How do I lock the external IDs for a TV show?

[TugboatBill 16]

I tried manually entering them but once I tell it to refresh the metadata it changes them to the wrong show and all the new metadata is bad.

I did try using the Identify - selected the correct show, and it then went ahead and downloaded the wrong show. 

The show is "The Rookie"  and it keeps changing it to "The Rookie: Feds"

Edited June 30, 2025 by TugboatBill

[Neminem 1518]

Try adding year and tvdbid to your folders

The Rookie - Feds (2022) [TvdbId=420105]

The Rookie (2018) [TvdbId=350665]

The Rookie (2018) [TvdbId=465258]

TV Naming

Edited June 30, 2025 by Neminem

[Happy2Play 9780]

Currently no way to lock providerid.  Requested several times as there are sometimes provider miss-matches.

But you would need to go over a full example for your issue to include structure and naming scheme, as I have not has an issue with that show.  But 99% of the time adding year to every series resolves most issues.

The Rookie (2018)

The Rookie {tvdbid=465258}

The Rookie {tmdbid=79744}

The Rookie {imdbid=tt7587890}

Edited June 30, 2025 by Happy2Play

[Happy2Play 9780]

Follow up as doing a by name search will get the wrong first results as you have noticed.  So adding year is critical here.

[Happy2Play 9780]

5 minutes ago, Neminem said:

Try adding year and tvdbid to your folders

The Rookie - Feds (2022) [TvdbId=420105]

The Rookie (2018) [TvdbId=350665]

TV Naming

FYI I just notice they change the TVDB here as 350665 is no longer valid. 

[Neminem 1518]

LOL how did I miss that

[TugboatBill 16]

Thanks for the heads up on using the year.  I renamed the folder, deleted the entry in Emby, rescanned and the show came up properly.  The manual entry of the IDs is definitely wonky.  One can edit it, but Emby just overwrites.  I can understand the logic on most of the metadata, you edit and it automatically turns on the lock for that data.  The external ID should work the same way.  

[Happy2Play 9780]

2 hours ago, TugboatBill said:

Thanks for the heads up on using the year.  I renamed the folder, deleted the entry in Emby, rescanned and the show came up properly.  The manual entry of the IDs is definitely wonky.  One can edit it, but Emby just overwrites.  I can understand the logic on most of the metadata, you edit and it automatically turns on the lock for that data.  The external ID should work the same way.  

Yes it would be nice but at the same time most of the info will come from the provider sites providing other sites externalids also.  But yes occasionally they can be wrong or one site has a completely different order then the other.  Primarily cartoons so individual locks on providerids can be useful.

In your case Re-Identifying the Show should have don't what you needed also.

[Luke 42078]

External ids should not change, so that's why there is no lock. If you're seeing them change then we should look at a specific example of that. Thanks.

[TugboatBill 16]

That's what was happening.  
The Rookie/Season01/The Rookie S01E01 Pilot.mkv

                                      /The Rookie S01E02 "tile".mkv

                                     /etc ...
I changed the external IDs (3 main ones) to the correct IDs
Ran a metadata refresh w/replace pics 
Metadata/pics showed The Rookie: Feds

Tried again with identify - same result.

The only way I was able to get it to work was to change the name of the top folder to The Rookie (2018), then metadata refresh.

[Luke 42078]

Quote

I changed the external IDs (3 main ones) to the correct IDs

How did you do that?

[TugboatBill 16]

Right from the GUI.  

Metadata Manager/TV Shows/Shows/The Rookie/External IDs.  I had to go to IMDB/MovieDB/TheTVDB to search and get the correct IDs.  FYI - Zap2it may be dead (sold and new owners appear to have retired it)

When I ran Identify (IIRC) I tied just a couple of the external IDs,.  I assumed if it didn't work with one the logic would be consistent no matter how many I used.

[Luke 42078]

Hi there, please attach the Emby server log from when the problem occurred:

How to Report a Problem

Thanks!