, I am not sure actually. I was under the impression that at TVDB the admins often locked data down quite a bit and it was sometimes difficult to update or change things compared to TMDB which was presented as more openly community sourced (for good or bad). I believe some discussions at various sites mentioned TVDB being restrictive and that’s one reason for those sites switching to TMDB. Entirely personal experience and anecdotal from other’s statements. Honestly, TVDB was rarely “wrong” so didn’t feel much need - with the change to TMDB there was some additional community clean-up need for sure so I decided to make some efforts there when it impacted me directly. It is kinda fun.
I’ve had the {source-###} function work pretty reliably between TMDB, IMDB and TVDB so in cases where things aren’t matching it helps to dig into the specific shows in order to test it. Do you have screenshots\format details of your file org and naming for a show or shows that aren’t matching? That’s usually a good spot to start.
If it’s a bunch of shows a screenshot to show what your mismatches looks like can be helpful too sometimes as well as the log files (which can show errors for mismatches).
It might also be easier to start a new topic just for your specific experience - sometimes that can be helpful as well since forum topics are “support tickets” as well.
I added 3 missing shows and updated a shows title (not one I added) with no intervention from the admin’s on the TVDB site. The changes took effect immediately and Plex matched them all with the TVDB agent. No wait time.
Funny that before I had the add shows link, or knew what the heck I was doing, I contacted the admin’s, they sent me the add show link, and told me it was mine and the community’s responsibility to populate the data. It was so easy, 10 minutes later I added my first tv show and had the poster pop up on Plex.
I added all the shows to TMDB that were not matching with the new “Plex TV Series” agent.
They are all on TVDB (I added them) and they match perfectly fine when I switch to TVDB agent in the advanced library settings.
These are all recordings from my Channels DVR. I don’t plan to archive any of these tv shows. I delete them as I watch them. Since they are added and deleted daily, they need to automatically match, or be as simple as possible. They are shows like The Herd with Colin Cowherd and the local news at 6pm and 11. That is a lot of episodes.
I don’t care about the episode information, only the Title, poster, description and air date.
I think IMDB only matches episodes? The advantage of TVDB is no episodes are needed to make a series match. I don’t need to add each episode of the nightly news for a match which is important the way I use Plex to simply play my DVR recordings.
Good news is that the first show I added yesterday to TMDB, The Herd, matched automatically. It didn’t need to match an episode yet the series still matched and added the posters, actors description, ect.
