Sonarr's hardlink-import removes files from their original torrent-named folder, but qBittorrent's own records still point there - the next recheck or peer request flips those downloads to "missing files". qbt-relink.sh re-points a torrent's location and per-file names at the Sonarr-organized destination and triggers a recheck, so seeding continues against the same underlying data (same inode) instead of erroring out or needing a re-download. Documented as a required step in the sonarr skill's per-show migration workflow. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01HZQK6jHmdTpFjFZM8FUnqA
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name, description
| name | description |
|---|---|
| sonarr | Use Sonarr to add TV shows and manually import existing raw-named folders into the Show Name (Year)/Season NN/... layout Jellyfin and Plex expect. Use when migrating the TV library, importing a newly-downloaded show, or otherwise interacting with this repo's Sonarr instance. |
Sonarr library migration/import
This repo's Sonarr manages TV show organization for both Jellyfin and Plex
(they share the same nas_media library at /data/video/tv). The
claude-homelab plugin's Sonarr skill (if installed) only covers
search/add/remove — it has no manual-import support. This skill's sonarr.sh
covers that gap: matching an existing raw-named folder to the right
show/episodes and importing it into place.
Always use ./sonarr.sh (repo root) for this — never hand-roll the Sonarr API
calls, the folder-naming token gotcha below has already bitten this workflow
once.
Workflow: migrate one existing show
- Find the TVDB match:
./sonarr.sh lookup "<show name>"— prints candidates astvdb:<id> Title (Year) status. Pick the right one (check year/status against what's actually in the folder). - Add it:
./sonarr.sh add tvdb:<id>— adds unmonitored, no search, root folder defaults to/data/video/tv. Skip if already in./sonarr.sh list. - Preview the import:
./sonarr.sh scan "<raw folder path>"— shows how each file will map to season/episode, and flags anything Sonarr couldn't parse (!! <rejection reason>). Read this before importing — don't skip straight to step 4. - Apply it:
./sonarr.sh import "<raw folder path>"— re-scans and imports only if every file matched cleanly (refuses and tells you to checkscanoutput otherwise, rather than partially importing). Files are hardlinked (not copied) into/data/video/tv/Show Name (Year)/Season NN/Show Name - SxxExx - Title Quality.ext— no extra disk usage, original folder is left behind but empty. - Clean up the empty source folder:
docker exec jellyfin rmdir "<raw folder path>"(any container with thenas_mediamount works). - Re-point qBittorrent at the new location — not automatic, see below. Skip only if the show was never actually downloaded via qBittorrent (rare).
- Verify Plex picks it up correctly — also not automatic, see below.
Re-pointing qBittorrent after an import
Sonarr's hardlink-import removes the file from its original torrent-named
folder (only the new hardlinked copy remains) — qBittorrent's own record of
that download doesn't know this happened and silently keeps pointing at the
now-empty original path. It won't show an error immediately (a stalledUP
torrent doesn't re-read its files until asked to), but the next recheck or
peer request will flip it to a missingFiles error state.
Fix it with ./qbt-relink.sh <torrent-hash> <new-season-folder> (repo root):
./qbt-relink.sh 8601b9b9a7164ff5038aa1f8e678e3e708eea845 "/data/video/tv/Andor (2022)/Season 02"
Find the hash first:
source ~/.claude-homelab/.env
bash ~/.claude/plugins/cache/claude-homelab/homelab-core/*/skills/qbittorrent/scripts/qbit-api.sh list \
| python3 -c "import sys,json; [print(t['hash'], t['name']) for t in json.load(sys.stdin)]" | grep -i "<show name>"
It sets the torrent's location to the season folder, renames each file to match Sonarr's output (paired by sorted order — always check the printed preview makes sense), then triggers a recheck. Since it's the same underlying data (hardlink, same inode), the hash check passes and the torrent goes back to seeding normally instead of erroring — no re-download. The recheck reads the whole file over NFS and is slow (minutes per multi-GB file) — kick off several in parallel rather than waiting on each one serially, and poll with:
bash ~/.claude/plugins/cache/claude-homelab/homelab-core/*/skills/qbittorrent/scripts/qbit-api.sh info <hash>
For a multi-season show downloaded as separate per-season torrents (e.g.
Babylon 5), run qbt-relink.sh once per season/torrent, pointing each at its
own Season NN folder — don't try to relink multiple torrents to one shared
show-root folder, since the tool matches file counts 1:1 between the torrent
and the destination folder.
Credentials (QBITTORRENT_URL/USERNAME/PASSWORD) live in
~/.claude-homelab/.env (the claude-homelab plugin's credential file), not
this repo's .credentials — qbt-relink.sh sources that file directly.
Verifying the Plex side (do this every time, not just once)
Moving a file changes its path. Plex's database still points at the old path until it rescans — it does not watch the filesystem live here. After every import:
TOKEN=$(docker exec plex grep -o 'PlexOnlineToken="[^"]*"' \
"/config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml" | cut -d'"' -f2)
curl -s "http://localhost:32400/library/sections/2/refresh?X-Plex-Token=$TOKEN"
(Section 2 is "TV Shows" in this Plex instance — confirm with
curl -s "http://localhost:32400/library/sections?X-Plex-Token=$TOKEN" if
unsure.) Then spot-check that the show's episodes still show the correct
viewCount/watch state pointing at the new file path — Plex re-matches by
its own metadata agent (title/GUID), not by the old path, so watched status
normally survives a move, but confirm it rather than assuming, especially for
messier shows (duplicate releases, specials, date-based naming).
Known gotcha: {Year} is not a valid Sonarr token
The series folder format must use the combined token {Series TitleYear}
(produces Title (Year) as one unit) — {Series Title} ({Year}) silently
produces Title () with no year, because Sonarr has no standalone {Year}
token for series-level naming. This bit the first two shows migrated
(Andor, 3 Body Problem) before being caught — check
docker exec sonarr curl -s http://localhost:8989/api/v3/config/naming/examples -H "X-Api-Key: $SONARR_API_KEY"
(or curl "$SONARR_URL/api/v3/config/naming/examples" -H "X-Api-Key: $SONARR_API_KEY"
from the host) any time naming config changes — seriesFolderExample should
show a real year, not ().
Edge cases that will need manual handling (not automatable via scan/import)
- Date-based shows (e.g. Jeopardy) — no season/episode numbers in
filenames. Set the show's Series Type to "Daily" in the Sonarr UI before
scanning;
scanwill otherwise reject every file. - Specials mixed into a season folder (e.g. Lower Decks
S00E501-style files) — Sonarr should route these toSeason 00correctly; verify rather than assume. - Duplicate episodes from two releases (e.g. Poker Face) — decide which
release to keep before importing;
scanwill show both,importwill refuse until resolved since it won't guess. - Combined/ambiguous episode files (e.g.
e01-02.with no season number) —scanwill likely reject these; use the Sonarr web UI's Manual Import screen instead, which allows manually assigning an episode range per file (the CLI script only handles clean auto-matches by design, so it can't silently mis-import something ambiguous).
Other commands
./sonarr.sh list— series currently in Sonarr./sonarr.sh rootfolders— root folders + how many unmapped (not-yet-added) folders each has./sonarr.sh queue— current download queue./sonarr.sh test-client— tests configured download client connections (currently just qBittorrent_vpn, categorytv-sonarr)
Credentials
SONARR_API_KEY / SONARR_URL live in this repo's .credentials (source it
before running sonarr.sh manually outside the script — the script sources
it itself). Get a fresh key from Sonarr UI → Settings → General → Security,
or docker exec sonarr grep -o 'ApiKey>[^<]*' /config/config.xml.