TV Show Status — TMDB-powered Returning/Ended/Cancelled badges for series

[Blueskies278 64]

Hi all,

I've built a plugin called TV Show Status that adds a status badge to TV series pages, showing whether a show is:

• Airing (with the next air date, if known) or Returning Series if no date is confirmed yet
• Last Aired (with the date, for ongoing shows without a confirmed next episode)
• Ended (with the last aired date)
• Cancelled (with the last aired date)
• In Production

This data comes from TMDB and updates automatically once a day, so a show that gets renewed after being cancelled will flip back to the correct status without any manual action.

How it works:

• A background task fetches the status for every series in your library from the TMDB API and caches it locally.
• On the web client, a small badge appears next to the rating/year/network row on each series' detail page (matching the native look of that row).
• Optionally, the status can also be prepended to the show's real Overview/description. This genuinely updates the library metadata on the server, but it doesn't currently display in the app versions I've tested — I'm hoping this could be picked up by the native apps in the future.

Setup: Just enter a free TMDB API key in the plugin's settings page (Settings → Plugins → TV Show Status) and it does the rest.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 02:28 PM by Blueskies278

[roand7802 1]

Hi, I'd like to try the plugin. Do you know how I can get it? I can't seem to find it in the plugin catalog.

[Blueskies278 64]

5 hours ago, roand7802 said:

Hi, I'd like to try the plugin. Do you know how I can get it? I can't seem to find it in the plugin catalog.

Not available yet. still in working progress.

Edited 20 hours ago by Blueskies278

[buba 1]

Quedare atento para probarlo se ve muy interesante 

[Blueskies278 64]

Update: Badge style options added

You can now choose how the badge looks. A new "Badge style" setting is available on the same settings page:

• Icon + colour — A small coloured square with a calendar icon (green for Airing/Last Aired, orange for In Production, red with an X through the calendar for Cancelled).
• Original pill — The plain badge from the first version, no icon.
• Text only — Just the status text, no background or icon.
• No badge — Hide it entirely (e.g., if you only want the Overview/description prefix).

The setting is on the same page as before (Settings → Plugins → TV Show Status); just scroll down to find it.

Also worth noting: the plugin can now display Airing, Last Aired, In Production, & Cancelled (text only) on Android and tvOS next to the TV information, but this is a limitation beyond my control.

icon

Text view. Currently Android & TVOS can only display text view 

The plain badge from the first version, no icon. Now with rounded edges.

Settings

Edited 16 hours ago by Blueskies278

[sh0rty 754]

I really appreciate that the Emby plugin section receives more love driven by the community. 

Well done! Happy to test this out when it becomes available.

Edited 11 hours ago by sh0rty

[Blueskies278 64]

47 minutes ago, sh0rty said:

I really appreciate that the Emby plugin section receives more love driven by the community. 

Well done! Happy to test this out when it becomes available.

Thank you. I will try to upload it today. still finding small bugs. 

[Blueskies278 64]

UPDATE 1: Hopefully, I should have the first beta up in a few hours. Right now, I'm trying to fix a bug relating to prepend status to show the description.Fixed.

UPDATE 2: Now implementing a hands-off refresh option for users with an Emby installation (Windows/Synology app, no SSH/Docker access) who have no easy way to force an immediate refresh after changing a setting. I am adding this so that hitting Save on the settings page automatically triggers an immediate refresh—no restart needed, for anyone.

UPDATE 3: Making sure the plugin meets all emby standards.

UPDATE 4: Few more final checks before uploading Beta 1

Edited 2 hours ago by Blueskies278

[Blueskies278 64]

Update: new features added today

Badge style options — five ways to display the status badge on the web client:

• Icon (calendar) + colour
• Original pill (no icon)
• Coloured icon + text, no background
• Plain text only, no icon or background
• No badge at all
• New calendar icon

My first plugin.This is a leaning curve, be gentle  

None" web display option — a dedicated setting to show nothing at all on the web client (looks exactly like stock Emby), separate from the native app toggle.

Web and native app display are now fully independent — "Prepend status to show description" now only controls whether Android/tvOS see it (since those apps read the real description field directly). The web browser client shows the badge/description entirely on its own, so you can have one without affecting the other. Turning "Prepend status" off now also automatically cleans up any previously-added prefix from your real library data.

Inline coloured icon in the description text — when using "Description text only" or "Both" mode with an icon-based badge style, the same coloured calendar icon now appears right in the description text on the web client, not just in the badge.

Faster settings propagation for Android/tvOS — changes to settings (like turning "Prepend status to show description" on or off) now take effect within 15 minutes automatically on the native apps (previously up to 24 hours), so you don't need to restart your server to see updates there. The web client already updates independently and instantly.

Self-installing web script — the plugin now attempts to automatically deploy its web browser badge script on startup, so it works out of the box for most users without any manual file copying. On some hardened server setups (e.g. certain Docker configurations) where the server process doesn't have write access to its own folders, this may fail gracefully — in that case a manual copy of tmdb-status-plugin.js into your dashboard-ui folder is still needed, and the plugin's settings page description explains this.

Installing TV Show Status (beta)

This plugin isn't in the official Emby catalog yet, so it needs to be installed manually. Pick your platform below.

Windows

1. Locate your Emby Server plugins folder. By default this is: C:\ProgramData\Emby-Server\programdata\plugins(ProgramData is a hidden folder — in File Explorer, go to View → tick "Hidden items" to see it.)
2. Download EmbyTmdbStatus.dll from this thread.
3. Copy the file into the plugins folder above.
4. Restart Emby Server — right-click the Emby tray icon and choose Restart, or restart the "Emby Server" Windows service from Services.
5. Go to your Emby Dashboard → Plugins. "TV Show Status" should now appear in the list — click it and enter your TMDB API key to finish setup.

Synology (Package Center install)

1. Open File Station.
2. Enable hidden folders: Settings (gear icon) → tick "Show hidden folders."
3. Navigate to your Emby Server package's data folder and find the plugins subfolder inside it. The exact location can vary by DSM version — if you can't find it, check Emby's Dashboard → General page for path hints, or ask in this thread with your DSM version.
4. Download EmbyTmdbStatus.dll from this thread and copy it into that plugins folder.
5. Restart Emby Server from Package Center (select Emby Server → Action → Stop, then Start again).
6. Go to your Emby Dashboard → Plugins to find "TV Show Status" and enter your TMDB API key.

UGREEN NAS (Docker-based Emby)

If your Emby Server runs in Docker (as it does by default on UGREEN NAS OS):

1. Download EmbyTmdbStatus.dll from this thread onto your NAS (via File Manager, or upload it to your home folder over SSH/SCP).
2. Open a terminal / SSH session to your NAS.
3. Copy the file into the running container (replace Emby_Server with your actual container name if different

 

   sudo docker cp EmbyTmdbStatus.dll Emby_Server:/config/plugins/EmbyTmdbStatus.dll

1. Restart the container:

 

   sudo docker restart Emby_Server

1. Go to your Emby Dashboard → Plugins to find "TV Show Status" and enter your TMDB API key.

After installing (all platforms)

Once the plugin appears in Dashboard → Plugins, click it to open settings:

• Enter your free TMDB API key (get one at themoviedb.org)
• Choose your "Web display style" and "Badge style" preferences
• Leave "Prepend status to show description" off unless you want the status visible on Android/tvOS too ( this edits your real library metadata)

If the web browser badge doesn't appear after installing, check your server log for a "Failed to deploy web script" message — some hardened server setups block the plugin from installing its own web files automatically, in which case a manual file copy is needed (ask in this thread and we'll help).

EmbyTmdbStatus.dll

Edited 15 minutes ago by Blueskies278