Instruction 02-sonarr-series-monitoring-and-availability: Reading

Sonarr monitoring is an expression of intent, not a promise that a file will appear. A monitored episode becomes a candidate for acquisition only when its scheduling and availability conditions are met. It must then have an acceptable release from a working indexer, pass the quality profile and any release restrictions, and be sent successfully to a download client. If any part of that chain fails, the episode can remain missing even though monitoring is enabled. Monitoring is hierarchical: choices made while adding a series commonly establish episode-level states across seasons, but later season or episode changes can create intentional exceptions. Always inspect the effective episode state rather than assuming the top-level series icon tells the whole story.

A useful mental model is to classify each episode in order. First ask whether it is monitored. If not, Sonarr should generally ignore it. Next ask whether the episode has reached its relevant air or availability date. If not, it is waiting rather than missing. If it is monitored and available but has no file, it is missing and can be a search target. If it has a file, compare that file with the assigned quality profile. A file below the cutoff can be cutoff unmet, while a file at or above the cutoff is normally satisfied. Custom formats, language policy, release exclusions, and profile scoring can further affect whether a candidate is accepted.

Monitoring options are shortcuts for establishing intent. All episodes is suitable when a complete collection is desired. Future episodes is useful when existing history should be left alone but upcoming episodes should be acquired. Missing episodes targets known gaps without necessarily replacing files that already exist. Existing episodes preserves focus on already imported content, while none disables automated acquisition. Version-specific interfaces may also offer first-season, latest-season, or pilot-oriented choices. Confirm the resulting episode flags after using any shortcut.

RSS processing and backlog searching must also be distinguished. RSS sync examines newly posted releases from configured indexers and compares them with current needs. It does not continuously search an indexer's entire history. A newly monitored old episode may therefore remain missing until an automatic or interactive search is performed, or until a matching release is reposted. Interactive search is the best diagnostic tool because it exposes rejected candidates and their reasons. Before launching a broad search, review the number of monitored episodes, profile assignment, free storage, download-client limits, and indexer limits. This prevents a monitoring correction from unexpectedly creating a large acquisition queue.