How to Fix Plex Showing the Wrong Movie or TV Show

Plex showing the wrong poster, the wrong summary or a different film altogether is the most common Plex complaint. The cause is almost always the same: Plex could not identify the file with certainty, so it guessed. Fix it now with the steps below, then stop it happening again.

1. Fix the match by hand

The quickest one-off fix. In Plex Web, find the item, open the ⋯ menu and choose Fix Match. Plex lists candidates with their years; pick the right one.

Fine for a handful of items. If you are doing this often, the real problem is your file names, and step 3 is the lasting fix.

2. Check the file name and year

Plex matches from names, not from what is in the video. The layout it expects:

Movies/
  Batman Begins (2005)/
    Batman Begins (2005).mkv

Missing years cause most wrong matches, because remakes and films with the same title look identical without them. Extra tags in the name add noise the matcher has to work around. Full rules are in the Plex naming guide.

3. Force the right match with a provider ID

The fix most people never find. Put the provider ID in the folder and file name, in curly braces:

Movies/
  Batman Begins (2005) {tmdb-272}/
    Batman Begins (2005) {tmdb-272}.mkv

{tmdb-272}, {imdb-tt0372784} and {tvdb-123456} all work. For a series, put the ID on the show folder.

Unlike Fix Match, this lives in the file name, so it survives a library rebuild, a server move or a fresh scan.

For TV you can also put a .plexmatch file in the series folder with tvdbid, tmdbid or imdbid hints. They override the title and year Plex reads from the folder name, which helps when you cannot rename folders.

4. Check the library's agent

Each Plex library has its own agent. Open Manage Library → Edit → Advanced and check that a movie library uses Plex Movie and a TV library uses Plex TV Series. If you keep posters and artwork beside your files, turn on Use local assets there too.

Also confirm the library type is right. A TV library scanned as movies never matches properly.

5. Refresh, or unmatch and start again

Once names and agents are right, ask Plex to look again: ⋯ → Refresh Metadata. If a bad match sticks, choose ⋯ → Unmatch, then Fix Match… again. If problems span the whole library, rebuilding the library is the last resort.

6. Keep your metadata on disk

Plex's own agents do not read NFO files. They read names, provider IDs in names, .plexmatch hints, and local artwork and subtitles. NFO support in Plex only comes from a third-party agent you install yourself.

If you want metadata you own on disk anyway, for example to switch servers later or to run Jellyfin or Kodi beside Plex, keep NFO files next to your media and let Plex use the names and artwork. See how to edit NFO files safely.

Stopping it happening again

Every fix above treats a symptom. The cause is ambiguous input: names without years, and no provider IDs on the titles Plex keeps getting wrong. Fix those once and Plex stops guessing.

More on the Plex metadata manager page. On Jellyfin too? See how to fix wrong metadata in Jellyfin.