Automatically Renamed Titles and Issues Questions and Issues

[Fred Slota]

So, I recently did the Update to 25.6, and did a content update, and I'm confronted with this in the report...

 

Renamed Comic Book Titles

Deadpool & Wolverine: Weapon X-Traction -> Deadpool/Wolverine: Weapon X-Traction
Marvel Poster Book -> Epic Illustrated
Spider-Island Spotlight -> Heroic Age Magazine
Star Wars: The High Republic—Fear of Jedi -> Star Wars: The High Republic—Fear of the Jedi
Web of Spider-Verse -> Web of Spider-Verse: New Blood
Fear Itself Spotlight -> magazines
Marvel Swimsuit Special -> magazines
Marvel X-Men Collection, The -> magazines
 

Renamed Comic Books

Adventures of Superman 631/BG -> Adventures of Superman 631
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight 182/UBGwI -> Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight 182
Birds of Prey 72/UBGwI -> Birds of Prey 72
Excalibur Anl 1/BG -> Excalibur Anl 1
Fantastic Four (Vol. 1) 587/UBG -> Fantastic Four (Vol. 1) 587
Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 1/BG -> Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 1
Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 2/BG -> Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 2
Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 3/BG -> Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 3

 

 

Ummmmm.....  I don't like it.

I don't like having my data changed without my consent.  I appreciate the logged information, but I'm not happy with this 'upgrade'.

 

1) There are mistakes. 

   a) Marvel Poster Book is not Epic Illustrated, and an owned issue was moved.

   b) Spider Island Spotlight is not Heroic Age Magazine, an owned issue was moved.

2) My own, personal Variations for Bagged vs. Unbagged issues were shifted over to standard variations..  Why would you change Custom Variation assignments?  And it wasn't all of them, as I still had an Unrecognized Comic Books list with like 20 other instances of the same custom Variations.

3) I organize my collection in ComicBase order.  I would prefer to rearrange my boxes on my schedule; if it takes me 2-3 weeks, with the report telling me I have unrecognized titles to bug me until I adjust them, I'm fine with that.  Here, I have to look back through reconciliation logs for every week to catch every shift if I don't do it weekly.

4) Cover scans.  As you visit the new titles, ComicBase will populate the cover scans for the new titles.  But, I also keep a second directory of my personal pictures.  As with #2, above, I would prefer to be able to make my cover scan directory changes on my own schedule.

 

 

 

 

[Steven L. Dasinger]

For 1, 2, and 3, you have the option to turn off the automatic match on the Update Options window by unchecking the box.

Not sure but I think 4 can be addressed by going to Setup->Preferences and unchecking 'Automatically download larger pictures when viewing them'.

[Gregory Hecht]

I had a similar experience with a recent content update:

Avengers Spotlight (2nd Series) -> Heroic Age Magazine
Season One Guide -> All-New, All-Different Marvel October Previews
Second Coming: Prepare -> 1939 Daily Bugle
Spider-Island Spotlight -> Heroic Age Magazine
X-Men: Curse of the Mutants Spotlight -> Heroic Age Magazine

In each of the above cases, the issue that I had in stock should have gone to a magazine issue with the same title as the original comic entry.  Instead, a new issue #1 entry was created under an incorrect destination magazine title.  (I actually wound up with three different issue #1 listings under Heroic Age Magazine… none of which was correct)

I haven’t investigated, but I suspect it may be a case where multiple items in the database have identical UPC numbers.

[Fred Slota]

 

With the new update, it asked my preference for the displaying of Newsstand variants.  I would have preferred to have had the same option presented for this feature, so that I could have had it turned off from the start.

 

Question 1: If I turn the Title Renaming off for 3 weeks, then on for a week, will the entire month's backlog of shifts take place, or only the current week's?

Question 2: If I turn the Title Renaming off, will the report still show me the suggested new title?

[Steven L. Dasinger]

Question 1: Yes. The Master database is compared to your database so everything would be checked.

Question 2: No. It won't attempt it so it won't have a report of what was done (since nothing was done).

The question about displaying Newsstand variants is just about the display (doesn't have anything to do with getting them or not). You can set the display after install with View drop-down box->Items to show and check or uncheck Include Newsstand Editions or (if you have used View drop-down box to show Status Bar) use the drop-down box at the bottom-right of the window and change it there.

[Steven L. Dasinger]

By the way, if you do want to know what CB would change without affecting your actual database, you could use File->Save a Copy to create a temp database to run the Update on and get a report. Then delete the temp database.

[Mark J. Castaneda]

14 hours ago, Gregory Hecht said:

I had a similar experience with a recent content update:

Avengers Spotlight (2nd Series) -> Heroic Age Magazine
Season One Guide -> All-New, All-Different Marvel October Previews
Second Coming: Prepare -> 1939 Daily Bugle
Spider-Island Spotlight -> Heroic Age Magazine
X-Men: Curse of the Mutants Spotlight -> Heroic Age Magazine

In each of the above cases, the issue that I had in stock should have gone to a magazine issue with the same title as the original comic entry.  Instead, a new issue #1 entry was created under an incorrect destination magazine title.  (I actually wound up with three different issue #1 listings under Heroic Age Magazine… none of which was correct)

I haven’t investigated, but I suspect it may be a case where multiple items in the database have identical UPC numbers.

Weird, I'll pass your observations over to Pete and get his thoughts

[Peter R. Bickford]

To all:
- This is a user-controllable setting. If you don't want to auto-match, just uncheck it at the bottom of the Updates dialog.

How it all works/why you might (rarely) get a false match:
- When an item is unknown, it looks for either:

• A single exact match of the title in another media type which is in the "official" set. If so, it changes the media type.
• A single exact match of the barcode in a known title. This is limited to working with EAN+5 barcodes, not UPC barcodes (so we don't mistakenly map newsstand items to non-newsstand entries). Newsstand items are also explicitly excluded from auto-matching. When a magazine, etc. matches to what seems like a completely wrong title, this is likely what's happening. (And it's EXTREMELY rare!). For a mismatch to occur using this, it would need to (a) be an item which is unknown, and (b) have another wrong item in our dataset using the exact same barcode (!). If this ever happens, PLEASE submit the corrected item/barcode so we flush it out.
• A single, exact match of the item and title in another title that matches identically stripped of punctuation. (e.g. "Man From U.N.C.L.E." would match "Man from UNCLE". 

[Gregory Hecht]

3 hours ago, Peter R. Bickford said:

For a mismatch to occur using this, it would need to (a) be an item which is unknown, and (b) have another wrong item in our dataset using the exact same barcode (!). If this ever happens, PLEASE submit the corrected item/barcode so we flush it out.

I know that condition “a” was not met for any of my five mismatches.  In each of my cases, there was a matching magazine title that was already in existence from prior content updates.  So if “a” and “b” conditions must both be met for the mismatch to occur, then something else must be happening to cause the mismatch. 
 

I did a spot check on a couple of the UPCs and didn’t see matches, but I should double check that (and while doing that I will keep in mind that it is the EAN+5 code that matters). 

[Gregory Hecht]

Does information in Custom Fields and Custom Checkboxes travel with an inventory item when it is moved in this process?  Doing a quick look at one of the items in my inventory that got moved, it appears that this does not happen.  I use custom fields to tell me Storage Location, whether an item is autographed, and if there are any additional items stored with the item (e.g., Kickstarter extras such as bookplates and postcards), and I don't want to lose that info when an item gets moved around.  

[Fred Slota]

On 3/21/2025 at 12:56 PM, Peter R. Bickford said:

• A single exact match of the barcode in a known title. This is limited to working with EAN+5 barcodes, not UPC barcodes (so we don't mistakenly map newsstand items to non-newsstand entries).

So, if I Duplicate an issue with an EAN+5 barcode, assign it a new Variation and Cover Description and fill in some Custom Field values, than I can look forward to this entry and all it's modified information being lost as it gets folded back into the original entry?

 

While I like the idea of an automated database cleanup, even if it was working properly, but especially with these observations, I would suggest this be done in two stages.  First, the scan for matches is done, and a list of the detected titles and issues be presented to the user.  The user could then select individual issues and titles to shift.  Maybe this feature could be added to File Tools, so those who wish it to be performed automatically could continue to have it operate with Updates, and those who want finer control can do it when the wish.

[Fred Slota]

Just put in new books and ran the new content update.

 

The 8 issues that got moved last week for having my custom /BG and /UBG variants (which I restored after last week) all got moved again, along with two new ones added this week  I am not going to like having to undo this every week.

 

Surely, there are other people out there who keep multiple entries for the same book...  maybe keeping track of signed/unsigned copies, or different grades.  

 

Again, I appreciate the addition of the automatic cleanup, but I really don't like the unintended consequences.

[Fred Slota]

I also had 4 owned issues (and an unknown number of unowned issues) modified in a way that appears to have broken ComicBase.

 

Renamed Comic Books

All-Star Superman 1-3 -> All-Star Superman 1-3 0
Marvel Comics Presents (3rd Series) 6-2 -> Marvel Comics Presents (3rd Series) 6-2 0
She-Hulk (2nd Series) 8-2 -> She-Hulk (2nd Series) 8-2 0
Star Wars: Age of Resistance—Kylo Ren 1-2 -> Star Wars: Age of Resistance—Kylo Ren 1-2 0
 

If I highlight and double click one of these issues I get an error message.

 

[Steven L. Dasinger]

I reported the odd numbering on Slack. There are about 272 of them (Advanced Find Where I.Type LIKE '%-%' seems to find them). 'Somehow' the Type got set to the Item # and an Issue number of  0. (Item # is a composite of Type, Issue Number, Variation and Printing). so Item # 1-3 (Issue number 1, Printing 3) became Item # 1-3 0 (Type 1-3, Issue number 0).

[Fred Slota]

Renamed Comic Books

Adventures of Superman 631/BG -> Adventures of Superman 631
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight 182/UBGwI -> Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight 182
Birds of Prey 72/UBGwI -> Birds of Prey 72
Fantastic Four (Vol. 1) 587/UBG -> Fantastic Four (Vol. 1) 587
Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 1/BG -> Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 1
Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 2/BG -> Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 2
Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 3/BG -> Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 3
Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 4/BG -> Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 4
Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 5/BG -> Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band 5

 

Again, these are my own custom variants, that I intentionally added to be intentionally separate from associated regular issues as described.

I do not appreciate my customization being undone.

[Steven L. Dasinger]

If you don't want CB to change your customized issues, then, in the Update Option window (displayed when you check for an Update), uncheck the box next to 'Automatically match unknown items...'.

If you do this CB won't try to match unrecognized items.  You would need to do that manually (if needed).

[Fred Slota]

Except I like the new feature of automatically matching unknown items, because it is the created solution for the long-running and continuing-into-the-future systemic issue of officially added titles and issues having their previous official designations officially changed. 

 

Your solution has caused a new problem.

Please fix it.

[Mark J. Castaneda]

Interesting scenario if user created custom variants they wanted not to be effected by auto-matching unknown items feature. Will bring this up the programming team.

[Fred Slota]

Again, I like the auto-match feature, but it needs some limitations, I think.

 

Could a form be added in the middle of the process, listing the potential auto-matches, allowing opt in/out, before changes are made?

Or, maybe, for individual matches, a white/black list of variants could be set up.

[Fred Slota]

Bad adjustment happened again...

 

Renamed Comic Book Titles

All-New Wolverine Saga -> 1939 Daily Bugle

[Gregory Hecht]

Yeah, Automatch is great except when it isn’t.  Makes me hesitant to use the feature bc I don’t want to take a chance on missing these kinds of “left field” mismatches and end up with erroneous inventory data in my database. 

[Fred Slota]

And ComicBase continues to give with one hand and take with the other.  Report after yesterday's content update...

 

Renamed Comic Book Titles

Energon Universe FCBD 2025 Special -> Energon Universe 2025 Special
 

Renamed Comic Books

Fantastic Four (Vol. 1) 587/UBG -> Fantastic Four (Vol. 1) 587
Snow Monkey/Enigmatown/Something Beyond the Petrichor 1 -> Snow Monkey/Enigmatown/Something Beyond the Petrichor FCBD 1

 

Again, I love that CB can automatically compensate when title or issue information is corrected to adjust for issues with the initial identifications, as with Energon and Snow Monkey.

 

I don't like that CB changes my custom-created, intentionally-distinct-from-regular variants to regular variants.