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Proper sorting for TV episodes
Posted: April 3rd, 2026, 8:25 am
by Hairyshark
Good morning - newbie here, have an issue that has confused me. I have been trying to download a TV show and found that my sorting is not working as expected. This is my sort string for category "TV" - "%sn/Season %s/%sn.S%0sE%0e.%en.%r.%ext"
So if I download a file like this - St.Elsewhere.S03E24.Cheers.WEBRip.AAC2.0.H.264-NOGRP-AsRequested and I want it to look like this after processing, what the file in a Season 3 folder and be "St.Elsewhere.S03E24.Cheers.WEBRip.AAC2.0.H.264.mkv" what should my string be?
I have been trying various formats and ended up completely deleting an entire series. Sorry, if this is not very well written. Trying to learn. Any refernce material would be welcome.
HairyShark.
Re: Proper sorting for TV episodes
Posted: April 3rd, 2026, 1:31 pm
by sander
%sn/%0s/%sn - S%0sE%0e - %en.%ext
%sn/%0s/%fn
Note: at the bottom there is Test Data. There fill in "St.Elsewhere.S03E24.Cheers.WEBRip.AAC2.0.H.264-NOGRP-AsRequested", ... and it will tell Process Result. So no need to download
Re: Proper sorting for TV episodes
Posted: April 4th, 2026, 8:20 am
by Hairyshark
Thank you Sander, will give this a try.
Re: Proper sorting for TV episodes
Posted: April 4th, 2026, 9:10 am
by Hairyshark
Took the advice Sander provided in their response and created this string using the test data option to be sure it was what I wanted:
%sn.S%0sE%0e.%r.%GI<video_codec>-%GI<release_group>.%ext
So it took this file: Scrubs.2026.S01E07.720p.HEVC.x265-MeGusta and produced this result: Scrubs.S01E07.720P.H.265-MeGusta.mkv
Perfect for the way i name my files. Saved and ran it and sabnzbd completely deleted my download folder again - all the shows I had there gone. This is the second time in 2 weeks.
WTF is going on with this software? Is it my string?
So confused.
Re: Proper sorting for TV episodes
Posted: April 4th, 2026, 9:27 am
by Hairyshark
So to troubleshoot a bit, I recreated my download folder (again), downloaded a TV episode. The series folder was created, the season folder was created, and the file was formatted correctly. Next I downloaded a different TV episode from a different show and SAB deleted the first show folders and did not create any folders or file for the second show. With TV sorting off, all downloads are good. I just need to do a manual format, but at least I do not lose any other files or folders. This seems like a major bug to me. Just not sure if I have done something to cause this.
Any ideas???
Re: Proper sorting for TV episodes
Posted: April 5th, 2026, 3:52 pm
by safihre
Can you enable Debug logging in the Status window?
At least we will have logs if it happens again. You can sent them to me at
safihre@sabnzbd.org if it happens again.
Seems you maybe also have something configured for Cleanup list? In Config Switches?
Re: Proper sorting for TV episodes
Posted: April 6th, 2026, 7:46 am
by Hairyshark
GM, thank you Safihre, will do for the logs and will check the clean-up list. I will say that I have not touched the switches config in years. I have typically just used SAB in the default settings except server and folder configs and never lost a single file. It's been very consistent. I got tired of having to manually rename files, so started experimenting with sorting and that is when all the deletions started happening, so disabled sorting again. FYI - I have no entries, no config, for the cleanup list.