I have recently had an issue with importing a lot of episodes via the “Manual Import” option.
I had a folder called “Episodes” which contained files from many different series which I wanted processed.
Unfortunately what I had forgotten was that I also had a TV series called “Episodes” on my system.
What seemed to happen was that Sonarr thought that all these files related to the TV series “Episodes” and ignored what was in the filename.
As a consequence; the following happened:
Episodes 1x01
Existing file “Episodes S01E01 - Episode One - 1080p BluRay” DELETED
Replaced with “Twin Peaks - S01E01 - Pilot - 1080p BluRay” and renamed to "Episodes S01E01 - Episode One - 1080p BluRay"
Existing file “Episodes S01E01 - Episode One - 1080p BluRay” DELETED
Replaced with “Grantchester - S01E01 - Episode 1 - 1080p BluRay” and renamed to “Episodes S01E01 - Episode One - 1080p BluRay”
This happened for lots of other episodes too.
I know that within the manual import screen it does list the “Relative Path” and also shows the “Series” that it had identified. I must admit that at the time I hadn’t noticed that all these were identified as being for the series “Episodes”.
It does seem strange that Sonarr is ignoring the name of the series a file relates to if the folder the files are in matches the name of an existing series.
The moral seems to be that if you are going to import a lot of files from a single folder; you must use an obscure name. This I have now started doing and everything works perfectly.
I understand you pain. The biggest thing I can also mention is this.
As long as Sonarr has access to your files, YOU have given it permission to modify them. By the same token, I strongly suggest a better alternative.
All New files you wish to import into Sonarr should have a little better prep on your part.
I personally like the ID of my series as
T:\TVSeries - M\Make My Day\Season 01\Make My Day 01X01-02 - Pilot.mkv
Where T: is the Network Drive managed by StableBit
TVSeries - M is the Subdirectory for all of the M Shows
Then it is split further down to Season and Eps
The reason I give this info is that all of us need some form of structure for our shows. The Computers DEMAND it. Sonarr follows a great path of ensuring that mistakes like this are not made easy but with everything, you can allow or have happen, the worst of things.
I suggest to you a safer path. Don’t rush. Be careful about renaming EPS. I turned the renaming off in Sonarr when I am not watching the process. Scrubbing your file first and then letting Sonarr Import it un-molested is the best way.
In fact all my shows are spread over many discs using a structure like yours without the split by letter.
The folder structure is t:\tv\NCIS\Season 01\NCIS - S01E01 - title - HD TV.mkv etc
My problem only arose because I was moving some odd episode files from several series from one PC to another and I had copied them into a single folder for ease of copying.
I had split mine over 12 drives also. I had them just like You said. I then tried StableBit DrivePool and I have had great results. Not enough time has gone by to rave about it but it works.
Just to continue with this. I did the same thing, I tried to let Sonarr handle a big big chunk and regreted it.
All I’m saying, is work in smaller chunks and Prep your work before letting Sonarr work it.