Manual option for adding episodes/airdates?

Feature Requests
#1

It would be nice if we could manually enter this information ourselves when it isn’t available through TVDB, well, either that or find an alternative, which I know isn’t a possibility.

The past two weeks I’ve had a bit of a tug of war with tvdb regarding hell’s kitchen season 19, it’s already airing on itv2 but because it’s not on Fox they’re constantly removing the airdate, so far there seems to be no real timeline as to when Fox will air the series, all we know is 2021, but I find it a bit silly for them to ignore the fact that the “first air date” is on a different network, I even went to their forum to try and discuss this and to hopefully get the opinion of other users on this matter, but it’s locked, at least for me, my only option is to contact support which I already know is going to be a one-way conversation and now because I can’t get these airdates added, sonarr can’t handle them automatically.

That’s when this idea popped into my head, it’s a good way for users to avoid the headache of fighting with tvdb mods and it allows for the series to be handled by sonarr, plus it wouldn’t affect other users, so if someone screwed up when entering the information manually, it would only affect them.

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#2

You can manually enter it in tvdb’s website instead if it’s not available i think. (Definitely one of the db sites)
That would be better for everyone because it won’t be an issue for the next person once the information is available.
Your idea seems broken because unless we all agree on an airdate sonarr can’t begin selecting the correct episode.
Maybe a better solution would be an option to change from tvdb to an alternative or trakt (on show by show basis in the add series section.

Edit. No I’m thinking of imdb… you can contribute to imdb.

Further giving weight to my idea of allowing you to pick something other than tvdb.

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#3

Sonarr gets its data from thetvdb.com, and if applicable episode number remapping from thexem.de

A different source has been asked since the dawn of time if you’d care to search anywhere (forums, github, reddit, …).

#4

That’s my issue with TVDB, in fairness the series typically runs on fox, but this year it originally aired on itv2 (I added a link in my original post to prove this), but they will remove any information you enter if it’s not from fox, someone updated the hell’s kitchen fandom to say it will start airing on fox in January 2021, so until then I’ll have to manually handle the process.

I’m beginning to think you haven’t read my post.

This is because the data that the user entered would only be stored on their database.

I agree that an alternative would be useful but with regards to trakt, they use tvdb as their primary source, with tmdb as their secondary source.

With what I’m suggesting it just gives each user the ability to manually add a show to their own database, with maybe the option to allow that data to be updated by sonarr when it becomes available from a source, such as tvdb.

But this solution could technically be improved upon in the future, for example, let’s say 70% of users manually add the same episode information to their sonarr, this would be, without a doubt, a consensus, that information could then be automatically added to tvdb or sonarr’s own database for their users to access, this would be similar to a voting system except each individual user would have to enter the same information for each episode, specifically; Air Date, Episode Number and Title, but that’s just theoretical.

In my opinion, the option to simply add episode information to your own sonarr application when it’s not available on a source like TVDB, possibly because they’re refusing to let anyone add it, would be beneficial, because it means that user will not have to manually download, rename and move each episode, instead, they’d just have to enter that information into their own sonarr and let it do the rest.

#5

None of the ideas presented in this entire topic are new or simple. Some are considered, but the devs don’t give timelines or if/when something will be implemented.
I know Marcus’ stance on this is that the solution needs to be beneficial for everyone, so as far as I know the “update episode information in your own sonarr instance” idea is not going to happen.

#6

Trakt would be a bad choice right now. They just made some changes that make it hard to pull all the data for shows at once. TVMaze or Simkl would most likely be better choices at this point in time.

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#7

I didn’t get notified of your response, so sorry for this late-ish reply, but I wasn’t suggesting a feature allowing us to use a different database as our source, when I was referring to my suggestion, I stated that the only other option would be an alternative to tvdb, but I clearly stated that I know that feature wasn’t a possibility.

I even went into a bit more detail at the bottom of my post regarding the feature I was suggesting, which had nothing to do with an alternative source to tvdb, but simply an option to allow users to enter their own information to their own sonarr database as a workaround.

I only suggested one idea, allow users to manually add their own episode information but I’ve never seen a feature request asking for this, if that’s the case then I’m sorry for double posting, but I even added to this by suggesting that if tvdb updated the information on their end, then a user could choose to allow their modification to be replaced with tvdb’s.

If the other “idea’s” you are referring to are;

  • Alternative sources - I never placed that as a feature request in this post, I referred to it as it has been asked before but acknowledged that an alternative database wasn’t an option.

  • Automatically add to tvdb - was also not a feature request, it was theoretical on how the feature I requested could be used in the future, but this was aimed at MDrodge statement regarding how we all would have to agree on an airdate, it has nothing to do with what I requested.

I honestly don’t see how this wouldn’t be beneficial, at the very least, to the majority of users, the ability to add, an episode, airdate and title to a series that you know is airing tomorrow or has aired, but tvdb mods refuse to add it or constantly removes it, saves the hassle of manually processing it yourself.

Either way, it was just an idea I had and I wanted to share with the community.

#8

Ok maybe not trakt but options in general would be useful.
I’m not personally effected to much so it doesn’t bother me to much but I thought it a good solution to the problem above.
I’ll let you guys pick good one’s.
In regards to us all agreeing on an airdate. The point I’m making if your claiming episode 3 is on the 1st of the month and your referencing a site that says the airdate was the 8th your going to endup with episode 2 instead.
It’s just my 2 cents I personally don’t mind but I see a flaw in your idea.

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#9

Why would I search for a solution to a problem I don’t have.
People obviously agree with me.
Not sure why the shade

And fair play for sharing your ideas @Skullzy A healthy discussion was caused.
Worth a try if your not happy

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#10

I agree that an alternative source would be useful, it has been suggested in the past and I was somewhat on the fence about it back then, but as I face more and more problems with tvdb I can understand now why that would be a good option, but I know alternative sources for tv data would require a lot of work, which is why I suggested an option for users to simply add that information own to their own database.

I understand that, but that’s why the option would only affect the user making the modification, it would become a basic choice, enter the information into sonarr yourself, assuming you know its right, or wait for sonarr to get that information from tvdb.

Generally, my first instinct is to add that information to tvdb, but in certain cases were the mods remove or refuse to add information, such as my most recent incident where the episodes have aired and are downloadable, a feature like this would allow us to bypass the tvdb mods and allow us to automate in those situations.

Also, Sonarr doesn’t download an episode using its airdate, it uses the season and episode number, I’m sure there are other factors, the airdate to my knowledge is used more as a guide, so if S01E01 was available tomorrow, but it was leaked a day early, then sonarr would download that episode because it was within x amount of days of the airdate.

What I am basically suggesting is the ability to add episodes and their airdates, so I could add S01E05 to a series along with its airdate, but for me, this would only be used in the event that it can’t be added to tvdb for whatever reason.

#11

Cheers, a discussion is what I was aiming for and at the end of the day it is just an idea I felt like sharing, but it seems I’ve spent most of my time re-iterating, personally I blame myself I feel like I didn’t explain it well enough in my original post, but either way, I’m happy with whatever decision is made :slightly_smiling_face:

#12

That’s the Internet for you. We just need a couple of grammar trolls to show up now and we’re all set, maybe a few insults, It’ll be just like the YouTube comments.

1 Like
#13

Yes nothing like grammar trolls to beat down.

2 Likes
#14

That comma should be a full stop, or “it” needs to be lowercase. :wink::wink::wink::joy::joy::joy:

#15

Rem Lol.

10 IF $Thirrian print “I should a fuckin’ known it’d be you mush.”
20 goto line 10

#16

Sorry if it was mentioned above or if there is already a way to do the below but I didn’t feel like reading through all the post to find out.

I would like to see a way for Sonarr to only look for a episode x amount of time after it actually aired by the calendar, and not look for it before it aired much less finished airing. Examples: Soulmates S01E06 The Walking Dead World Beyond S01E06 supposedly just downloaded. I say supposedly because I haven’t checked to see if they are the correct episodes.

#17

Search for “delay” and “before air date” in the forums. Or even open sonarr and go through the options.

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#18

OK I had already been through the settings more than once and even with advance turned on not seeing any that that would allow me to delay a episode for download to x amount of time after it’s calendar date and time. Searching the forums didn’t seem to bring up anything that is helpful. I’m assuming that at this time there is not a feature I setting for doing what I’d like to do.

#19

I too really wish one could override TVDB sometimes.

Recently with the new Spitting Image series (the first for almost 20 years) there was an edit war going on with it on TVDB and people posting versions online. One group were (and still are) calling it Spitting Image (2000) another, just call it Series 19 of the original series. I partly solved it by putting both in Sonarr, but then the (2000) version disappeared from TVDB (they lost the edit war), but still some episodes get posted on usenet with that name.

Yes a plague on both their houses, but being able specify a different, or multiple naming conventions would help so much.

This is also not the first time this happened by any measure. For a lot of the Agatha Christy Mis Marple, some are not in TVDB at all but considered “movies”, although the common posting convention is to treat them as parts of the TV series.

Without getting into the editing wars on TVDB, there is no way to fix this sort of thing.

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#20

you wont find it in the options because it doesnt exist. using the air date as a cut-off for grabbing a release is a feature request that people have asked for but hasnt been implemented.

it still has the downside of being locked into tvdb dates, which arent always correct either (i’ve had shows that started a week earlier so are always downloading a week earlier than they should) - you can fix one issue with tvdb and still run into others.

the delay profile mentioned is also useless for that situation, it just adds a delay between grabbing a release and sending it to a download client (but is helpful to allow it time to get more seeders)