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These docs are for MetaTana 2.0, coming soon

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Rescrape Keeps Bringing Back A Bad Value

You corrected a field. Saved. Ran a refresh or rescrape later. The wrong value came back. A value you type yourself is kept on every rescrape, so either your edit never became the saved value, the NFO on disk still has the old one, or the wrong provider or record is supplying it.

Common causes, in order of likelihood

  1. The value isn't your editIf the field's source label reads Scraped instead of You, your edit wasn't saved or was undone, so a rescrape may replace it. A lock also stops a field from being filled or cleared, including by bulk edits.
  2. The NFO on disk still has the bad valueYour NFO file wasn't rewritten after the edit. Media servers that read the NFO keep showing the old value, and a field you never edited is read from the NFO again on a scan.
  3. Providers disagree and the wrong one winsProvider A has the right value, provider B the wrong one, and Source priority puts provider B first for this field.
  4. Wrong provider IDsThe wrong record's ID is linked to this title, so every refresh fetches from the wrong record. (Unlike a wrong match, the title is right; only its ID is wrong.)
  5. An AI match was appliedAsk AI or AI Scrape applied a match whose values are wrong. Rescrape to the right match, then lock the fields that matter.

Diagnose

Check the lock

Open the title's page and select Edit. On Details, the field's lock shows whether it is locked. An open lock means a rescrape keeps your typed value but can still fill or clear the field.

Check the local NFO

Open the .nfo file next to the media on disk in a text editor. Search for the bad value. If it's there, the NFO is feeding it back into MetaTana on every scan.

Check where the value came from

In the editor, each field shows a source label for its current value: You for a value you typed, Scraped for a value from a scrape. Hover the label to see which provider supplied it and what the others offered. Then you know which one to fix.

Check provider IDs

In the editor, compare the external IDs on Details with the right title's IDs on the provider sites. If the TMDb ID is 603 but the title is really 604, every refresh fetches the wrong record.

Check Settings › Providers › Source priority

Source priority decides which provider wins for each field. If you've set a provider for one field (less common), the wrong provider might be set to win.

Fix

  • Lock the field: select Edit on the title's page and select the lock next to the field. See Lock fields for how locks work.
  • Fix or rewrite the NFO: either edit the NFO yourself, or use ⋯ › Write NFO on the title's page (or Library › Needs attention › NFO out of date for many titles) to write it again from MetaTana's corrected value.
  • Fix the provider order: in Settings › Providers › Source priority, change which provider wins for that field, or the overall order.
  • Fix provider IDs: select Edit, set the correct external ID on Details, and save. Then rescrape to fetch the metadata for the right record.
  • Wrong AI match: open ⋯ › Wrong match…, pick the right result, and lock the fields you corrected.
Lock + NFO repair is the durable fix Locking the value in MetaTana isn't enough if the NFO still has the bad value. The NFO won't overwrite the locked field, but media servers that read the NFO directly (Plex, Kodi) still see the wrong value. Lock the field and rewrite the NFO.

Going deeper