Initially only 1 episode downloaded, when watching started it will be 2?

[smoochy]

Hey Vansmak,

thanks for your continous support on Episeerr.

I do have a question, if this image in my mind can already be achieved, or would need a new feature.

I am still heavily adding series to Sonarr. But unfortunately, I do not have time to watch them. My current standard rule from Episeerr is the following:

The basic thing is, that I always have the next episode already ready, as soon as I start watching one episode.

Now this leads to the situation, that for a lot of series, I have 1st and 2nd episode downloaded, but no time to start watching the series.

I was wondering, if the following would be possible:

For newly added series, only download the 1st episode.
After starting to watch the 1st episode, immediatelly download the 2nd episode. From that time on, stick to the rule which is set to the show. In my case: keep 1 watched episode and have the next 2 episodes ready.

This way, I could free up some unused space. Grace periods are, when I understand its functionality correctly, not really an option. Because Plex is not showing series, which are theoretically available, but do not have at least 1 episode downloaded. I also do not want to keep Season x Episode 1 forever (I thought about enabling the checkbox and putting in a value in Unwatched Grace days).
As soon as I watched Season y Episode 2, Episode 1 should be deleted as normal.

Thank you and kind regards,
smoo

[Vansmak]

Sorry for late response. My idea is a new control tag episeerr_trial that works alongside your existing rule tag. When a series is added with both your rule tag and episeerr_trial, Episeerr sees the trial modifier, grabs E1 only and holds the full get count. Once you watch E1 the trial tag gets removed and your rule kicks in normally — keep 1 watched, 2 ready ahead, exactly as configured. Would that work?

[smoochy]

Hey.

No worries about the delay.

Yes, this would work, sure. When adding a new series, just also have the user add this trial tag and Episeerr takes care of it.

How would you approach the situation with season breaks or after a season finale?

Normally there is a shorter or longer break between seasons. And when the next season starts (let's say I finished already 3 seasons and now S04 is about to begin) I don't have time to jump into it.

Should the user add manually the trial tag after finishing watching S03? Episeerr would then download S04E01, but would not download S04E02 and so on?

Would there be a smart approach to this? Like

if watched episode == last episode of season AND series != finished THEN monitor new seasons AND apply tag 'episeer_trial'

Maybe this could smart approach could also be an opt-in per rule and/or series?

Kind Regards

[Vansmak]

New idea then is a new expression modifier in the Always Have field, something like e1+. The + means "grab E1 of the current season and hold the rule until it's watched." Works on initial add and automatically reapplies at every season boundary. Set it once in the rule, never touch it again. Then you just use rule tag no need for a 2nd trial tag. This is also more adabtible and flexible for future use cases

[smoochy]

Sounds like a very good approach.

[smoochy]

Thanks for the quick update. having a look into the changelog. As English is not my first language, if I understand the description correctly for my usecase, I will use e1+ in the Always have section, as you already previewed.

---

Another use case I (and maybe others too) have and mentioned before (not sure if you might remember) is, that with my config, the latest apisode of a season - provided no new season is available - is never deleted. I always have to do it manually.

Example: Series has currently 3 Seasons. No 4th season released yet, or even is just a 1 season mini-series. After watching the last episode of Season 3, this episode is not deleted, but kept - because of my 1 episode retention setting which makes sense during watching a season. But not at the end of a season (always provided no next episode is released yet).

Would it be possible to include an Always have setting like e[n-1]-- to tell Episeer to "always delete the last episode of a season of no new monitorable episode is available?"

Or should I put this into another issue to keep it separated?

[Vansmak]

yes e1+ is saying get 1st episode only and wit til it is watched before starting the rule. as for version and an option to remove season finale ill add those things too

[Vansmak]

i added an option in the create and edit rules you can enable. untested but should work

[smoochy]

Thank you very much. I'll try it out.

One thing I forgot to ask regarding the e1+ setting: when is Episeerr telling Sonarr to get the next episode(s) (depending on Get episodes setting)?

Only after E1 finished watching or when E1 started to being watched?

IMHO it would make sense when E1 is started to being watched. Because then there is enough time for downloading the next episode(s) for a binge session.

[Vansmak]

Depends on your watch threshold setting.

[smoochy]

It's 90% by default. Which is basically when the episode is done.

Could it be (either coupled to the e1+ setting and/or as an optional flag) changed to like 50% or even better be user configurable?

[Vansmak]

90 is a Plex default. I use tautulli which you can change. Or you can can use the polling method.

Or i can make it look for playback start webhook. Are you using Plex tautulli or jf?

[smoochy]

I used to used Plex -> Tautulli -> Episeerr Webhook.

But with the recent changes I'm just using Plex -> Episeerr Webhook.

I use Tautulli only for archiving movies in Radarr and automatically deleting the movie file with a python script.

Reacting on a 'watch starting' Webhook (in combination with e1+) would also be an option.

[Vansmak]

So yeah it makes sense to make the + Also use show started instead of progress. Just know that even if someone barely starts it but doesn't continue it's still going to start the rule.

[Vansmak]

But you could change to tautulli for you webhooks since you are running it and it's more configurable. Either way I'm making the + activate on media started so you should be fine

[smoochy]

I've updated to 3.6.8. I've set the options as we discussed:

I've started watching a series. Originally - and in Sonarr - it is called IT: Welcome to Derry. But in Plex, it is called ES - Welcome to Derry. It = Es in German.

This is shaking up Episeer, as it is looking for the German name and not finding it in Sonarr:

Sonarr:

Plex / Infuse:

Sonarr is providing alternativeTitles and the sortTitle via API. Would it be possible to scan for closer matches in those before giving up?

    {
        "title": "IT: Welcome to Derry",
        "alternateTitles": [
            {
                "title": "It Bienvenidos a Derry",
                "seasonNumber": -1
            },
            {
                "title": "Es Welcome To Derry",
                "seasonNumber": -1
            },
            {
                "title": "To: Witajcie w Derry / It: Welcome to Derry",
                "seasonNumber": -1
            }
        ],
        "sortTitle": "it welcome to derry",