DVD/CD Pedia - unable to find any titles again!

[papaschmitty]

I have been a DVD and CD Pedia user for years. I signed up for AWS Services when it was needed and when it stopped working I have been using the workaround of selecting "Amazon Test" for quite some time. Today I was trying to add some new movies and the search will not locate them.

NOTE: I have found that unless I add "blu-ray" to the title, it rarely finds the blu rays. So I started going to Amazon and cutting an pasting the ASIN number and it works perfectly.

Not today. Try searching "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" and it comes up with no matches. Also searched using the ASIN "B078DDYRBK" and got nothing. Same for the other movies. I even tried iSight which came up empty.

I am using a Mac running 10.13.4 and DVDPedia version 5.6 which I believe is the newest version. I have not updated recently.

I ALSO AM HAVING THE SAME ISSUE WITH CD PEDIA.

Any suggestions? The is so frustrating!

[FineWine]

Unfortunately this is an Amazon fault and not the Bruji Pedia's.

READ HERE: DVDPedia: Amazon US not returning any results posted the other day in "Bug Reports"

There could come a time, very shortly, when the Pedia's and ALL other cataloguing programs will have no direct access to Amazon via the App. They want you, forcing you, to actually visit their website even if it is just to get the ASIN number and associated info, that way they can up-sell (do you want fries with that).

For me personally living in Australia and now New Zealand Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk were really only secondary to my information gathering especially concerning prices. In Australia I used the local search sites; JB Hi-Fi & EZY DVD for price gathering. But unfortunately this is not possible in New Zealand using the Pedia's though those sites are more location centric than Amazon. (remember we have a different "Region number=4" and "Video Format=PAL". But again price, or the accuracy of it, has never really concerned me. It has always been all the other info (Cast, Actors, Directors, summaries etc) which I can get from IMDb.

Since moving from paperbacks/hardcover to eBooks the task has been trying to find decent info gathering sites AND the correct ISBN. Apple iBooks is appalling at this and yet they sell millions with bugger all info. Goodreads is one of the best but Conor is having great problems with them even answering his emails so no API search plug-in yet. There is now an Australian Amazon.com.au which does sell eBooks, Kindle of course, but again Amazon is being very difficult by using their own proprietary ebook format instead of international standards. Though from a product price stand point Amazon.com.au is more accurate than the northern hemisphere Amazon sites.

I wonder if Conor will attempt to add Amazon.com.au to the search plug-in list? Mind you probably end up with the same error code:
Your AKIAJLEOPLOJAJAYBL6Q is not registered as an Amazon Associate. Please register as an associate at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/as ... tials/home.

So the up-shot of all of this is we are back to manually searching for accurate information for all our Pedia's

[Conor]

Thank you Finewine for the detailed info about the issues going on with the Amazon Search.

I was not even aware there was an Australian version of Amazon now. I did know they have the Mexico and Brazil as well as India. But since Amazon is such a un-pleasurable experience to work with I been shying away from extending the searches, although they would be very useful to those countries. I am trying to integrate more open sources and still writing to the Goodreads guys hoping they will someday get back to me, but I think the time has come to prod them again.

There a number of things going on simultaneously right now, but in the coming weeks it will calm down again and I can get into a better rhythm with the betas. Trying to get this fixed and back ported so I can leave the old version in the best possible state for those without Sierra or High Sierra and then concentrate on a successful release of version 6.

But for now the betas have been updated to 5.9.2 (minus Gamepedia, still doing some work there). In the next few days I will add a few improvements and then port the fix back to the older version and release an official version of the old version. If you have 10.12+ jump on the betas and test them out. Once the release is out I'll post a blog post as I am still to encourage you to sign up with your own account. But first finishing the coding work for the betas and the old version to get that out there and working.

[FineWine]

Thank you Conor. Installed 5.9.2 beta 95 and all good so far especially with amazon. Will continue testing.

Australian Amazon.com.au opened shop last year and their warehouse is in Melbourne with far more free deliveries to New Zealand than USA & UK stores but still doesn't have the range of goods as the northern hemisphere.

As for Goodreads they are also owned by Amazon so you may still have big problems.

[Conor]

It would explains why Goodreads never really gets back to me. But I just discovered that LibraryThing has expanded their API, so I will be adding that one. I have used them for covers before, quite a big database.

[papaschmitty]

Downloaded the betas and they seem to be working fine. Thank you.

[Conor]

Thanks for verifying it.