Day to day · Chapter 10

Switching on the automation and steering it.

Out of the box nexcrate searches nothing by itself. That is deliberate: you should see what it would do first. Once you switch the automation on, it fetches missing titles on a plan, picks up new releases from your indexers' feeds and replaces downloads that fail. This chapter covers the switches, the plan on every title and the brakes for upgrades.

Flipping the switches

1. Check the prerequisites

   The automation needs at least one enabled indexer, a download client for the protocol, a profile on the version and a default folder. Without the folder nexcrate neither searches nor downloads for that version, and the title page tells you so.

2. Open the tab

   Open “Settings › Automation”. It has three switches: “Search and download movies automatically”, “Search and download series automatically” and “Search and load music automatically”. You switch each kind on its own.

3. Switch on and watch

   Nothing rushes off when you switch on. nexcrate works through the titles that are due bit by bit and stays below the limits of your indexers.

Settings › Automation

While a switch is off, nothing automatic of that kind reaches an indexer or a download client. Searching and downloading by hand always works. nexcrate keeps the plan up to date regardless, so the title page shows what would come next.

When a title is searched

Every title has a plan. You see it on the title page under “Automatic search”, with “Last searched”, “Next search” and “Release date”. Below that, one sentence says why the next search falls when it does and what the last one found.

• Movies are not searched before they are out. What counts is the first digital or disc release. If there is none, the cinema release plus 90 days counts. If the profile requires certain languages, the first release in a country where one of them is spoken counts. For 4K the dense phase starts over with the later disc release. Shortly after the date nexcrate searches several times a day, after a few weeks daily and then ever less often, without ever stopping altogether. A title whose file can still be improved is searched half as often. Without a usable date, nexcrate does not search a film from this year or a coming one at all and checks daily whether TMDB adds a date. For older films it searches every 14 days.
• Series are searched from the day after airing, season by season. The series page shows which seasons want something, how many episodes are missing, how many can get better and how many have not aired yet. New releases are downloaded even before airing if they show up in a feed.
• Albums are searched from their release day. Albums where only a few tracks are missing are not searched automatically, and albums fed by a Lidarr connection never are.

A version is only searched when it wants something: it has a profile and a default folder, it is watched, no download is running for it, and either the file is missing or the one there can still be improved by the profile. “Leave it alone” on a version takes it out of the plan, “Watch it again” puts it back.

New releases from the feeds

In between, nexcrate reads the RSS feeds of your indexers, roughly every 15 minutes, less often for indexers with a tight daily limit. Each new release is matched to the titles that want something right now, by IMDb or TMDB number or by name and year. If a release fits two titles, nexcrate takes it for neither. It only downloads what fits the profile, nothing that needs a confirmation, and at most one download per version. The feeds are read only for the kinds you have switched on.

Under “Settings › Automation” the section “Per indexer” shows when the feed was last read, how many requests and downloads are used up today and whether the automation is taking a break there after errors. Your own searches carry on during the break. You enter a daily limit at the indexer, see Indexers. With no known limit nexcrate searches there by itself at most every two minutes.

When a download fails

If a download client gives up, an archive is missing parts or wants a password, nexcrate blocks the release, throws the files away and looks for another one at once. That holds with the automation off, too, if you started the download yourself. Per version, and for series per season, there are at most three such replacement attempts in 24 hours, after that nexcrate searches on its plan again. The title page names the reason. Where the blocked releases end up is covered in the chapter Downloads.

Holding back upgrades

What is missing, nexcrate always searches and downloads first. You can hold back upgrades of what is already there under “Settings › Automation › Hold back upgrades”. Nothing holds back what you download yourself.

• “Pause upgrades” covers everything that is there when you switch it on. What arrives afterwards is upgraded as usual. Switching it off lifts the pause for everything. That helps after switching over, when you do not want hundreds of movies fetched again straight away.
• “At most this many upgrades a day” limits the automatic upgrade downloads in 24 hours. 0 means no limit, any whole number up to 10,000 is allowed. Below it you can see how many have run in the last 24 hours.

How long the automation waits for a better release and which protocol wins a tie is set on each version, see Versions. What is waiting right now is listed under “Downloads” in the tab “Waiting”.

Searching one title right now

On the title page “Search automatically now” starts the planned search at once. nexcrate asks all indexers without waiting for the date or the quota, and downloads the best fitting release per version. This works only with the automation switched on and when a version wants something. Afterwards “Last search” says how many releases fit, which one was downloaded and why the rest was refused, for example “Too small” or “Quality not allowed”. A version's waiting time does not apply here: whoever presses the button gets the release at once.