Sonarr - Now with TVDB

#1

If you’re new to Sonarr or you’ve tried to add a new series to it in the last 2 days (about 48 hours now), you’ve been met with some pretty ugly errors and things were not working and we’re sorry we weren’t able to keep things working smoothly for you.

The Issue

Trakt went down Sunday night (PST) and Monday for maintenance, they were supposed to be up Monday morning, but things didn’t go smoothly and they ended up being up late Monday night/Tuesday morning (about 12am PST, or 8am UTC).

When we started looking at the issue Tuesday morning it looked like a pretty simple fix, theyhad broken a couple things in the migration, but it didn’t look too bad to fix (but about 15,000 users needed to update Sonarr to get the fixes), we released an update to address the issues, but quickly realized things were much more broken than we thought and us making requests to Trakt for a number of series was resulting in an entirely different series being returned.

We backed out the update (which had gone out to a few testers and a few people on develop that had automatically updated) and started working on a fix.

The Interim Solution

Sonarr talks directly to TVDB for series information now, which means we’re back in business with a slight loss of functionality (for the moment). The loss of functionality is:

  • UTC Air Dates for episodes (Air times on the calendar will be off until our full solution is implemented)
  • TV Rage IDs - new series will not have TV Rage IDs which are used for searching so title based searching will be used, its not perfect, but it will work.

The Ultimate Solution

We’ll be working on a system that will sit between Sonarr and TheTVDB that will allow us to provide more information during searches and fill in date that we’re now missing. This will also allow us to expand our service to include additional information in the future, though the specifics aren’t know yet.

Actions

Everyone will need to update Sonarr, the exact version will change depending on the branch you’re running, but the minimum version that will integrate with TheTVDB is: 2.0.0.2548, if you’re on a lower version, you will need to upgrade before you can add shows again.

Windows
Automatic updates are enabled by default, you should update automatically, or force the update manually

Debian/Ubuntu
Automatic update or install via apt-get

OS X
Automatic update, or update via the installation page

Synology

If you’re on 2.0.0.1397 you will need to update mono and Sonarr to the versions listed here: https://github.com/SynoCommunity/spksrc/issues/671#issuecomment-68173062 then update via the UI (System -> Update)

All other synology users, update via the UI

Everyone else

Either update via the UI, or by whatever means you installed Sonarr originally.

If you have any questions about this change, please let us know. Thanks for your patience.

4 Likes
Unable to add series/refresh existing series
Calendar is wrong
Sonarr Calendar showing 00:00 for all shows
Can't add new series
TVDB Banner Topic
Is NzbDrone Down?
Anyone else having ...series/http://trakt.tv/shows/... inserted into their show urls?
Status of pilot episode of series
Unable to add series/refresh existing series
Calendar says 12am
#5

Thanks for the info & the fix.

Any idea how long the long term solution will take to implement?

:slight_smile:

#6

[6-8 weeks?] (http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/19514) :smile: I don’t want to give an ETA we can’t meet, but it will be my primary focus to get it up and running, we’ll definitely keep everyone posted on when we think it will be out.

#7

I just manually updated to the latest stable version via the UI (on windows) and am seeing incorrect links to series pages from the main series dashboard.

for example, clicking on the series link for “Crossing Lines” is attempting to take me to:
http://x.x.x.x/series/http://api.trakt.tv/shows/crossing-lines

#8

Can you force a series refresh (Update Library) and check again when it completes (might need to reload the UI).

#9

Just opened the db and ran this query:
select * from Series where TitleSlug like “%trakt%”

returning 20 series where the TitleSlug contains a trakt http address

Closed the DB and started Sonarr back up. Click the “Update Library” button from the main series dashboard and waited for it to complete. Then did a hard refresh and all is well.

:smile:

Thanks…

#10

Well this is a first. Searched for an old show. Got this:

We apologize for the inconvenience. You’re seeing this message because the series you requested is not allowed on TheTVDB. You’re welcome to seek an explanation on forums.thetvdb.com, but - due to site policy - this status is unlikely to change any time soon. However, we would like to remind you that such entries may be preserved through the proper usage of NFO files.

#11

Will this adversely effect shows like “american dad” where the number is different?

#12

Ive been using sonarr for some time now, and its the greatest thing Ive ever used. I have a dedicated server just for sonarr and sab. Since todays update Ive had some problems with sonarr grabbing nzbs of random things that arent even remotely related to the series. (IE it will grab transformers instead of an episode of family guy.) Is this a problem with sonar or with my indexers? I havent used oznzb for awhile because i didnt realize the api updated and that I needed to update sonar. I usually stick with dognzb, so would just disabling oznzb fix this?

#13

Which series?

No change here, we’re still linking to thexem.de for this

I can think of one of two things that happened here:

  1. oznzb mixed things up and tagged the nzbs with the wrong tvrage ID
  2. If you were on develop and happened to get onto update 2.0.0.2535 that exposed a major trakt problem, where trakt would send the wrong series back when given a series id, and your series updated, and everything being misnamed grabbed the wrong nzbs.

I honestly think #2 is the most likely cause (if you’re on develop) and would suggest updating to 2.0.0.2550 and update all your series via the Update Library button on the series page.

#14

I searched “chappelle” for Chappelle’s Show, and that was the 2nd item returned. But when I added an “s” to the end of the search term, it came up properly. Strange!

#15

On my phone replying, so please ignore any mistakes :slight_smile:

I looked at sonarr and the latest version available to me is 2.0.0.2549 (which I have installed) how do I upgrade to 2550?

I noticed it is only doing this with one tv show. “From A To Z,” dont judge me! Its my wifes show! So im thinking its an indexer problem, unless you guys may know something else that could be wrong.

#16

Very! It will be something we’ll look at filtering out before we display the results.

2549 is a master release, so it wasn’t the second issue I described, it does sound like an indexer problem though.

#17

thanks for working on it!

#18

Great work guys - seems to be working OK here.

#19

Wow great communication! Better than so many paid for software

#20

Hope we don’t have to use TVDB itself, as the mods seem rather rude.

An example: http://forums.thetvdb.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=20365

#21

Only if you want to update a show, but I see exactly where there frustration comes from, people don’t read/try to help themselves, more than half the new threads yesterday were the same “I can’t add a series” posts and the issue was already stickied (two different times). If it was days of the same thing I’d have likely started calling people out on it, instead of just cleaning it up.

On a positive note, the team at TheTVDB that run the site/keep it online have been an amazing help to us.

#22

Just curious, does this mean a permanent end to sonarr’s Trakt usage, thereby also nixing the ideas of trakt integration with sonarr? I ask because I was really looking forward to some of the features on the Trakt integration Trello note, even if they were a ways off.

#23

No, we’d like to take a look at that down the road still.