Known issues and future work

This section summarizes current limitations of Popcorn Meter and realistic next steps for improvement.

What is missing or limited

Recommendation depth: recommendations are currently heuristic-based (genres, watched history, feedback, and metadata signals), not model-based or collaborative.
Streaming availability quality: streaming links are generic search links, not real-time provider availability by country.
Account management scope: signup/login is available, but features like password reset, email verification, and profile editing are limited.
Data portability: user-facing export/import for watchlist, watched history, and feedback is still limited.
Multi-device support: persistence is local SQLite-based; cloud synchronization between devices is not implemented.

External API dependency: OMDb/TMDb failures, rate limits, or missing keys can degrade search, trending, and recommendation quality.
Error transparency: some failures are intentionally shown as generic UI messages; troubleshooting may require checking logs.
Hosted demo persistence: on Streamlit Cloud, storage can be ephemeral, so user data may not persist reliably across restarts/redeploys.
UI test coverage: backend and service logic are tested well, but end-to-end UI behavior is still comparatively less covered.
Runtime robustness: deployment/runtime differences (local vs cloud) can require extra packaging/path care.

Recommendation improvements: introduce hybrid ranking (content + collaborative signals) and better explanations of why each movie is suggested.
Provider integration: use real provider APIs for accurate “where to watch” by region and subscription service.
Account enhancements: add password reset, profile editing, and optional OAuth login.
Data management: expand user-facing export/import options (JSON/CSV) and evaluate an optional cloud persistence layer.
Product analytics: add personalized insights, trend dashboards, and recommendation quality feedback loops.
Operational quality: improve observability, retries/caching for API calls, and broader UI integration tests.