I am noticing that when I add new profiles, I find that certain cast/crew members don't download correctly with the new profile. For example, John Williams (in the central database for a profile) shows up as John Williams (1932) in my database when I download the profile, or Kevin Smith shows up as Kevin Smith (1972). This means if I contribute a change to that profile, it shows me that I have supposedly made a change to the cast/crew, which I haven't.  As a specific example, tonight I added "Bottoms Up" to my collection. I downloaded the profile, then made an overview correction and tried to contribute it. The contribution notes page showed me not only the overview change, but shows the existing database profile as containing Kevin Smith and my contribution as containing Kevin Smith (1972) even though I never made any change there. I can't find anywhere in the program to refresh my crew/cast list or anything like that which might fix this. Any idea what is going on?

Quoting raytrade:

Quote:
As a specific example, tonight I added "Bottoms Up" to my collection. I downloaded the profile, then made an overview correction and tried to contribute it. The contribution notes page showed me not only the overview change, but shows the existing database profile as containing Kevin Smith and my contribution as containing Kevin Smith (1972) even though I never made any change there. I can't find anywhere in the program to refresh my crew/cast list or anything like that which might fix this. Any idea what is going on?

If, in your local database (possibly from the headshot database as Giga Wizard suggests) you have Kevin Smith (1972) and download a profile with Kevin Smith in, then the program automatically assigns the DoB from your local database... it's designed to work that way so DoBs would spread rapidly, virus-like, through the system. However, this is a problem now that the decision has been made to only use DoBs where necessary because it is such an efficient method (!) and will be picked up when you attempt to contribute.

On the bright side:
If the DoB for an actor is legit and already in the central database (aka 'pre-approved') then you won't be asked to justify it.
If the DoB for an actor is not in the central database (as it seems in your case) then you have a ilttle tick box for each one at the bottom of the contribution window. If you do not tick the box it will not contribute the DoB for that actor. If you do tick the box (because it's a required DoB) then you have to justify it in the Contribution Notes.
Overall though, if you see this happen and haven't made any changes to the cast list at all just don't tick the box next to the top of the cast lists comparisons so the cast list will not be included in your contribution at all so there's no need to worry. 

As a final point, sadly the only way for you to fix your cast list in to individually go to the actor (eg. Kevin Smith) and remove the birth year. So long as you don't update the headshots Db or download an profile with a 'Kevin Smith 1972' in it (which generally shouldn't happen now that the stuff I described above is in place to stop it... unless of course he should be Kevin Smith 1972 because there is more than one Kevin Smith in the database!) you should be OK from then on.

in the database (dvd profiler) i've found no cast John Williams but this one: Johny Williams no birthyear.

crew john williams 1932 composer movies, munich, AI, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Catch me if you can, Minority Report, Nixon, Presumed Innocent, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

there is only one crew John Williams 1932 no other John Williams found in the db

Cast: kevin smith is the birth year 1970, movie Clerks as Silent Bob
Crew: Kevin Smith, director Clercks, no birthyear
They are the same person.
Kevin Smith
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the American screenwriter, film director, actor and comic book writer. For other uses, see Kevin Smith (disambiguation).Kevin Smith

Birth name Kevin Patrick Smith
Born August 2, 1970 (age 37)
Red Bank, New Jersey
Occupation screenwriter
film director
film producer
actor
comic book writer
Spouse(s) Jennifer Schwalbach Smith
Children Harley Quinn Smith
Official site http://www.viewaskew.com


Kevin Patrick Smith (born August 2, 1970) is an American screenwriter, film director, and the founder of View Askew Productions. He has also enjoyed some success as a comic book writer and actor. Smith's films are often set in his home state of New Jersey, and while not strictly sequential, do feature crossover plot elements, character references, and a shared canon, the View Askewniverse.

Quoting T!M:

Quote:

There certainly are more crew members called John Williams. For instance, have a look at the profile for 'Firefly Dreams' (UPC 720917-541525): it's directed by John Williams, and it's not the composer! And there are more...

I just downloaded that profile and it has John Williams by 1932 so this must be an error?

Quoting T!M:

Quote:
Quoting Giga Wizard:

Quote:
I just downloaded that profile and it has John Williams by 1932 so this must be an error?

No, it doesn't. This is just one of the drawbacks of the way DVD Profiler handles birth years. Voltaire53 also already explained this. You apparently already had the birth year for John Williams in your database, so if you download a new profile with a John Williams WITHOUT birth year, the program will merge those entries to one John Williams, WITH the birth year as you already had. However, when you "preview" the profile before downloading it, you will see that the birth year is NOT actually in the profile. You will also notice that if, after downloading, you try to upload it without any changes, you will see that your version has the birth year added to it, but the online version doesn't.

This is a major problem with the way birth years work. Birth years only really work flawlessly if you can find them for BOTH persons involved. Personally, the only two Kevin Smith's in my collection are the ones mentioned earlier in this thread: one born in 1963, one born in 1970. So I have those birth years added to both of them, and there can be no more confusion. But having one John Williams with birth year, and one without, is asking for trouble. It's even worse when you have to restore your entire database from a backup (for instance when you're migrating to a new system): both Kevin Smith's will return just fine, but that John Williams + John Williams (1932) entries will have merged into ONE entry again (with birth year attached to it), and you'll have to separate them manually yet again. This is a major flaw that Ken needs to address a.s.a.p.

Something we desperatley need is a separate cast/crew editor built in to DVd Profiler so we can easily go down the list and delete unwanted birth years and remove incorrect names (e..g. Fred Smith in the first name only) and rename these to the correct parsing (and where neccessary just point a group of profiles at the different name) - e.g. Fred Smith (ist name only) linked to 3 profiles, and Fred Smith (first/2nd name) linked to 5 profiles. The only way at the moment of correcting this is to manually go in and change the three profiles so that these point to the correct name and only then can you delete the wrong name.