IMDB film lookup fails for me around 5% of the time and the most common reason seems to be that the movie "year" is unmatched.
I'm assuming this is because of uncertainty over whether the movie year refers to production or release etc...
For example the film "Lord Jim" comes out of the primary lookup (on tvguide.co.uk) as -
"Lord Jim" + (1964) + "Richard Brooks"
this doesn't find a match on IMDB although the correct film is there with the year 1965
likewise these two movies also fail..
"The Hunt" + (2019) + "Craig Zobel"
"A Romance Wedding" + (2020) + "Danny J Boyle"
Is there a way I can get round this with an entry in the IMDB ini file to check for adjacent years??
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IMDB lookup fails with unmatched year +/-1 ??
Wed, 2025-08-20 11:39
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IMDB lookup fails with unmatched year +/-1 ??
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nothing can be done.
mdb matches rely on valid input data.
it has no way to know whats correct.
it no match for title and year....fail.
if imdb data is incorrect you need to contact them to have it fixed.
Thank you to Blackbear for taking the trouble to reply to my question.
I'm sure you're right but would you help me understand what's going on by telling me:
1. Wouldn't it be possible to get a unique match by using the title and the director instead?
My matchmovie entry looks like this:
<matchmovie mustmatch="title" optional="productiondate,actor,director" minimum="2"/>
so doesn't that mean the title is a required match while any one of the three optional elements will be enough for an exact match?
2. What is the purpose of the variable matchfactor? and how does it affect this?
are your shows getting selected for a possible match?
i use almost the same and it works.
<selectmovie duration="76" minimum="2" musthave="title" contains="" unselect="" optional="productiondate, actor, director"/>
and
<matchmovie mustmatch="title" minimum="2" optional="productiondate, actor, director"/>
Movie: 1/3 .. Lord Jim
.
"Lord Jim" + (1964) + "Richard Brooks" .. found Show_id , 0059399, 0016037, 11455174, 0439648, 0010468?
...
Matching in imdb.com, showid = 0059399
..
Done in 5.74 sec
Movie: 2/3 .. The Hunt
.
"The Hunt" + (2019) + "Craig Zobel" .. found Show_id , 2106476, 8244784, 8787372, 0060223, 32159989?
......
Matching in imdb.com, showid = 8244784
..
Done in 9.17 sec
Movie: 3/3 .. A Romance Wedding
.
"A Romance Wedding" + (2020) + "Danny J Boyle" .. found Show_id , 13345816, 5176864, 0351330, 10279114, 35824611?
...
Matching in imdb.com, showid = 13345816
..
Done in 4.88 sec
it also depends on the mdb ini your using,it may be broken.
i use imdb.com.imdb.ini
pack has revision 19,here is revision 20 with few small fixes.
Yes. I was getting several candidates for a match - including the right one - but none was selected.
I tried the new mdb.ini file and that fixed the problem.
Thanks very much for the advice.