Sometimes when a title is corrected the former title becomes an alternate title with an undefined country and attribute. When you try to correct one the form says to delete it and add a new item. However, the deletions are not being processed.
Example:
190331-165545-981000
Example:
190331-165545-981000

Peter, Champion
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Posted 8 months ago
Joel, Employee
- 1018 Posts
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Hi Peter,
Thanks for your post.
I've removed the duplicate title now, this should update shortly.
If this has occurred a few times, are you able to provide a few additional example submission references for me to dig into?
Cheers,
Joel
Thanks for your post.
I've removed the duplicate title now, this should update shortly.
If this has occurred a few times, are you able to provide a few additional example submission references for me to dig into?
Cheers,
Joel
ljdoncel, Champion
- 849 Posts
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Hi, Joel and Peter:
Perhaps I can help a bit here (otherwise, I'm sorry...
). If I'm not mistaken, every alternate title with no country/region defined AND that is not tagged as (original title) needs to be deleted rather than corrected (as shown in the screenshot above).
First, a few numbers... From title.akas.tsv Apr 2019:
ALTERNATE TITLES: 3,766,128
With a defined country/region: 3,313,625 (88.0%)
Original titles: 17
Unspecified: 2,177
Not original titles: 3,311,431
Without a defined country/region: 452,503 (12.0%)
Original titles: 395,768
Unspecified: 12
Not original titles: 56,723
Original titles (or unspecified) aren't available in the akas update form, so actually there are 3,368,154 editable alternate titles, of which 56,723 (1.7%) are locked in the sense that can't be modified (only removed). The interesting question is, how many of those "non-original non-localized aka titles" have a correspondent verbatim "non-original localized aka title"?
Current answer is: 4,665 TITLES
[e.g. Das Mädel vom Ballet (1918) ► The Ballet Girl (1918) (undefined) & The Ballet Girl (1918) (USA)]
Maybe these titles should be scrutinized one by one and remove the unneeded entries...
Although we can't say for sure that all these locked titles have appeared because of the mechanism discovered by Peter, I think I can narrow down the list of titles to better investigate this issue because fortunately I had a copy of title.akas.tsv 31 Jan 2019. Comparing both tsv archives, 160 of those 4,665 aka titles (with the aforementioned conditions) have appeared in the last 9 weeks.
Perhaps I can help a bit here (otherwise, I'm sorry...

First, a few numbers... From title.akas.tsv Apr 2019:









Original titles (or unspecified) aren't available in the akas update form, so actually there are 3,368,154 editable alternate titles, of which 56,723 (1.7%) are locked in the sense that can't be modified (only removed). The interesting question is, how many of those "non-original non-localized aka titles" have a correspondent verbatim "non-original localized aka title"?
Current answer is: 4,665 TITLES
[e.g. Das Mädel vom Ballet (1918) ► The Ballet Girl (1918) (undefined) & The Ballet Girl (1918) (USA)]
Maybe these titles should be scrutinized one by one and remove the unneeded entries...
Although we can't say for sure that all these locked titles have appeared because of the mechanism discovered by Peter, I think I can narrow down the list of titles to better investigate this issue because fortunately I had a copy of title.akas.tsv 31 Jan 2019. Comparing both tsv archives, 160 of those 4,665 aka titles (with the aforementioned conditions) have appeared in the last 9 weeks.
ljdoncel, Champion
- 849 Posts
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Here's the list:
Cheers!
- tt0002544: The Gardener
- tt0012701: A Small Town Hero
- tt0023450: Where Are the Dreams of Youth?
- tt0025611: A Woman of the World
- tt0026146: Ocean Breakers
- tt0026772: Tarzan and the Lost Goddess
- tt0028151: On the Sunny Side
- tt0028420: The Circus
- tt0030938: The Four Companions
- tt0035309: Tulip Time
- tt0048157: Helen Keller in Her Story
- tt0058886: Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy
- tt0063510: African Safari
- tt0063762: Shotgun
- tt0064660: Love Circle
- tt0065671: Uncle Vanya
- tt0068457: The Night Andy Came Home
- tt0069867: Charlie and His Two Chicks
- tt0071120: Evil in the Swamp
- tt0080422: Dental Hygiene
- tt0082431: Mindwarp: An Infinity of Terror
- tt0086149: Farewell
- tt0088267: An Eternal Combat
- tt0089294: Lifeline Express
- tt0092447: Boys Will Be Boys
- tt0095417: Virgin Machine
- tt0096032: Heart to Hearts
- tt0096876: A Woman Obsessed
- tt0098640: Crack in the Mirror
- tt0099636: Gate II
- tt0100115: Martha und ich
- tt0100566: Runaway Heart
- tt0101758: Nightmare
- tt0104081: Too Much Heart
- tt0104749: Far from Brazil
- tt0105536: Tartuffe
- tt0105948: Bay Cove
- tt0107000: Gensen-Kan Inn
- tt0107865: The Postmistress
- tt0109994: The Rabbit Hunt
- tt0111027: Ru mo
- tt0111341: Satan's Tango
- tt0111450: Tokarev
- tt0113999: North's War
- tt0114440: Siao Yu
- tt0115243: Lexx: The Dark Zone
- tt0117416: When the Stars Meet the Sea
- tt0121095: Devil Sorcery
- tt0121180: The Big Road
- tt0125279: Frozen
- tt0146971: Guyver: Out of Control
- tt0151687: My Native Place
- tt0160648: Paulo and His Brother
- tt0162011: Forget It, Nothing Happened
- tt0162362: Theo and His Friends
- tt0168937: A Flower Girl
- tt0185541: The New South Hand Blows, North Kick Blows
- tt0186536: Duel of the Deep
- tt0220390: Deutschland - Endstation Ost
- tt0256143: Last Ghost Standing
- tt0279160: Baap Bete
- tt0297441: Troublesome Night 11
- tt0311939: Yin yang lu 12: Mei rong shi
- tt0322816: Jalsarayudu
- tt0328570: Yin yang lu 15: Ke si hun lai
- tt0402438: The Great Music Caper
- tt0486064: Antique
- tt0858470: Seisai
- tt1267160: Cape No. 7
- tt1368989: Prometheus Triumphant: A Fugue in the Key of Flesh
- tt1407126: Xenius
- tt1891731: 69 - Praça da Luz
- tt1920996: The Star Maker
- tt2125480: Rokdim B'Yaffo
- tt2157045: Doom Box
- tt2162663: Gwangju neun buleunda
- tt2317744: My Friend Bernard
- tt2610240: In the Heart
- tt2616016: Lejos del mundo
- tt3004338: Crickets
- tt3140724: Hacker's Game Redux
- tt3286728: Neo Magazin Royale
- tt3376596: Love in Time
- tt3417422: Visuals
- tt3420118: Chunhyangjeon
- tt3456464: Hello Babies
- tt3473874: Killriculum Vitae
- tt3553126: Interlude City
- tt3586098: Expedición Gloriosa
- tt3660094: The Nerd's Confession
- tt3721840: Marie Brand und die letzte Kommune
- tt3741486: Neanderthal Brawl
- tt3743042: Lake Bodom
- tt4328186: East West
- tt4336672: Annihilation
- tt4457020: Jeremy
- tt4682804: Pale Blue Dot
- tt4707274: The Mongolian Conspiracy
- tt4819032: Joan the Pope
- tt4824256: Blackbear
- tt4876334: Midori: The Camellia Girl
- tt4955938: For Your Own Safety
- tt5450628: Naruto Shippûden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4
- tt5521090: Kirby: Planet Robobot
- tt5834760: Behind the Glass
- tt5923026: Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts
- tt5954462: Lumière! L'aventure commence
- tt6032878: Deadly Devotion
- tt6048664: Caribe Mix
- tt6055504: Handjur
- tt6146586: John Wick 3
- tt6215910: Sister in Law
- tt6273996: Wednesday Blues
- tt6342440: Funan, le peuple nouveau
- tt6464490: La Montre
- tt6488870: East of Sweden
- tt6541110: Ballad from Tibet
- tt6638398: Her Forgotten Daughter
- tt6688022: Shotgun
- tt6740608: My Daughter's Kidnapping
-
tt6864078: C4 ◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄ Here's Peter's
- tt7077928: Matwetwe
- tt7081574: Cold Tango
- tt7128094: A Sonolenta
- tt7197558: Carlo & Malik
- tt7293302: Say the Word
- tt7319496: Out Stealing Horses
- tt7530986: Lady J
- tt7557686: A Wedding to Die For
- tt7654880: T'exagères!
- tt7660822: Call of the Congo
- tt7834022: A Focus to Kill
- tt7906260: Tooth Fairy
- tt7913394: Norm of the North 2
- tt7954000: Seduced by My Neighbor
- tt8028526: Boonie Bears: The Big Shrink
- tt8063174: Immortals
- tt8110330: Dil Bechara
- tt8192948: Kids
- tt8370368: 30
- tt8430898: Avec Thelma
- tt8489132: Fall Back
- tt8517780: Si no te hubiese conocido
- tt8546386: Big Mouth
- tt8639740: Club der roten Bänder - Der Film
- tt8703552: The Love Circus
- tt8784388: Mommy Group Murder
- tt8890080: Black Heart
- tt8951086: House of Hummingbird
- tt8976218: Prison on Fire: Preacher
- tt8976252: Prison on Fire: Life Sentence
- tt8997034: Little Germans
- tt9135722: You Shine in the Moonlit Night
- tt9176254: Band Vaaje
- tt9256788: Let's Spend the Night Together
- tt9351942: Neons
- tt9408490: Lai dian kuang xiang
- tt9476490: The Last Hangover
- tt9648078: The Relative Worlds
- tt9679080: Curbed
Cheers!

Will, Official Rep
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Thanks ljdoncel, the problem here is more how we are handling the delete requests which cause problems in our systems, but can still be applied internally if handled correctly.
Regards,
Will
Regards,
Will
ljdoncel, Champion
- 849 Posts
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- 135 Posts
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This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Almost impossible to delete AKAs with "undefined" attributes.
After a title merge, AKAs from the old title are often added to the kept title with "undefined" info for Country/Language and Attribute. This looks confusing and the information is often duplicate of correctly added AKAs. These undefined AKAs are impossible to edit; trying gives the message: "Sorry, it's not possible to correct this item directly. You will have to delete it and add a new item instead." However, deleting them is hardly ever accepted by the data editors.
For example, I have tried many times to delete the two incorrect undefined AKAs at Pokémon Red with varying levels of detail in the explanation. The most recent rejection for Contribution #190329-002145-835000 gives the standard meaningless response of "We were unable to approve this contribution. We did not capture a specific reason during processing."
Why is it so difficult to do this? And shouldn't they just be added correctly (or not at all if they're duplicate) in the first place?
After a title merge, AKAs from the old title are often added to the kept title with "undefined" info for Country/Language and Attribute. This looks confusing and the information is often duplicate of correctly added AKAs. These undefined AKAs are impossible to edit; trying gives the message: "Sorry, it's not possible to correct this item directly. You will have to delete it and add a new item instead." However, deleting them is hardly ever accepted by the data editors.
For example, I have tried many times to delete the two incorrect undefined AKAs at Pokémon Red with varying levels of detail in the explanation. The most recent rejection for Contribution #190329-002145-835000 gives the standard meaningless response of "We were unable to approve this contribution. We did not capture a specific reason during processing."
Why is it so difficult to do this? And shouldn't they just be added correctly (or not at all if they're duplicate) in the first place?
Peter, Champion
- 6866 Posts
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I also agree with the last question: Why add such incomplete entries in the first place?
Will, Official Rep
- 4016 Posts
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The entries exist due to a number of reasons - title merges, internal edits, historical items, but still if you are submitting a delete on that item, they should be actioned nonetheless.
Will, Official Rep
- 4016 Posts
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Hi Matt,
Thanks for the report, I've now taken a look and done a clean-up on that title. Apologies for your poor experience and lack of clear guidance on the reason. Our technical teams are aware of the issue, though we do have an internal workaround if handled correctly. I will update this thread once this is resolved.
Regards,
Will
Thanks for the report, I've now taken a look and done a clean-up on that title. Apologies for your poor experience and lack of clear guidance on the reason. Our technical teams are aware of the issue, though we do have an internal workaround if handled correctly. I will update this thread once this is resolved.
Regards,
Will
(Edited)
- 74 Posts
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This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Unable to get an update approved, whch was requested by imdb.com system.
Previously this movie had 2 alternative titles, which "Country/Language" field blank. When I tried to udpate the "language" field, I get a message:
When I try to do that => imdb staff accepted the update (e.g., entering the same 2 titles, this time with the "Country/Language" field completed), but while the "new entries" got approved, removing the same 2 entries (with "Country/Language" field missign) got rejected. Why? The instructions themselves said to remove and "re-add" these two entries. So I'm confused.
Thanks.
ID #190414-025849-430000 (rejected 1st time)
ID #190414-183617-749000 (rejected 2nd time)
ps. here are the screenshots:

Previously this movie had 2 alternative titles, which "Country/Language" field blank. When I tried to udpate the "language" field, I get a message:
Sorry, it's not possible to correct this item directly.
You will have to delete it and add a new item instead. [do it]
When I try to do that => imdb staff accepted the update (e.g., entering the same 2 titles, this time with the "Country/Language" field completed), but while the "new entries" got approved, removing the same 2 entries (with "Country/Language" field missign) got rejected. Why? The instructions themselves said to remove and "re-add" these two entries. So I'm confused.
Thanks.
ID #190414-025849-430000 (rejected 1st time)
ID #190414-183617-749000 (rejected 2nd time)
ps. here are the screenshots:
- 74 Posts
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Thsi is frustrating. How many times are IMDb staff going to reject such submissions?
For this movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3182620/ (referenced above) after being rejected twice before:
ID #190414-025849-430000 (rejected 1st time)
ID #190414-183617-749000 (rejected 2nd time)
I just got rejectd again, for the 3rd time, with reason given "Other. We were unable to approve this contribution.We did not capture a specific reason during processing."
ID #190504-004543-256000 (rejected 3rd time)
@Will could you please take a look at the submission and help approve #190504-004543-256000 ?
Thanks!
For this movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3182620/ (referenced above) after being rejected twice before:
ID #190414-025849-430000 (rejected 1st time)
ID #190414-183617-749000 (rejected 2nd time)
I just got rejectd again, for the 3rd time, with reason given "Other. We were unable to approve this contribution.We did not capture a specific reason during processing."
ID #190504-004543-256000 (rejected 3rd time)
@Will could you please take a look at the submission and help approve #190504-004543-256000 ?
Thanks!
(Edited)
- 74 Posts
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@Will Has there been any progress on this? Requests on this still keep getting rejected :/ Thanks in advance for any update
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Peter, Champion
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Will, Official Rep
Regards,
Will
Peter, Champion
Will, Official Rep
Regards,
Will