[brokenangel]

I am having one issue that I cannot solve with the TMDB scraper: One specific episode of one specific show will not show up in my library. I suspect the problem is actually on TMDB's end, but I want to get more input.

The series in question is Endeavour (2013). The problem is the pilot, Season 0, Episode 1. I suspect TMDB is the problem because the episode on that page actually hyperlinks to Season 1, Episode 1 on the site. Browsing the debug log, which I really have no particular knowledge of, makes it look like this re-direct is making its way through the scraper, both 0x1 and 1x1 show up to Kodi as 1x1, and that there is no 0x1 as far as Kodi is concerned. Since my file is in the Season 0 directory and named S00E01, Kodi skips over it. It does find the actual 1x01 in the Season 1 directory, with the S01E01 name, and gives it the correct title. Is that what's happening here? If so, is there anything I can do either here or at TMDB's end?

My logfile is here.

This did not work using TMDB:

TV\Endeavour (2013)\Endeavour.s00e01.mkv
TV\Endeavour (2013)\Endeavour.(2013).s00e01.mkv

This did using TVDB as the scraper:

TV\Endeavour (2013)\Endeavour.(2013).s00e01.mkv

The season 0 you are using; I'm not sure if that is correct. As above, when the file is simply in the root TV series dir, it did scrape. But none of my content is placed in season directories, so I can't be certain if both methods are okay, or only mine is and there is something wrong with the actual scraping of this file.

[macomeau]

This did not work using TMDB:

TV\Endeavour (2013)\Endeavour.s00e01.mkv
TV\Endeavour (2013)\Endeavour.(2013).s00e01.mkv

This did using TVDB as the scraper:

TV\Endeavour (2013)\Endeavour.(2013).s00e01.mkv

The season 0 you are using; I'm not sure if that is correct. As above, when the file is simply in the root TV series dir, it did scrape. But none of my content is placed in season directories, so I can't be certain if both methods are okay, or only mine is and there is something wrong with the actual scraping of this file.

Yeah, I've tried a lot of variations of filenames and directory structures. I've been fiddling with it for months, on and off. Season 0 is what it's called in the TMDB back-end, though I did also try calling it Specials and Series 0.

I did what Karellen suggested: I reported the URL error on TMDB, but for now I'm scraping that particular show with TVDB instead.

[pkscout]

This did not work using TMDB:

TV\Endeavour (2013)\Endeavour.s00e01.mkv
TV\Endeavour (2013)\Endeavour.(2013).s00e01.mkv

This did using TVDB as the scraper:

TV\Endeavour (2013)\Endeavour.(2013).s00e01.mkv

The season 0 you are using; I'm not sure if that is correct. As above, when the file is simply in the root TV series dir, it did scrape. But none of my content is placed in season directories, so I can't be certain if both methods are okay, or only mine is and there is something wrong with the actual scraping of this file.

Yeah, I've tried a lot of variations of filenames and directory structures. I've been fiddling with it for months, on and off. Season 0 is what it's called in the TMDB back-end, though I did also try calling it Specials and Series 0.

I did what Karellen suggested: I reported the URL error on TMDB, but for now I'm scraping that particular show with TVDB instead.

That definitely looks like a data error at TMDb. I just took a look at what's returned by the API when you request the episodes of season 0 of Endeavor, and the episode that is returned has the season set as 1 and the episode set as 1. That's not right and is almost certainly causing the scraper to fail to find a match (I know the Python version of the TMDb scraper would definitely fail in this case too).

[ramis52]

Hi,

i just switched over from thetvdb to tmdb scraper. is there any option in tmdb scraper to set a fallback language like in ttvb scraper? Maybe it is already set in the Background to en-us when there are no Information in the prefered Language available.
My question is because if i set the Language to de-de and the scraper didnt find any Translation for German, it will add the Plot in english. thats great But the Title of the Episode is Episode1 Episode2. Would be great if the Title will then Fallback to English too instead of adding it as Episode1 episode2 and so on. Dunno if its a bug or if its a fail on my side

regards
r

[Karellen]

@ramis52

It automatically falls back to English. Can you provide the link to the tv show that is giving you the problem.

[Karellen]

@ramis52

I have confirmed your problem and submitted a bug report for you... https://github.com/xbmc/repo-scrapers/issues/225

= edit =
Further investigation reveals this is a problem at TheMovieDB which is returning the wrong data.

[ramis52]

@ramis52

I have confirmed your problem and submitted a bug report for you... https://github.com/xbmc/repo-scrapers/issues/225

= edit =
Further investigation reveals this is a problem at TheMovieDB which is returning the wrong data.

thanks for opening a bug report. Hope this will get fixed

[pkscout]

@ramis52

I have confirmed your problem and submitted a bug report for you... https://github.com/xbmc/repo-scrapers/issues/225

= edit =
Further investigation reveals this is a problem at TheMovieDB which is returning the wrong data.

thanks for opening a bug report. Hope this will get fixed

I thought I'd followup briefly on this. It appears that if you request a language that doesn't have a translation on TMDb that the TMDb API returns either nothing (for things like plots) or generic episode/season names. It's been like this from the beginning, but I guess either nobody reported an issue with the Kodi scraper or folks just quietly worked around it.  I'm looking at the new version of the TMDb TV Show scraper now to figure out what options we have, and none of them are all that awesome.  The leading idea right now is to request both the English version and the selected language version of every show/season/episode and then somehow try and merge them. That means doubling the number of calls to TMDb (which is going to slow things down) and results that could look random. Depending on the state of the translation at TMDb, you could end up with a show title in your language, but the plot in English, and then Episode names in English and maybe plots in your language, or maybe English. You'll never really know, and that's what I don't like.

I can make this suggestion for now (which will work for the current scraper and the new one). If you go to your sources and then find the problematic show, you can use the content menu to select the option that says CHANGE CONTENT. You can then change the settings for the scraper to use English as the default language just for that show. This also isn't ideal if you've got a bunch of problematic shows, but at least you'll get everything for sure in one language for that show.

[ramis52]

thanks for your suggestions pkscout. Thats what iam doing right now. Set the problematic Shows to English.

"Depending on the state of the translation at TMDb, you could end up with a show title in your language, but the plot in English, and then Episode names in English and maybe plots in your language, or maybe English. You'll never really know, and that's what I don't like."

This would be my preferred solution I know its not optimal because of the doubled api calls. But this is much better than the generic Episode names which tmdb returns at the moment. Maybe they add a fallback function in the future. For now, setting a lot of Problematic Shows to English is ok for me.

[K0D1User1138]

Yep, that is one way of adding extra actors.

Another way is to add the following to the nfo file and fill in the values as shown. A bit more tedious if trying to add lots of actors.

xml:
    <actor>

        <name>Harrison Ford</name>

        <role>Han Solo</role>

        <order>0</order>

        <thumb>http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/7CcoVFTogQgex2kJkXKMe8qHZrC.jpg</thumb>

    </actor>

If there is no temporary workaround found then I will just be patient. Hopefully, it will be fixed in the next version of TheMovieDB TV Show scraper in KODI 19.

Yep, that is all you can do for now. Scrapers are in a state of limbo because XML is being phased out for Python scrapers, so no more XML scraper updates, but nobody has completed a working python scraper for tv shows yet.

I’ve been trying to research TV scrapers that will properly scrape each episode with the credited cast per episode and without a “main cast” list the populates in every single episode. For example, Black Mirror will often scrape with certain actors from a few episodes but not each episode with only the cast for the episode and there is almost zero cast/character overlap in this series.

Reading the posts up to this points ami to understand that scrapers are changing the way they operate and as yet are not functioning in the new method?

Any idea if this new method will accomplish what I am trying to do?

Between TMDB and TTVDB neither seem to have proper episode cast lists where as IMDb does. There is no IMDb TV show scraper?

[Karellen]

There is no IMDb TV show scraper?

No. IMDB do not have an API and scraping tv shows is more complex than scraping a movie.

Reading the posts up to this points ami to understand that scrapers are changing the way they operate and as yet are not functioning in the new method?

No. As you have already noticed a lot of episodes don't have guest cast details entered. If we were to scrape episode cast only, then most times it would be blank, and most people would complain about that, rather than complain about having series cast.

You can test the new tv show scraper. Download and install it from the official repo in Kodi. Its called TMDB TV Shows. I think with this one, guest cast are listed first?

[K0D1User1138]

There is no IMDb TV show scraper?

No. IMDB do not have an API and scraping tv shows is more complex than scraping a movie.

Reading the posts up to this points ami to understand that scrapers are changing the way they operate and as yet are not functioning in the new method?

No. As you have already noticed a lot of episodes don't have guest cast details entered. If we were to scrape episode cast only, then most times it would be blank, and most people would complain about that, rather than complain about having series cast.

You can test the new tv show scraper. Download and install it from the official repo in Kodi. Its called TMDB TV Shows. I think with this one, guest cast are listed first?

It’s all very much as I thought. And unfortunate that neither TTVDB nor TMDB use proper episode cast lists the way IMBd does. TV shows end up with poor cast lists and lots of errors. Wonder why either site does proper episode casts. Especially for series where the cat changes constantly.

[olympia]

You can always contribute to make it better and more proper. Are you doing that?

[K0D1User1138]

You can always contribute to make it better and more proper. Are you doing that?

I can't contribute and make it more proper if the site is set up in a specific manner and are not open to changing. I've noticed over the past couple years the casts for TV show episodes getting worse and worse and digging into it lately now I understand why it's become that way. You now need to fully re-scrape a series, 10 years in, to get an "updated" main cast list or else you miss out. Fargo season 4 has zero overlapping cast with any of the previous 3 seasons but Chris Rock will not appear in the cast at all unless I do this and then he will be listed for S01E01 which he most certainly is not it. That is a fundamental flaw in the method of listing episode casts that both TMDB and TTVDB employ. IMDb lists Chris Rock in the episode cast list for only season 4 episodes, as he should be. It just makes more sense.

[CyberCodeDroid]

Yep, that is one way of adding extra actors.

Another way is to add the following to the nfo file and fill in the values as shown. A bit more tedious if trying to add lots of actors.

xml:
 <actor>

<name>Harrison Ford</name>

<role>Han Solo</role>

<order>0</order>

<thumb>http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/7CcoVFTogQgex2kJkXKMe8qHZrC.jpg</thumb>

</actor>

If there is no temporary workaround found then I will just be patient. Hopefully, it will be fixed in the next version of TheMovieDB TV Show scraper in KODI 19.

Yep, that is all you can do for now. Scrapers are in a state of limbo because XML is being phased out for Python scrapers, so no more XML scraper updates, but nobody has completed a working python scraper for tv shows yet.

I’ve been trying to research TV scrapers that will properly scrape each episode with the credited cast per episode and without a “main cast” list the populates in every single episode. For example, Black Mirror will often scrape with certain actors from a few episodes but not each episode with only the cast for the episode and there is almost zero cast/character overlap in this series.

Reading the posts up to this points ami to understand that scrapers are changing the way they operate and as yet are not functioning in the new method?

Any idea if this new method will accomplish what I am trying to do?

Between TMDB and TTVDB neither seem to have proper episode cast lists where as IMDb does. There is no IMDb TV show scraper?

This?
http://mirrors.kodi.tv/addons/leia/metad...viedb.org/