The Mcebuddy logs will show you if it is reading the json files or not.
I did a test and it does read the JSON files ... Maybe your renaming is wrong ....
2019-08-10T18:39:43 MCEBuddy.MetaData.VideoMetaData --> Trying to match nPVR/SiliconDust series showname -> Two Sentence Horror Stories S01E01 2019-08-08 Gentleman 2019-08-08-2059
2019-08-10T18:39:43 MCEBuddy.MetaData.VideoMetaData --> Looking for Season/Episode information in text
2019-08-10T18:39:43 MCEBuddy.MetaData.VideoMetaData --> Pattern 1, Found Season/Episode information in text, Season:1, Episode:1
--> Looking for Premiere Year information in text
2019-08-10T18:39:43 MCEBuddy.MetaData.VideoMetaData --> Successfully matched nPVR/SiliconDust series filename metadata
INFORMATION> 2019-08-10T18:39:43 MCEBuddy.MetaData.FileExtractMetadata --> Extracting JSON Tags
2019-08-10T18:39:43 MCEBuddy.MetaData.FileExtractMetadata --> Extracting Channels DVR metadata
2019-08-10T18:39:43 MCEBuddy.MetaData.FileExtractMetadata --> JSON Metadata source -> Channels DVR
--> Extracted JSON tags:
Title: Two Sentence Horror Stories
SubTitle: Gentleman
Description: A serial killer with an obsession for single moms stalks a young mother who rejected him.
Network:
Network Affiliate:
Parental Rating:
Media Credits:
Genres: Horror,Anthology
Season: 1
Episode: 1
Banner:
Banner URL:
IMDB Id:
MovieDB Id:
TVDB Id:
Is Show Movie: False
Is Show Sports: False
OriginalBroadcastDateTime: 2019-08-08T00:00:00
RecordedDateTime: 2019-08-09T04:00:00
SeriesPremiereDate: 1900-01-01T00:00:00
CopyProtected: False
SageTV FileID:
SageTV MediaFileID: