I am perhaps not the usual user, but I want to have an option to simply disable all metadata seeking on my plex server. Why is this not an option? Is there a way to accomplish this with the current distro without spelunking too much?
:o
Thanks!
Just make a section with personal media agent, or use the home movies option in the web manager 
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I assume that could be used for music or any file type, right? Would the folders have to be re-scanned, or can attributes just be changed somehow?
There are Personal Media agents for all section types. You’ll need to make a new section with that agent.
i had to disable internet access of plex with firewall to prevent metadata, the solition mentioned here was not working
i had to disable internet access of plex with firewall to prevent metadata, the solition mentioned here was not working
This will also work..... But the solution that Elan proposed DOES INDEED WORK, perhaps you didn't set the parameters to use personal metadata in the advanced option when creating the section?.
I have just recently downloaded and installed Plex, and when I was creating libraries using Personal Media agents last night, it attempted to get metadata for my files. Because my files don't match up with anything in the wild, it generally ended badly.
FWIW I just noticed that using the "Plex Video Files" scanner and "Personal Media" for the agent didn't work until I created a NEW library in Plex and moved all my videos over there. So maybe where I had them originally was setup for a different type of scanner/agent combo and for whatever reason it was ignoring all my attempts to change the scanner/agent combo. But creating a new section seems to finally work ... now all my personal video clips aren't being incorrectly matched to Holllywood movies.
So... I would like to have an Agent that used TVDB (like usual) but it can fall back to "personal media" style agent and put the video with just the normal name file without metadata in the case it isn't found in TVDB for whatever reason.
That would be a much more "elegant failure" system than the actual "If I can't match it it doesn't even appear on Plex and you can't watch it MUAH-HAH-HAH!". In fact it make so much sense I imagine someone has already done it?? Is that the case?
So... I would like to have an Agent that used TVDB (like usual) but it can fall back to "personal media" style agent and put the video with just the normal name file without metadata in the case it isn't found in TVDB for whatever reason.
That would be a much more "elegant failure" system than the actual "If I can't match it it doesn't even appear on Plex and you can't watch it MUAH-HAH-HAH!". In fact it make so much sense I imagine someone has already done it?? Is that the case?
Short Answer
In Settings>Server>Agents you can uncheck all the agents in all the section types except Personal Media Assets which would instruct Plex to never reach out over the net for Metadata of any kind (you will still prolly see meta data checks in logs but note they will state localhost as this is Plex checking it's own local Meta DB which holds things like the titles, posters etc. you provide locally yourself). Be Sure to edit the Section itself and click the Advanced menu on left hand of section pop-up to set it to Personal Media, and that should do it.
This is More Detailed Information on how to manipulate Agents and Meta Harvesting in general for those who may find it useful
First a little on how the basic Plex Metadata usage goes
[I use latest xUbuntu release to run my Plex server [which is the newest PlexPass version of Plex Media Server]] Under settings>Server>Agents you click TV Shows and you get a list of agents used for any TV Show Agent section [Each Agent gets it's own section as the Primary scanner with the others listed so you can use multiple agents, this is giving you the ability to set your Agent's priority and whether or not to use it]. Using your mouse to click and drag the agents in the lists around in to the order you wish to use. Using The TVDB as an example if you set TVDB first and then Local Media Assets second Plex would check online first and then check any locally provided posters, subs, etc. you place with your media if metadata [or parts of] were not found online. Of course, just reverse that if you would rather Plex use what info / assets you have provided locally FIRST and only check online to fill in any missing info it can (if you have any other agents enabled. If you uncheck them in the Agent settings then they are skipped altogether for the section type(s) in which you unchecked them for). Plex may still appear to check for metadata online even if you disabled all web based metadata providers as your Plex will keep a LOCAL DB itself of what you have manually entered info for so it can check it's own local DB when you add new stuff [at least how my logs appear to me (shows a meta check to localhost's Plex DB)]. Of course, if you choose TheTVDB option it is mandatory that the TVDB stay enabled so the check would be greyed out if you did not want to use it at all you would just not use any Agent that had an online provider set as the primary named Agent. You would choose the Personal Media Scanner option and inside the Agent settings for that one you can un-check The TVDB and move it to the bottom of the list. Plex uses Agents in the order they are listed from top to bottom, so if multiple Agents were to provide data for the same media / field then the top-most Agent in the settings list that found the piece of data would take priority and that data be used for your media listing. For instance, if The TVDB has the Title but your Personal Assets included say the Poster then what would happen is Plex would use the title it scraped from The TVDB, but use your locally saved poster as the primary displayed poster. You could still go to the posters for that media and Plex would list the posters found from your source first and TVDB after allowing you to still choose which one you prefer if it found one you liked but had not provided locally. If you did not like the title it scraped you can just click the pencil icon and Manually type (or copy/paste) whatever title you preferred. Soo long as you left the title field locked [orange colored lock icon next to field = locked grey = unlocked] even if you refreshed the section 1,000 times the title would remain what you specified without changing while any other data not locked in could and would change if any changes were made to the respective online DB.
(sorry if any of this seems redundant just trying to be thorough and clear in case anyone reading this at some other point finds this useful)
To Change Default scanner after section created: from Main page click pencil to right of section you wish to change when you hover the mouse over it. Then when pop-up window appears click advanced menu on left hand side of pop-up and note Default Scanner Agent Dropdown. Just click this and choose which scanner or Agent you wish to use [see settings>server>Agents to modify the order within each agent category (ie. you wish to use TheTVDB but want Plex to use local data you provide first BEFORE moving on to filling in the gaps with theTVDB.
Pro Tips for Settings>Server>Agents: DON'T FORGET to click the cogwheel icons found to the right to some of the Agents. Items like Localized Titles, Adult Content being allowed, etc. usually add that extra polish that folks are missing. Big one for scraping subtitles: is if you do not sign up for free account with the subtitle scraper site (http://opensubtitles.org), and provide this account to Plex in the subtitle meta agent settings along with selecting the languages (you can choose up to 2 separate languages if needed) the subtitle agent will not run and will not download subs and most people wonder why :-) ) and it is totally free to grab an account].
[I don't think the below applies to you directly, but throwing this in there as it applies and may help another who finds this forum post]
If it is media that is well known and should be found on a metadata site and it is just not being matched or found automatically for you on your Plex server: You can always check with the metadata sites themselves. The TVDB is here: https://thetvdb.com and The Movie DB is here: https://www.themoviedb.org/ . Both have nice Web GUI interfaces for searching, browsing, and even submitting new entries to their respective DBs. Usually things like you may not be using the same name and/or date can happen as the Metadata site's are community run and the info there is all generally submitted and curated by people in their spare time. If you check the metadata site directly you can rename any media files manually so they match what the meta site has. After renaming any files be sure to run another Update Library scan for the section the media is in which should fix the issue for you without having to enter anything in to Plex. If it is not found on metadata sites, or if it is personal media that would not be listed online you can still even manually enter any data including posters you wish to use [Google Image Search is great for harvesting any missing or different Posters if you don't like or there is not a poster already for the media you are wishing to use].
To Manually Enter Info for ANY Media in ANY section (using search): You can use same 3 dots icon from inside any Media detail page [not the poster] by clicking the 3 dots on left hand menu which opens a small menu with several options. In the small menu you will find the Fix Incorrect Match option. Clicking this will bring up a pop-up window that will start an auto search for you. You can then click Search Options if the auto search does not find the correct match and list it for you automagically. Pro Tip: I find if I leave off the year or shorten a name to the most unique words it can help [the meta sites are a community effort of people donating free time mostly so sometimes they may choose a different name or way of listing the media than you may have chosen (ie National Geographic Explorer is not National Geographic: Explorer as Nat Geo lists it it is just Explorer in thetvdb's DB), or in some cases it may even be wrong (when compared to others like IMDB which has happened to me, but very rare and mostly centers around release date years in movies].
To Manually Enter Info for ANY Media in ANY section (manually typing it in): You can also still manually enter any info in to any media you wish even if section set to whatever other agent type you just click the pencil icon for the associated media entry and click in each field you wish to add info for after clicking the Pencil icon. As you manually enter in any info the lock icon next to any fields you will change should go Orange meaning Plex is locking in your changes so no Meta data scans will override the info you manually entered (you can click the lock if you wish for it to be unlocked (turns back to a grey lock) and subject to possible future changes if any found on subsequent media scans).
If Plex gave an incorrect match and you are not sure what the media even is or you want to verify media information like bitrate audio track type etc. click the 3 dots icon on left hand menu in media detail [or also when hovering over a poster where the Pencil, Play, and 3 dot icons are along the bottom]. Once clicked a small menu should appear and Info is 3rd bottom-most menu option on this small menu. Clicking Info will pop-up a window which gives you the exact file name/location as Plex sees it (along with media info like audio track type, bitrates, file size, etc.).
Hope that helps
Thanks for the answer.
It's a bit late, in these days I learned a bit more the quirks of Plex. Mi issue in particular was the tv sections (even following the known naming conventions in the help section). In the movie sections, if you add some unknown video (say, a home video), it appears. Or if a film didn't take the metadata I can try to fix it with "fix incorrect association". It isn't the case with the TV scanner/agent, where â– â– â– â– doesn't appear if you don't follow all the steps properly. the tv system is more stringent, and even more problematic: if something doesn't appear I can't try to fix with the "fix incorrect association" system.
So I was having problems with some specials that appeared in the thetvdb.com, even doing the correct folders and assigning the same names to the files. A google search made me learn that it was a common problem with that specific episodes in Plex because the naming totally changes. I also didn't understand that for the tv series, even if you have a well named episode, it needs a proper subfolders (it's normal for me to have 3-4 eps in the tvseries root folder, even if most of the series live in a subfolder there). As I say, more stringent. Some days later, I also learned how to force the specials to take the correct metadata using the number from thetvdb.com
@realpariah said:
Turin Turambar wrote on June 30 2014, 6:25 PM: »So… I would like to have an Agent that used TVDB (like usual) but it can fall back to “personal media” style agent and put the video with just the normal name file without metadata in the case it isn’t found in TVDB for whatever reason.
That would be a much more “elegant failure” system than the actual “If I can’t match it it doesn’t even appear on Plex and you can’t watch it MUAH-HAH-HAH!”. In fact it make so much sense I imagine someone has already done it?? Is that the case?
Short Answer
In Settings>Server>Agents you can uncheck all the agents in all the section types except Personal Media Assets which would instruct Plex to never reach out over the net for Metadata of any kind (you will still prolly see meta data checks in logs but note they will state localhost as this is Plex checking it’s own local Meta DB which holds things like the titles, posters etc. you provide locally yourself). Be Sure to edit the Section itself and click the Advanced menu on left hand of section pop-up to set it to Personal Media, and that should do it.
This is More Detailed Information on how to manipulate Agents and Meta Harvesting in general for those who may find it useful
First a little on how the basic Plex Metadata usage goes
[I use latest xUbuntu release to run my Plex server [which is the newest PlexPass version of Plex Media Server]] Under settings>Server>Agents you click TV Shows and you get a list of agents used for any TV Show Agent section [Each Agent gets it’s own section as the Primary scanner with the others listed so you can use multiple agents, this is giving you the ability to set your Agent’s priority and whether or not to use it]. Using your mouse to click and drag the agents in the lists around in to the order you wish to use. Using The TVDB as an example if you set TVDB first and then Local Media Assets second Plex would check online first and then check any locally provided posters, subs, etc. you place with your media if metadata [or parts of] were not found online. Of course, just reverse that if you would rather Plex use what info / assets you have provided locally FIRST and only check online to fill in any missing info it can (if you have any other agents enabled. If you uncheck them in the Agent settings then they are skipped altogether for the section type(s) in which you unchecked them for). Plex may still appear to check for metadata online even if you disabled all web based metadata providers as your Plex will keep a LOCAL DB itself of what you have manually entered info for so it can check it’s own local DB when you add new stuff [at least how my logs appear to me (shows a meta check to localhost’s Plex DB)]. Of course, if you choose TheTVDB option it is mandatory that the TVDB stay enabled so the check would be greyed out if you did not want to use it at all you would just not use any Agent that had an online provider set as the primary named Agent. You would choose the Personal Media Scanner option and inside the Agent settings for that one you can un-check The TVDB and move it to the bottom of the list. Plex uses Agents in the order they are listed from top to bottom, so if multiple Agents were to provide data for the same media / field then the top-most Agent in the settings list that found the piece of data would take priority and that data be used for your media listing. For instance, if The TVDB has the Title but your Personal Assets included say the Poster then what would happen is Plex would use the title it scraped from The TVDB, but use your locally saved poster as the primary displayed poster. You could still go to the posters for that media and Plex would list the posters found from your source first and TVDB after allowing you to still choose which one you prefer if it found one you liked but had not provided locally. If you did not like the title it scraped you can just click the pencil icon and Manually type (or copy/paste) whatever title you preferred. Soo long as you left the title field locked [orange colored lock icon next to field = locked grey = unlocked] even if you refreshed the section 1,000 times the title would remain what you specified without changing while any other data not locked in could and would change if any changes were made to the respective online DB.
(sorry if any of this seems redundant just trying to be thorough and clear in case anyone reading this at some other point finds this useful)
To Change Default scanner after section created: from Main page click pencil to right of section you wish to change when you hover the mouse over it. Then when pop-up window appears click advanced menu on left hand side of pop-up and note Default Scanner Agent Dropdown. Just click this and choose which scanner or Agent you wish to use [see settings>server>Agents to modify the order within each agent category (ie. you wish to use TheTVDB but want Plex to use local data you provide first BEFORE moving on to filling in the gaps with theTVDB.
Pro Tips for Settings>Server>Agents: DON’T FORGET to click the cogwheel icons found to the right to some of the Agents. Items like Localized Titles, Adult Content being allowed, etc. usually add that extra polish that folks are missing. Big one for scraping subtitles: is if you do not sign up for free account with the subtitle scraper site (http://opensubtitles.org), and provide this account to Plex in the subtitle meta agent settings along with selecting the languages (you can choose up to 2 separate languages if needed) the subtitle agent will not run and will not download subs and most people wonder why
) and it is totally free to grab an account].
[I don’t think the below applies to you directly, but throwing this in there as it applies and may help another who finds this forum post]
If it is media that is well known and should be found on a metadata site and it is just not being matched or found automatically for you on your Plex server: You can always check with the metadata sites themselves. The TVDB is here: https://thetvdb.com and The Movie DB is here: https://www.themoviedb.org/ . Both have nice Web GUI interfaces for searching, browsing, and even submitting new entries to their respective DBs. Usually things like you may not be using the same name and/or date can happen as the Metadata site’s are community run and the info there is all generally submitted and curated by people in their spare time. If you check the metadata site directly you can rename any media files manually so they match what the meta site has. After renaming any files be sure to run another Update Library scan for the section the media is in which should fix the issue for you without having to enter anything in to Plex. If it is not found on metadata sites, or if it is personal media that would not be listed online you can still even manually enter any data including posters you wish to use [Google Image Search is great for harvesting any missing or different Posters if you don’t like or there is not a poster already for the media you are wishing to use].
To Manually Enter Info for ANY Media in ANY section (using search): You can use same 3 dots icon from inside any Media detail page [not the poster] by clicking the 3 dots on left hand menu which opens a small menu with several options. In the small menu you will find the Fix Incorrect Match option. Clicking this will bring up a pop-up window that will start an auto search for you. You can then click Search Options if the auto search does not find the correct match and list it for you automagically. Pro Tip: I find if I leave off the year or shorten a name to the most unique words it can help [the meta sites are a community effort of people donating free time mostly so sometimes they may choose a different name or way of listing the media than you may have chosen (ie National Geographic Explorer is not National Geographic: Explorer as Nat Geo lists it it is just Explorer in thetvdb’s DB), or in some cases it may even be wrong (when compared to others like IMDB which has happened to me, but very rare and mostly centers around release date years in movies].
To Manually Enter Info for ANY Media in ANY section (manually typing it in): You can also still manually enter any info in to any media you wish even if section set to whatever other agent type you just click the pencil icon for the associated media entry and click in each field you wish to add info for after clicking the Pencil icon. As you manually enter in any info the lock icon next to any fields you will change should go Orange meaning Plex is locking in your changes so no Meta data scans will override the info you manually entered (you can click the lock if you wish for it to be unlocked (turns back to a grey lock) and subject to possible future changes if any found on subsequent media scans).
If Plex gave an incorrect match and you are not sure what the media even is or you want to verify media information like bitrate audio track type etc. click the 3 dots icon on left hand menu in media detail [or also when hovering over a poster where the Pencil, Play, and 3 dot icons are along the bottom]. Once clicked a small menu should appear and Info is 3rd bottom-most menu option on this small menu. Clicking Info will pop-up a window which gives you the exact file name/location as Plex sees it (along with media info like audio track type, bitrates, file size, etc.).
Hope that helps
I tried that but the checkmark for TheTVDB (or any of the default metadata agents) is greyed out.
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