Tips for searching for shows

If you can’t find that show you are looking for, but you know it has an entry at https://www.themoviedb.org (TMDb), here are some tips:

  • If you see a result, but it is not in the language you want: just tap on the result. Then tap the globe icon and select your desired language. After waiting a bit you can see if a translation is available. Then just tap to add the show in that language.

  • If the show does not appear at all in search results, it might be marked as “adult”. Use the method below to add it anyhow.

  • Try to find the show on the TMDb website. Then find the share button of your browser app (for Chrome it’s hidden in the three dots menu) and share it to SeriesGuide.

Update 2021-07-28: since the switch to TMDb the below tips should no longer be necessary.

Outdated tips
  • Change the search language. Most often setting it to “Any language” a specific language*, like “English”, works best.

    search

  • If an older show exists with the same name, try to append the year the new show was released. For example instead of “Travelers” search for “Travelers 2016”.

The above suggestions are not perfect as TheTVDB search (at least the one provided to apps) has some quirks:

  • Magnum P.I. Switch language to English, search for “Magnum”.

(*) 2019-08-29: Based on error reports the “Any language” search, powered by the legacy search of TheTVDB.com, returns broken responses (element Overview contains unescaped characters breaking XML). For the time being use a specific language. However, TheTVDB.com is working on a new search engine that searches all languages by default. It remains to be seen whether they will expose it to third parties through their API.

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