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Catching fakes

There are a LOT of fakes out there, and the whole reason I used to search by hand was to keep them out of the library. Borer checks three times: when the torrent's file list arrives, when the file lands, and while it's downloading.

Inside the torrent

As soon as a torrent's file list arrives, before any of the actual download, Borer looks inside. A program, a shortcut or an archive inside, or no video at all, or a video far too small to be the film, means a fake. It's removed, blocklisted in Radarr or Sonarr, and Borer picks the next one.

This runs every minute on EVERYTHING Radarr and Sonarr send to Transmission, not only Borer's own grabs. Torrents I add by hand are left alone.

When the file arrives

When a file lands in the library, ffprobe checks it:

  • there's a video in it,
  • it's about as long as the film (at least half),
  • and one of its audio tracks is English or the original language.

A film that fails is thrown out and picked again, and it shows under "Thrown out" with the reason. An episode that fails stays and gets "Check" under Got, so I can look at it myself. The chips on each one say what's in it, like "Eng subs" or "No Eng subs" and the audio languages.

Downloads that stall

If one of Borer's own downloads makes no progress for a whole day while Transmission is actually trying, it's dropped, that release is blocklisted, and Borer picks the next one. A magnet link nobody answers at all gets 2 hours, not a day. A paused or queued torrent never counts as stalled, and the clock starts again whenever it moves.

Each of these shows under Got as "Stalled", with why, and goes in the morning email.

Next: Seeding