diff --git a/SkipMe.Db.Plugin/Tasks/SyncSegmentsTask.cs b/SkipMe.Db.Plugin/Tasks/SyncSegmentsTask.cs
index 476593c..966a3fc 100644
--- a/SkipMe.Db.Plugin/Tasks/SyncSegmentsTask.cs
+++ b/SkipMe.Db.Plugin/Tasks/SyncSegmentsTask.cs
@@ -479,8 +479,16 @@ private static string BuildMovieLookupCacheKey(MovieLookupRequest request)
 
     private static int? TryGetIntProviderId(BaseItem? item, string provider)
     {
+        // Only positive ids are real. Jellyfin stores provider ids as strings and does not
+        // validate them as numbers, and a negative placeholder is an established convention
+        // for "do not match this item" - the anime providers only search by name when the id
+        // is empty, so a deliberately invalid one suppresses a wrong match. Forwarding such a
+        // value makes the API reject the entire batch, and NumberStyles.Integer parses it
+        // happily because it allows a leading sign. Returning null instead drops the field
+        // from the request body via JsonIgnoreCondition.WhenWritingNull.
         if (item?.ProviderIds.TryGetValue(provider, out var raw) == true
-            && int.TryParse(raw, NumberStyles.Integer, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, out var parsed))
+            && int.TryParse(raw, NumberStyles.Integer, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, out var parsed)
+            && parsed > 0)
         {
             return parsed;
         }