Spurious Missing Episodes

[scb99 247]

When I used the function "View Missing Episodes" on the TV series "Diary of a nobody" from 2007, I was shown 3 spurious missing episodes from December 2022

When I looked at the log I saw

2026-04-01 16:46:01.281 Info HttpClient: GET https://api.themoviedb.org/3/tv/241526?api_key=x_secret5_x&append_to_response=alternative_titles,reviews,credits,images,keywords,external_ids,videos,content_ratings,episode_groups&language=en-GB&include_image_language=en-GB,null

So I went into the metatadata and blanked out TheMovieDB ID, just leaving TheTVDV ID and IMDB codes there. Now, these spurious missing episodes no longer show and all is good.

So this is not really a big problem or anything, but is it possible to know, where these spurious episodes are coming from in TheMovieDB?

[Luke 42241]

Quote

So this is not really a big problem or anything, but is it possible to know, where these spurious episodes are coming from in TheMovieDB?

Hi. They either come from tvdb or moviedb, depending on which is prioritized higher in your metadata fetcher settings for the library.

[scb99 247]

8 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi. They either come from tvdb or moviedb, depending on which is prioritized higher in your metadata fetcher settings for the library.

They obviously come from Moviedb, since when I blank it out in the metadata they go away, but I don't know how to look in moviedb for these episodes, I suppose this is really my question. If I go here

The Diary of a Nobody (2007) — The Movie Database (TMDB)

I see only an entry for the show, where are these episodes coming from?

[Luke 42241]

That looks like a movie. It is only for TV shows.

[scb99 247]

It is a TV show with 4 episodes. So why does Emby see three missing episodes when it queries the Moviedb with this id (see the log entry in my post at the top)?

[GrimReaper 4896]

14 minutes ago, scb99 said:

It is a TV show with 4 episodes

It's a movie on TMDB, your link literally shows that as well:

https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/241526-the-diary-of-a-nobody

As is visible when you look at its page on TMDB. 

You're mixing TV show ID (TVDB) and movie ID (TMDB) on the same item, you shouldn't do that else unexpected results - like you've faced - are likely to be encountered 

Edit: As providers are queried by type, you were actually querying this item, TV show Brasa, that has 7 episodes. As you have 4, there are 3 "missing" for a TV show with TMDBId 241526.

Quote

{ "adult": false, "backdrop_path": "/aOn5pST8qjUgGHsmm8PkBXsMlWS.jpg", "created_by": [], "episode_run_time": [], "first_air_date": "2022-12-01", "genres": [], "homepage": "", "id": 241526, "in_production": true, "languages": [], "last_air_date": "2022-12-01", "last_episode_to_air": { "id": 4997523, "name": "Episode 7", "overview": "", "vote_average": 0, "vote_count": 0, "air_date": "2022-12-01", "episode_number": 7, "episode_type": "standard", "production_code": "", "runtime": 59, "season_number": 1, "show_id": 241526, "still_path": "/6vkv0yZpnWZISkNtrTXcMfm2jLy.jpg" }, "name": "Brasa", "next_episode_to_air": null, "networks": [], "number_of_episodes": 7, "number_of_seasons": 1, "origin_country": [ "SE" ], "original_language": "sv", "original_name": "Brasa", "overview": "", "popularity": 0.0071, "poster_path": "/7jy62NPkjjvzAg1vS4QgGLu1pxn.jpg", "production_companies": [], "production_countries": [], "seasons": [ { "air_date": "2022-12-01", "episode_count": 7, "id": 369784, "name": "Season 1", "overview": "", "poster_path": null, "season_number": 1, "vote_average": 0 } ], "spoken_languages": [], "status": "Returning Series", "tagline": "", "type": "Scripted", "vote_average": 0, "vote_count": 0, "alternative_titles": { "results": [] }, "reviews": { "page": 1, "results": [], "total_pages": 0, "total_results": 0 }, "images": { "backdrops": [], "logos": [], "posters": [] }, "keywords": { "results": [] } }

 

Edited 3 hours ago by GrimReaper

[scb99 247]

Hi @GrimReaper

That now makes sense, thanks

Though all I did was identify the TV serial through the regular Emby process, it was ***Emby*** that filled all the db id’s ***not me***. So obviously Emby does not protect itself against a TV series being wrongly identified as a film in the Movie DB (and then having the same id in the Movie db as another tv series)

The tvdb id of the series which Emby also got is 82781 and the info there is correct. And imdb is tt0944833 and that is correct too.

can i suggest that emby could protect itself in the future against different data sources returning inconsistent types for the same item, because it was initially confusing.

i.e. When Emby fills in the ids of an item (imdb, tmdb, tvdb) it could check that all 3 keys are related to the same type (movie, tv serial)

 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by scb99

[GrimReaper 4896]

There is actually no way to protect itself, as the ID values are shared across media types, so both movie/241526 and tv/241526 exist, and Emby cannot interpret what pure numerical value represents, hence library types.

I thought you did it manually, but it is actually a case of bad provider data (doesn't happen often, but not unheard of either), as TVDB (your primary metadata provider) has that same 241526 as ExternalID for TMDB:

If you go to the show's TVDB page and click ON OTHER SITES: TheMovieDB.com link:

it'll take you to Brasa's TMDB page:

 

Same would occur if you clicked TheMovieDB in About section of item detail screen in Emby.

 

Best thing to do would be to remove that ID from TVDB db (and do such thing any time you encounter similar case) for the benefit of the community.

 

[GrimReaper 4896]

33 minutes ago, scb99 said:

i.e. When Emby fills in the ids of an item (imdb, tmdb, tvdb) it could check that all 3 keys are related to the same type (movie, tv serial)

That would add unnecessary overhead on every item for extremely few/niche cases percentage-wise.

[scb99 247]

Hi @GrimReaper

Many thanks indeed for all your feedback.

I do think Emby should protect itself against bad data even when it is as you say very niche

But anyway…

You have helped me a lot to understand what was going on and I really appreciate your time (as always!)

cheers