[BUG] AIOMetadata does not correctly detect mixed dynamic MDBList lists

[nobnobz]

Description

There seems to be an issue with mixed AIOMetadata lists when they are created via dynamic lists.

For static lists, AIOMetadata correctly detects that the list contains both movies and series, labels it as all, and displays both content types as expected.

However, when creating a mixed list through AIOMetadata dynamic lists, only the type that was created first is recognized. The second type can only be added manually, which results in two separate lists instead of one combined all list.

Expected behavior

AIOMetadata should automatically detect that the dynamic list contains both movies and series and switch the type to all, just like it already does for static MDBLists.

Actual behavior

• Only the initially created type is recognized
• The second type must be added manually
• This still results in two separate lists
• Manually changing the type to all in the UI or directly in the JSON does not fix the issue
• The list is still not treated or displayed as an all list

Impact

At the moment, dynamic lists are effectively only usable with:

• movie
• series

but not with all, even if the underlying list is clearly mixed.

Example: this is a mixed list: https://mdblist.com/lists/nobnobz/netflix but AIOMetadat lists it as two lists:

[nobnobz]

Additional note after checking the MDBList API documentation and clarifying this with the MDBList developer:

It looks like mixed dynamic MDBList lists can be queried in a unified way, but only when they are requested by list name/slug and with the unified=true parameter on the items endpoint.

Example for this list: https://mdblist.com/lists/nobnobz/service-apple-tv
GET https://api.mdblist.com/lists/nobnobz/service-apple-tv/items?apikey=YOUR_API_KEY&unified=true
This returns the unified list.

So the issue may not be that MDBList cannot return mixed dynamic lists in a unified way, but that AIOMetadata currently appears to treat them via their separate internal IDs instead:

• one movie ID
• one show ID

That leads to the current behavior where both parts are still handled as separate lists.

For my use case, this matters because I am using mixed streaming service lists and want movies and shows to behave as one combined list, including being sorted together by the selected sort field.

The expected behavior would therefore be:

• for mixed dynamic MDBList lists, AIOMetadata should query the list by username/listname instead of using the separate movie/show IDs
• it should use the unified items response
• and then treat the result as one mixed all catalog instead of two separate catalogs

In short:
the underlying MDBList list may still have separate internal movie/show IDs, but AIOMetadata should be able to consume the unified list response and expose it as one combined mixed catalog.

[nobnobz]

@cedya77 made a PR to support unified dynamic lists so you can choose if you want to import them as two catalogs or as an unified catalog

[cedya77]

Hi, thanks for submitting your report. Have been on break for a few weeks now and i am pretty sure this is a new addition on the API side from mdblist rather than a bug. Type dynamic was not there before. Im slowly coming back so i will take a look soon.

[nobnobz]

At first, I also thought this was just an API limitation. I asked Linas about it, and he said it should be possible. So I gave it a try and forked AIOM myself to play around with an implementation and it works pretty well. Here’s the conversation with Linas in case anyone’s interested: linaspurinis/mdblist.com#28

Basically, those “mixed dynamic lists” need to be fetched through /lists/{username}/{slug}/items?unified=true in order to return them as an all catalog with both movies and shows.

[cedya77]

So after reading through the issue properly, this looks more like you want an option to import your lists as unified vs the default behavior right now which splits them. This is not a bug but rather a feature request since this endpoint https://mdblist.docs.apiary.io/#reference/0/list-by-name/get-list-by-name which is the basis of Add Single List by URL in Aiom, returns 2 lists by default when you query it via the endpoint above.