Why does Plex show differences in synchronization speed with TMDB when fetching episode titles for different shows?
For example, both “Amazing Night” (Season 2, Episode 13) and “Back to Field” (Season 8, Episode 7) aired today at 12:00. Their episode titles were added to TMDB around the same time, and both episodes were originally created quite a while ago — one on October 18th and the other on October 3rd. The title updates for both happened almost simultaneously today.
However, Plex was able to fetch the episode title and poster for “Amazing Night” 2x13 now, while “Back to Field” 8x7 still cannot be scraped. The edit times on TMDB should differ by only a few hours at most. Why is one already available in Plex, while the other isn’t?
I’ve noticed many similar cases. I understand that it generally takes 1–3 days for data from TMDB to sync with Plex, but I’d like to know what causes this difference. I used to think it was due to different synchronization intervals, but now it seems that even edits made around the same time can appear in Plex at different speeds — some are available on the same day, while others may take four to seven days after the TMDB update to become available. What exactly causes this discrepancy?
For example, the final edit time for this episode was November 4th, while the other two episodes were last edited on November 7th. However, the ones edited on November 7th can already be fetched in Plex, while the one edited on November 4th still cannot be scraped.
What I mean is that, based on my observation, even when the edits on TMDB are made only a few minutes apart, the time it takes for those updates to sync to Plex can differ by several days. Why is that?
