Using Sonarr to control a remote downloader & plex machine

Help & Support
1

First, thanks in advance for any advice!

My goal is to have sonarr on my local machine use a remote downloader, and keep the files on the remote server for Plex which is also remote.

Here is my setup:
Local Machine
-OS: Windows
-Running Sonarr
-Mounted remote drive via SSHFS
Remote Machine
-OS: Linux
-Running SABnzbd
-Running Plex Media Server

Right now when I set a file to download, after it downloads Sonarr picks it up, renames it, and puts it back on the server for plex to read. Now the problem with that is, to my knowledge, the file must be downloaded to my local machine, renamed, and then uploaded again to the server. This take a very, very, very long time and uses unnecessary bandwidth. Iā€™m looking for a better way to handle this.

I tried just having SAB rename the files and put them to their destination, but Sonarr doesnā€™t recognize that the file has been processed. Iā€™ve thought about using the program Filebot, but havenā€™t seen anyone post anything here about that. If anyone has any advice Iā€™d greatly appreciate it. Also Iā€™m not able to install Sonarr on the remote machine (trust me I wish I could) due to it being a VPS and the host wonā€™t allow it.

2

If the source and destination are both on the same share it shouldnā€™t need to copy it locally and re-upload it, but it will across shares (same thing as copying to a different hard drive vs the same hard drive).

If SAB moves them it will take up to 12 hours before Sonarr sees that the files are there (Sonarr rescans the disk every 12 hours), you could also have a script to tell Sonarr to rescan that series using Sonarrā€™s API.

3

Iā€™ll have to look further into this, as that could definitely be the case using a VPS.

That is the setup Iā€™m doing right now, but all the downloads are stuck in the activity profile. Even after a manual scan and sonarr picking up on the files, they are still in activity. Any idea on how to clear those?

Thanks for all the help!

4

The other thing I just though of is I use SAB to rename and move the files, and that happens almost instantly. If I understand correctly, if they were on separate shares wouldnā€™t it take just as long? By long I mean CDH takes about 2 hours per episode.

5

If you uses the shares with SAB then it would need to ā€œcopyā€ (move between them), but on the same system with a fast network connection its not going to be much worse than copying to another local drive.

CDH takes much longer because it makes Sonarr the middle man, download the file then upload it back, so its limited by your network connection (and using a TON of bandwidth).

6

That is what I figured. The bandwidth is what I was worried about. Any idea how to clear the Activity tab once the scan finds the files?

7

You actually confirmed that the move takes time? It quite possibly doesnā€™t.
Are you using a single sshfs mount or multiple?

For example, CIFS shares simply translate the local move to a server-side move, thus donā€™t consume bandwidth. Itā€™s quite possible sshfs does the same. So check it.

8

The way I confirmed the move is I simply watched the folders. For example:

SAB moves download to /dir/download
Sonarr CHD renames and moves to /dir/plex

I simply watched to see when the renamed files showed up in /dir/plex. Everything did work without error, it just took hours.

Iā€™m currently using a single sshfs mount, which is a linux mount on a windows machine. Iā€™m not familiar with CIFS, so Iā€™ll have to look into it. Thanks for the tip!

9

Try manually move a big file between those two locations from windows. that way you take sab & sonarr out of the equation.

10

I have Sonarr/NZBGet/Plex/nzbToMedia on my local machine and a seedbox that I use ruTorrent on.

I donā€™t use SSHFS since it seems to have issues moving files and a timely fashion and the tools tend to time out if it takes 5-10 minutes to move shows. Instead, I use btsync between the machines and that drops files when completed. I run nzbToMedia which works great with Sonarr and Plex to update shows in the GUI.

Iā€™ve been running this Sonarr setup for a few months now. Prior, I was running a SickRage/SickBeard setup for 8-10 months since btsync came out.

1 Like
11

That sounds like an awesome setup! Iā€™m not familiar with nzbToMedia, but Iā€™ll definitely look into it tonight. Thanks for the tip!

Also Iā€™ll try to move the files using SSHFS still, just to cover all my bases. Iā€™ll post again tonight when I try it out.

12

Well this is complicated haha. I know little to no python, so this will take me some time to figure out how to incorporate it. Thanks for the tip though!

13

Itā€™s really not that complicated. I am not a programmer by any means and I just found nzbToMedia to have a little more robustness in the terms of transcoding media if you need that and handling btsync by default. The developer is very responsive like the Sonarr team is here. I was a bit intimidated at first, but after digging around asking a few questions, I couldnā€™t be happier with my setup these days.

To give a little more detail, I use Sonarr/CouchPotato as my ā€˜grabbersā€™ for my content.
nzbToMedia runs via cron every 5 minutes to check my Sonarr directory and my CouchPotato directories.

I use btsync to keep my TV/Movie ā€œdoneā€ folder in sync and also my autowatch ruTorrent folder so things work automagically.

So once a torrent finishes, ruTorrent moves it to the ā€œDoneā€ folder, btsync moves my files, nzbToMedia will wait until the sync is completed based on the knowing the sync file extensions are still in process. Once completed, it will use the API for Sonarr/Couchpotato and process the request so all your history/etc is done via the API and works like a champ.