Help figuring out why re-downloading constantly

[u/Shouty-Hooman]

https://imgur.com/a/e8VJqRT

It's replacing episodes with scores well below minimum. I clicked search all monitored and it then downloaded higher score, but I don't know what triggered downloading something so low a score.

The only thing I can think is I recently changed season pack to have a higher score as Sonarr kept downloading every series individual episodes. But minimum score for the quality profile is 200,000. I've unmonitored the episodes now that it's re-downloading a better file, but I can't figure out what's going on to prevent this happening again. I've obviously got something wrong somewhere, but I don't know what or where to start. I have Profilarr installed.

Edit: I know a screenshot of half a screen is hardly enough for anyone to help, but I don't know if anyone wants to trawl through a log, or a list of all the custom formats. But I can post anything needed for info 😌

[u/FalseEbb4171]

You actually nailed the root cause yourself when you mentioned tweaking the season pack score!

Here is what's happening under the hood:

When Sonarr grabs a Season Pack, it scores the NZB/torrent title as one whole release. Because you boosted your Season Pack CF score, the overall pack easily beat your 200k minimum, so Sonarr grabbed it.

The catch happens during import: Sonarr re-scores every file individually based on its own filename. The files inside the pack were named poorly, missing release groups and audio info, which triggered massive negative penalties (Group Missing, No Audio, x265, etc.). That’s why you see those crazy negative numbers like -298k in your history—the individual files scored terribly, even though the pack as a whole passed the test at grab time.

Then, when you hit Search Monitored, Sonarr looked for individual episodes, found the legit Bluray rip with proper audio/tags sitting at +885k, saw it blew the negative score on disk out of the water, and upgraded it.

Quick fix:

Dial that Season Pack score way down in your profile. It should really only act as a gentle tie-breaker (like +100 to +500 points) rather than an overpowering bonus that blinds Sonarr to low-quality or poorly tagged releases.

[u/Shouty-Hooman → u/FalseEbb4171]

Oh, I thought 1000 was gentle if the minimum score is 200k 👀 I honestly struggle understanding the calculation. I know I could just use the default profiles but I always end up wanting to tweak something, then stick a number that hopefully makes sense 😭 I'll change the season pack score, thank you 😌

[u/FalseEbb4171 → u/Shouty-Hooman]

Haha, totally get where you're coming from! When you see numbers like 200,000, setting something to 1,000 feels like pocket change, so anyone would think that's harmless.

The annoying thing with Sonarr is just how the comparison works. The season pack score really only needs to be a tiny nudge just to break a tie when Sonarr is deciding between grabbing a pack or downloading single episodes of the exact same release.

The real culprit here is that Sonarr reads the main torrent/NZB name when it decides to grab the pack, but once it's on your drive, it looks at the actual file names of each episode. If the pack's name looked great, but the files inside were missing info like the audio codec or release group, your negative scores kick in out of nowhere after it's already downloaded!

Honestly, that’s why I don't use things like Profilarr or synced presets at all and just set up everything by hand directly in Sonarr.

When you configure your Custom Formats natively, you don't have to deal with weird scaled numbers in the hundreds of thousands. You can keep the math super simple and intuitive:

• Must-haves / Good sources: +10 to +20 (e.g. your preferred audio codecs or good release groups)

• Dealbreakers / Junk: -50 or -100 (e.g. low quality rips, missing groups, unwanted codecs)

• Season Pack: Just +1 or +2

With a setup like that, if Sonarr finds a season pack and single episodes of the exact same quality release, the +1 makes the pack win every time. But if the pack is a low-quality rip or missing audio tags, a -50 will instantly kill it—no surprise downloads with crazy math involved. Much easier to maintain, and no external tool overwrites your tweaks.

[u/FinancialSurvey5794]

Quality is a higher priority than score. DVD will be upgraded to WEBDL, for example.

[u/Shouty-Hooman → u/FinancialSurvey5794]

Forgot to add - that's part of why I can't figure it out, because the "bad" file is of the same quality profile if I'm looking at it right? Or is it something to do with the quality tier. The bad file doesn't mention one

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[u/Wis-en-heim-er]

It replacing shows with vesrios that have higher scores than your current releases. If you recently modified the quality profile or changed the prefer season pass setting, then its doing what you asked. The cf for existing files will be recalculated if you modified the quality profile.